Summary of the Concepts of Ahl al-Sunnah
Freedom
Freedom is the opposite of servitude,
and it signifies the realization of one's will.
The truth, however, is that there is no freedom entirely devoid of restriction.
It has famously been said that "one's freedom ends where the freedom of others begins."
By this, they mean
that if your freedom infringes upon the rights or freedom of others, it is prohibited.
Yet the correct view is to say
that one's freedom is delimited by the boundaries of the Sharia.
For the Sharia guarantees the rights of others,
just as it guarantees your own personal rights,
protecting them even from your own self.
Above and before all of that,
it actualizes servitude to Allah, the Mighty and Majestic.
True freedom lies in absolute servitude to Allah, the Mighty and Majestic.
For whoever is truly a servant of Allah
is free from everything besides Him—be it fellow human beings, base desires, or whims;
none of these can enslave him.
Liberalism
Liberalism is derived from the word "liberty,"
an English word meaning freedom.
Liberalism—
"liberalism" denotes emancipation and liberation,
by which is meant freedom from any constraint binding man in his thought, speech, or action.
Among these are the constraints of the pristine Sharia and the bounds set by Allah, the Mighty and Majestic.
Indeed, this was the very reason liberal thought arose,
as it emerged in opposition to the religion they had,
which had suffered distortion and become oriented toward the clergy's domination over the people.
So instead of seeking the true religion,
they tended toward shedding all religions, even the true one,
falling into enslavement to whims, Satan, and base desires.
Liberal philosophy continues to combat religion and the fundamentalist orientation in general
down to our present day.
Upon it many parties in the West are founded today,
such as the Democratic Party in the United States,
whereas the Republican Party is grounded in fundamentalism according to their understanding.
Since freedom must inevitably have boundaries to prevent harming others,
liberals were compelled to enact laws by which they regulate—
as they claim—rights among human beings.
Thus, the ultimate outcome was:
complete liberation from the bounds of religion alone,
alongside a freedom constrained by man-made systems meant to regulate relations between people, as they claim.
Liberalism, however, permitted religiosity solely under the rubric of personal freedom, without binding force,
allowing only private religiosity that obligates others to nothing.
Liberals in Muslim Lands and Their Agenda
Liberals in Muslim lands are mere subordinates of Western liberalism,
possessing in reality no genuine civilizational project to advance their nations.
Rather, their sole concern is combating the projects of the Islamists.
Dr. Fu'ad Zakariyya, one of the prominent figures among liberals and secularists in Egypt, was asked
about the liberals' project, and he replied: "They have no intellectual project;
their project is simply demolishing the project of the Islamists." This is an observable, tangible reality,
for they lack the slightest concern even for national and existential causes of Muslims and Arabs,
such as the cause of Palestine and the West's exploitation of the Muslim world's resources,
and so forth. Women's Liberation
Among the issues liberals frequently talk about is the so-called liberation of women.
What they truly mean by this is that a woman should strip away all virtue, modesty, and decency,
under the pretext of freedom, so that in reality she becomes enslaved to the desires of human devils,
fashion houses, and trendy fads, enticed by cheap money to serve as an advertising commodity for all kinds of products.
An illustration of this is that Tahrir Square in Cairo
was named so only because a women's march took place there during the era of the Egyptian monarchy;
it initially claimed to be an uprising against British occupation,
but the women suddenly removed the niqab from their faces in a theatrical gesture,
declaring their liberation from it.
We fail to see what the British occupation had to do with the niqab;
did the British impose it upon them, or was there an ulterior motive behind it all?
True Freedom of Thought and Opinion
is found within the sound methodology of Islam.
An indication of this is the Qur'an's urge to reflect and ponder across numerous verses,
and the fact that Tafsir based on transmitted reports—namely the Sunnah and statements of the Companions—is limited and specific in scope,
which opens the way for scholarly ijtihad in Tafsir
in accordance with the rules of this discipline and the qualifications of the qualified exegete.
As for the freedom of thought claimed by liberals and the West in general,
they conflate freedom of thought with freedom of disbelief,
demanding the freedom to slander in the name of freedom of the press.
Yet whenever freedom opposes their own inclinations,
it is forbidden and combated.
Freedom, in their view, is merely the freedom to say what we want you to say.
When Roger Garaudy criticized the exaggeration of the number of Jews killed in the crematoria—
the Holocaust—
they prosecuted him and sentenced him to prison
on charges of anti-Semitism.
Nor did the West tolerate the founder of the WikiLeaks website leaking classified documents;
they pursued him relentlessly for seven years
while he was an asylum seeker in the Ecuadorian embassy in London,
until they finally arrested him
under the pretext of other charges relating to past allegations of harassment or assault.
Thus, when the West says,
"Freedom of thought with us is within the limits of the law,"
we say, "Freedom of thought with us is within the limits of the Sharia."
The Mu'tazilah and Freedom of Thought and Opinion
Many contemporaries claim
that the Mu'tazilite sect, which emerged among the earliest sects in Islam,
were the champions of intellectual freedom in Islam
and proponents of the enlightened rationalist school.
Yet the truth is precisely the opposite:
they were the most suppressive of sects toward freedom of thought and opinion.
Whenever they held political power,
they coerced people into adopting their creed and doctrine.
They did so regarding their doctrine of the createdness of the Qur'an,
subjecting people to the Inquisition over it.
Whoever did not submit to their view and agree with them
was dismissed from his post,
or tortured if he was among the prominent scholars—
as they did with Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, may Allah have mercy on him,
and other scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah
who stood firm upon the truth throughout this trial
and exposed their misguidance to the people.
Democracy
Democracy is a word of Latin origin:
"democracy."
It is composed of two roots:
"demos," meaning the people,
and "kratos," meaning rule.
Thus, democracy means
rule of the people by the people,
wherein supreme authority belongs to the people,
which they exercise through electing their president
and their representatives in the legislative assembly—
the parliament.
In it, whoever secures the largest number
of the people's votes is installed in power;
therefore, it is also referred to as
majority rule.
The people also possess, under a democratic system,
the right to hold referendums on major issues,
such as the nation's constitution.
Democracy arose
in opposition to theocracy,
which means rule by the priesthood
or religious rule,
by which is meant the clergy's monopolization of governance
and their despotic exercise of it
under the claim of divine right,
viewing themselves as authorized delegates of the Divine.
Democracy also describes itself
as being opposed to dictatorial systems of governance,
which denote rule by an individual
or autocratic rule by a particular entity.
Although democracy
appears ostensibly good
in that it prevents tyranny and despotism,
it nonetheless entails forms of polytheism and numerous evils,
as will be clarified in a separate concept.
Many Western politicians
and thinkers themselves have criticized it,
while many in the East have been captivated by it.
Famous is the remark of Winston Churchill,
the British statesman, regarding it:
"Democracy is not
the best system devised by man,
but it is the least evil of systems."
The West's Promotion of Democracy
in Muslim Lands
The West succeeded in promoting
democracy across Muslim lands
under the banners of liberation,
resisting tyranny,
and human rights.
Behind the veil of all these slogans,
democracy spread throughout Muslim countries,
and the West was emulated in vesting sovereignty in the people—
as is the core premise of democracy,
which constitutes blatant disbelief—
instead of vesting sovereignty in the Sharia,
as is the requisite reality in Islam.
The Difference Between Democracy and Liberalism
Between liberalism and democracy
lies a distinction that not everyone may realize.
For democracy
is founded upon the will of the majority,
whereas liberal philosophy
is founded upon individual liberty,
even if it conflicts with the majority.
The Social Contract
is Rousseau's theory,
which denotes
an agreement among members of a society
to be governed by a particular administration
or bound by a specific bond.
Rousseau actually adapted this
from the concept of the bay'ah in Islam.
A republic
is a state ruled by the public,
as they claim,
in contrast to a monarchy,
which is a state ruled by
an individual from a specific family—
namely the ruling family,
or the dynasty possessing the realm,
where governance is inherited
among its members.
Republics typically exist within democratic
systems,
whereas monarchies
are often found within authoritarian regimes.
Yet in the West there are
some monarchical states
in a democratic system,
where the king
is merely a figurehead
with limited powers,
while actual authority
belongs to the prime minister
and his government, who belong
to the party that wins
the parliamentary elections
according to the democratic system.
Examples of
democratic monarchies include
England and Belgium.
All of this
clashes directly with the system of governance in Islam.
The Theory of Sovereignty:
The theory of sovereignty
is the theoretical, philosophical foundation
for the principle of self-rule by the people,
whereas democracy
is its practical political
exercise.
The concept of sovereignty originated
in France
at the end of the Middle Ages,
when popes,
emperors,
and estates confronted one another with it,
each claiming sovereignty for themselves
on the grounds that it was an inherent right
and a divine mandate.
The monarchs responded to them
with the very same weapon,
assigning sovereignty to temporal power—
that is, the power that governs
during a specific era,
namely the kings.
Subsequently,
French jurists seized upon this concept,
stripped it from all parties,
and formulated from it the theory of sovereignty.
Jurists initially defined sovereignty
at first
as an exclusive attribute
of political authority,
signifying the absence of
any other authority
superior to the existing authority
or equal to it.
The concept of sovereignty
in this sense was negative—
that is, it did not endow
sovereignty with positive substance
or specific defining characteristics,
but merely rested on negating
this description
from anything else
other than the ruling authority.
Before long, however,
jurists subsequently went on
to make sovereignty itself
the supreme commanding authority of the state,
rather than merely an attribute
of political power.
Thus, they gave it specific substance
and defined characteristics,
attributing it to the nation or the people—
despite detailed differences
between the two views—
divesting the king or ruler of sovereignty
and reducing him to a mere
executive functionary
carrying out the will of the nation or the people.
The substance of sovereignty
and its characteristics
according to this theory:
The primary substance of this
sovereignty, which
encompasses all of its
characteristics and elements,
is that it is a supreme will
possessing characteristics found
in no other will.
It is a will that determines itself
by itself, bound by
no other will,
and committed to no specific course
of action unless
it so desires.
From this primary substance
stem the following characteristics:
First:
it is absolute,
meaning unrestricted by anything,
even by law;
rather, law is merely the expression of
its will.
Second: supremacy,
meaning nothing, as they claim,
rises above it or equals it.
Third:
indivisibility and singularity,
for there exists only
one single sovereignty for a single
territory, which is the sovereignty
of its people.
Fourth: originality,
as it is, in their claim, primary,
not derived from
anything that precedes it or stands
above it.
Fifth: inalienability;
for if it were usurped
by one who is not entitled to it
according to their norms,
and who imposed his rule over the people
for a period of time,
that would not grant him legitimacy,
no matter how long the period
of usurpation lasts.
The usurpation of sovereignty remains a usurpation;
it is not validated by mere possession,
nor is it justified by the passage of time.
Based on these characteristics
and definitions,
holding it to be the absolute, supreme authority
which alone possesses the exclusive right
to issue binding rulings
pertaining to
judging things and actions,
such authority belongs
strictly to the pure Divine Law.
Exalted is Allah far above what
the wrongdoers say, high above all!
Believing
in these attributes of sovereignty
for the nation or the people
is associating partners with Allah Almighty in His Lordship (Rububiyyah)
and an explicit contradiction
of the words of Allah Almighty:
"Legislation is
not but for Allah,"
and His saying:
“Say: Allah is Best Aware how long they tarried. His is the Invisible of the heavens and the earth. How clear of sight is He and keen of hearing! They have no protecting friend beside Him, and He maketh none to share in His government.” (18:26)
and the words of the Almighty:
"And whoever does not judge
by what Allah has revealed—then it is those
who are the disbelievers."
The evils of democracy:
Since democracy
is the political exercise
of the tenets of the theory of sovereignty,
its fundamental evil, then,
is that it entrenches
polytheism with Allah in governance,
which we have demonstrated
to be an inevitable corollary of subscribing
to the theory of sovereignty and believing
in it. For democrats merely flee
from the worship of
rulers and popes
to the worship of peoples
and parliaments,
and from tyranny exercised in the name of
the divine right of the Church
and monarchs
to a tyranny exercised in the name of the divine right
of peoples and parliaments.
Thus, we have come to hear
phrases such as
"the rule of law" instead
of "the supremacy of Divine Law,"
and "there is no crime and no punishment
except by legislation" instead
of "the unlawful is what the Divine Law forbids,
and the lawful
is what the Divine Law permits."
That alone suffices as the greatest abhorrence
of the disbelief inherent in democracy.
In addition
to this cardinal evil
in the democratic system,
democratic thinkers
themselves have enumerated
other defects of democracy,
among which are:
First:
it is not, in reality,
rule by the majority,
because the majority of people
abstain from voting
and do not take part in it,
as clearly indicated
by voter turnout rates in elections.
Second: the capitalists
are the actual controllers
of the democratic system,
because they dominate
the media, which depends
to their wealth,
and the media is what manufactures
public opinion, even through news,
analyses, and propaganda
that are false and deceitful.
Consequently,
opinion and governance do not truly belong to the majority,
in reality, but rather to the wealthy,
and serve to advance
their views and consolidate their political
influence.
Thirdly, the democratic
system is built
upon political parties,
which are divided
in ideology and methodology—
a divergence that leads to mutual rancor
and conflict among them,
instead of cooperation and solidarity
to serve the best interests of the country
and its people.
Fourthly, the principle
of equal weight in votes
and referendums
makes no distinction between the vote
of an experienced, sound-minded,
and highly educated person,
and the vote of an unlearned person
of limited intellect and discernment.
This deprives the Ummah
of effectively benefiting
from the counsel of these qualified experts
who are capable of guiding
the course of events,
whereas the system of shura (mutual consultation)
in Islam
maximizes the benefit derived from such expertise.
Fifthly,
studies have shown
that the average lifespan of governments
in democratic systems
over the past half-century
did not exceed eight months.
This is a very brief period,
insufficient for any government
to execute its plans
and its reform and development programs.