Friday, 18 October 2013
Dr. Rebecca Masterton Rebecca Masterton wrote:
Divine Justice. Sep 20, 2012 Detroit 30-6-12
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim All Praise is due to the Sustainer of the Worlds and the multiple universes, galaxies and planets who has endowed us with consciousness and the command to use that consciousness with wisdom; and blessings upon the one who was born into this world in order to clarify the darkness, Muhammad al-Mustafa and whose who came after him, his purified progeny.
Today the subject of discussion is Divine Justice, as well as that of Western freedom. I will reflect upon Divine Justice to begin with inshaAllah. For anyone looking at the apparently arbitrary suffering in the world, they might question where is Divine Justice? A child who has committed no sin dies of a terminal illness; there are massacres of the innocent; the plundering of land and resources of those who have never harmed anyone. Justice as the law of balance How does divine justice manifest in this world? What can we expect from it?
Allah’s (swt) justice is a pillar of this Din and it is the basis of its logic. Al-hamdulillah in the school of Ahl al-Bayt (as) we are not asked to set aside our logic when it comes to ascertaining what is right and what is wrong. We have often be taught by the Ahl al-Bayt (as) to ask Allah (swt) not to judge us by His justice, but to judge us by His mercy.
Does this mean that His justice is not merciful? No, rather, justice is a divine law in which everything in existence is kept in balance. Whatever injustices we have committed, there must be an equal consequence of that in our lives, in the universe and in the next world. Our injustice pollutes the cosmic realms; it must be purified.
The Holy Qur’an says ‘Surely Allah commands justice, doing of good, and providing for the close kin (ītā’ dhi-l-qurba), and forbids the abominable, the reprehensible, and transgression.’ (16:90). Thus, if our souls have commanded us to commit injustice, we have polluted ourselves, the world around us, and the cosmos, and our actions must necessarily be purified for the sake of others and for the sake of maintaining balance.
Yet we ask Allah (swt) to return our acts of injustice with mercy instead. We can attempt to redress the imbalance we have created through returning back to the path of purification and by purifying our own actions through the doing of beautiful deeds after we have done ugly deeds. Thus, we ask Allah (swt) to give us respite so that we can restore the balance. The Holy Qur’an says: ‘O you who believe, stand firm for justice, as witnesses to God, even though it be against yourselves, your parents, or close kin, whether rich or poor, for God is closest to them both. Do not follow passion in place of justice.’ (4: 135)
It also commands ‘And whenever you speak, be just, even though it concern a close relative.’ (6:152). It may be asked, why speak of the justice that we should implement, when we are speaking of Divine Justice? It is precisely because Allah (swt) manifests His justice not only in the consequences that arise from our actions, but also through us in this world. We have the choice whether to manifest His justice or not; if we are looking for a just world, then we need to strive to implement that justice Since we as adherents on this path know about the importance of justice, we are all the more responsible for putting justice into practice, with our near relatives, with our brothers and sisters in this Deen and with our brothers and sisters in humanity.
As the Holy Qur’an says ‘you are a people most balanced.’ According to some tafsirs, this refers to the Ahl al-Bayt (as) are a people most balanced (Qur’an) and to others it refers to umma as a whole. Whatever the case, we have them to refer to with regard to being balanced. As Imam ‘Ali (as) said about the Ahl al-Bayt (as): ‘Do not go ahead of them, as you would thereby go astray and go not lag behind of them as you would thereby be ruined.’ (Sermon 96). Justice = belief/unbelief = oppression Interestingly, when we read Ayat al-Kursi, we see that belief in Allah (swt) is posited opposite belief in oppression. Al-tughyān means rebelliousness, tyranny, exceeding proper bounds.
Tughyān is inordinate injustice; inordinate imbalance. You cannot be a believer and engage in oppression at the same time. Those who believe do battle for the cause of God and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of the taghut. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo! the devil's strategy is always weak. (4:76) An act of oppression is an act of kufr; an act of concealing the truth within your own self and within the cosmos. Avoiding committing acts of tughyān requires an enlightened consciousness, which has the wisdom of insight and the strength to override unjust personal desires.
This can also be seen in Ayat al-Kursi, where it says that Allah (swt) brings the one who believes in Him from darkness into light; the unbelievers are those whose companions are oppressors, and these companions bring them from light into darkness; not only darkness at the level of the soul which will manifest when they pass out of this existence, but darkness at the level of the consciousness, at the level of the world and at the level of the cosmos.
We are meant to manifest the cosmic self in this world. If we don’t realise this cosmic self, we are in danger of allowing ourselves to be oppressed. Oppression comes when the cosmic self is not acknowledged by our own selves and those around us. We allow those to oppress us, because they take advantage of the fact that we haven’t fully realise our selves; we doubt our selves; our selves are obscured in darkness; we are not confident in our selves – but this is the self which has been given to us by Allah (swt); we can call this self a consciousness. All of us were given this consciousness which makes us beautiful beings in human form. When this is not honoured, we feel pain and oppression.
The cosmic self is the soul that witnessed in the realm of alast. Witnessing is manifesting. ‘Asabiyya/racism Islam is the transmission of the light of Divine consciousness into the world through the consciousness of the purified human being. This is why it is a message for all humanity, because no human being wishes to be oppressed. Thus, we can begin to purify our consciousness by seeing the humanity in our brothers and sisters who are on this path and this can be embarked upon by breaking down tribal, caste and racial barriers in our minds and actions, for how just is it that we avoid, block or limit our brothers and sisters because these artificial barriers? It is interesting to see that Imam al-Ridha (as) had to deal with the same injustice with regard to his own son, the ninth Imam, Imam al-Jawad (as). There is a powerful narration in al-Kafi, where an uncle of Imam al-Ridha (as), ‘Ali ibn Ja‘far, says to Hasan grandson of Imam Zayn al-‘Abideen (as), ‘By Allah (swt), Allah saved Abu-l Hasan al-Ridha (as).’ Hasan grandson of Imam Zayn al-‘Abideen (as) replied, ‘Indeed, by Allah, his brothers treated him unjustly.’ Ali ibn Ja‘far (as) said, ‘Indeed, by Allah, and we, his uncles, treated him unjustly.’ When the ninth Imam, Imam al-Jawad was born, because his mother was a Nubian lady, the uncles and brothers got together and denounced him, saying ‘There has never been among us an Imam of colour.’ Imam al-Ridha (as) replied, ‘He is my son.’ Thus, based upon their narrow minded idea of what might be an acceptable colour and race for an Imam, they tried to denounce his legitimacy. How different is this from the practice of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, who rejected Imam Ali’s (as) caliphate, based upon the fact that Imam Ali (as) was of Bani Hashim? (Al-Kafi, vol. 1, p. 456). It could be argued that one of the gravest problems holding back the umma is its clinging to ‘asabiyya –tribal pride – where the brotherhood and sisterhood of mu’mineen is shunned in favour of Muslims from the same clan and with the same name; and it is also the injustice meted out to Muslims who are a different colour and race. Just last year I heard from an African-American sister how she had attended an event, and her salaam was ignored by another sister. I even heard how some brothers have been rejected and shunned to the point that they have become disillusioned with Islam itself. Therefore, ‘asabiyya, and racial pride is a characteristic of jāhiliyya, and those who uphold it and do injustice to others through it will have to answer to Allah (swt) for shunning and blocking those from different races seeking universal brotherhood based upon the teachings and practices of the Holy Prophet (s) and his purified progeny. Use of the intellect As it says in the Holy Qur’an, Allah’s justice is such that we are warned first, before we are left to follow our own will or desires: 17:15 Whoever goes aright, for his own soul does he go aright; and whoever goes astray, to its detriment only does he go astray: nor can the bearer of a burden bear the burden of another, nor do We chastise until We raise a messenger. Another sign of His justice is that He has endowed us with intellect which we are free to use in whichever way we please. We are free to reflect upon, think about, look at, listen to, occupy our intellect which whatever we like; yet He has sent the Ahl al-Bayt (as) to warn us and guide us so that we do not destroy ourselves with this intellect, by being taghuti towards our own selves and towards our own lives. Thinking about the latest cases of people using so-called ‘bath salts’ and PCP, powerful hallucinogenics, we can see the catastrophic, depraved and even Satanic results in abusing our own intellects. Surely the people who used this had a mind and some intelligence. What would they have thought if they could have seen ahead to how their lives would end? There but for the grace of God, as the saying goes. So His justice manifests itself in the fact that we have been given consciousness and free will, and the potential to enact that justice on the earth. This does not just mean justice to human beings, but justice to every living thing. What we see today, is the promotion of a form of freedom that is very costly to the living the planet. Capitalist countries around the world want to be free to use the earth on which we live in any way they please, because somehow there is the illusion that it is their right to use it as they please. I remember going to Peru, the land of coffee, where the adverts on TV at home in the UK showed abundant coffee beans growing. I discovered that it was almost impossible to find a real cup of coffee. When I asked for coffee I received a sachet of instant powder and a cup of hot water. What had happened to the land of coffee? Well, all the coffee had been exported to the northern hemisphere, to the capitalist countries around the world, who sipped the coffee, comfortable with the illusion in the advert that that’s the kind of coffee you could find in Peru. And I realised then, that the southern hemisphere basically funds the lifestyle of the northern hemisphere. Those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, where we can select from a range of different flavoured coffees in different sizes and blends, are protected from the brutal reality in which those who grow and export the coffee live. The capitalist countries of the northern hemisphere have a very expensive type of freedom; it is a freedom which comes at the expense of those unfortunate people who happen to live on top of fields and those unfortunate people whose interests happen to stand in the way of the interests of its behemoth-sized central banks. As long as people are distracted by the mind boggling range of coffees from which to select, the banks can carry on quietly expanding and exacting crippling interest payments from those who have been unfortunate enough to borrow from them. We might say that the capitalist world translates only as the Western world, but we well know, in this day and age, that the Dajjal has reached the outskirts of Haram in Makka, symbolised by a giant multi-storey department store, topped by a monstrous clock, as if the call to prayer is no longer enough for knowing the time of day. Countries that appear to be Muslim, or which follow a certain Muslim lifestyle, have been only too happy to sign up to a banking system that ensures that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer; and not only that, the rich are going to protect their assets through every overt and covert means, whether that is funding militias, cooking up phoney wars or arranging the assassinations of inconvenient leaders who want to nationalise their country’s resources. With the flourishing of capitalism comes the mass expansion of cities; with the mass expansion of cities comes the mass extinction of species; lions in Ethiopia are finding human beings in their backyards and the human beings are shooting them; elephants in Sumatra are finding human beings in their backyards and the human beings are shooting them; birds in Europe have been decimated by the greed for greater agricultural production; fish have been poisoned by toxic metals. You cannot have real freedom if you do not have knowledge, yet we see the dumbing down of education across the globe, spreading out from the States into Russia and Iran. People can’t cope with reading books; information has to be broken down into bite sized pieces. The brain cannot compute complex concepts; it has lost its flexibility and agility. Everything must be explained in simple format for people to understand. All the better for those running the banks, who can run rings around the masses who have lost the ability to think. None of us who call ourselves Muslim can afford to be complacent. The privileges that come with being on this path are conditional. Those Muslims who commit injustice, Allah (swt) will replace them with better, as the Holy Qur’an has said. Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow half of us will be replaced with a new generation who practice greater justice than us, and who are more active in resisting tughyan. We might like to think that we are resisting tughyan by speaking out; or that we striving to establish justice by giving sadaqa and supporting the casualties of the taghuti economic system, but the fact is, that this system is massively supported by huge wealth. All of us, whether we like it or not, are going to be supporting it in some way, whether it is through consuming the TV programmes that contribute to a depletion in intelligence; eating food that contributes to a depletion in intelligence; buying products that have been made through slave labour in other countries; or which have been made from metals and minerals mined in war zones. So we need to pay a big kaffara, to try to off-set the balance of inadvertently supporting this system. Imam al-Sadiq (as): ‘The kaffarah for working for a king is to fulfil the needs of believing brothers.’ We cannot avoid being caught up in the Dajjal’s web, but from that position, we can work to aid the sincere mu’mineen, whatever colour they are and from whatever country they are and whatever language they speak. Imam al-Sadiq (as) said ‘Almighty God has servants in the courts of oppressive kings who can help fend off oppression from God’s friends. They are saved from the fire by God.’ (Tabarsi, Chapter 6). Abu Mikhnaf al-Tabari has narrated from Uqbat ibn Abi al-Ayzarat, and Majlisi narrates from al-Manaqib the final words of Imam Husayn in his last days upon entering Karbala. He said "Oh you people, the Apostle of God, peace and greetings be upon him and his family, said ‘Oh people! This is from the Apostle of God, who said, 'If anyone notices a ruthless sultan encroaching upon God's boundary, breaking His covenants, opposing the traditions of the Prophet, and behaving indecently among the people, one must stand in opposition to him, by action and word. Otherwise it is God's right to take him to his proper place. One must first advise him, and if this fails, must use force. Whoever endorses such sultan's actions through silence, God will take him to hell as an accomplice. O people! Watch and beware that they (this government and its followers) have chosen obedience to Satan, have forsaken God's obedience, have manifested corruption, have abrogated God's ordinances, have appropriated public funds, have permitted what God has prohibited and have prohibited what God has permitted.’ Holy Prophet (s) said ‘Whoever knowingly accompanies and helps an oppressor has abandoned Islam.’ We know that most governments around the world, especially those that have used drones to kill innocent people in the name of spreading freedom and civilisation; and especially those that have supplied arms to be used against people campaigning for democracy in places such as Bahrain and Egypt, are undoubtedly violating divine laws, but it is not just the Muslim world that has experienced the burden of injustice and dictatorship that has been propped up by the interests of banks; the pressure is felt on all sides in all kinds of ways, by the whole ecosystem of our earth, as well as by human beings. The kings and sultans of today are also the multinational conglomerates; the people who build tall buildings for no purpose other than to show off their wealth, while their country people go without basic sanitation and education; the people who want to profit from the mass production of everything and anything; who are stealing people’s land at the point of a gun; and who want to promote a culture of entertainment consisting of sex and violence, so that people don’t think. Divine justice hidden behind worldly injustice. From its inception, Islam has always accepted that there will be injustice. There is no lamenting ‘Why do people do so much evil?’ It has been a part of the cosmic drama from day one, when Allah (swt) brought Adam into being, the first of a nation that would shed blood. Oppression is a part of the human destiny. The Holy Qur’an says ‘Certainly We have created man to be in distress.’ (90:4). The message of Islam is that it holds the key to transcending this oppression –if not through physically opposing it, then through being metaphysically perfected as a result of it. When we look at the justice of Allah (swt) and the narrations from the Ahl al-Bayt (as), we can see that the oppressed sincere believers have a special status in the eyes of Allah (swt), and if anything are more privileged from a metaphysical perspective: Al-Sabbah ibn Siyabah narrated: I asked Abu Abd Allah (as): ‘The affliction that befalls a believer is it because of a sin?’ ‘No’, he replied. ‘It is so that He may hear his wails and complaints and supplications for which good deeds are recorded for him and misdeeds are wiped out from him, and a treasure is amassed for him for the Day of Resurrection.’ (Kitab al-Mu’min, p. 39). Sometimes divine justice is hidden in the distress sent to mankind: Shakir 6:42 And certainly We sent (messengers) to nations before you then We seized them with distress and affliction in order that they might humble themselves.’ It is brought upon each nation so that they can become conscious. And the most beautiful saying of the Master of Martyrs, Imam Al-Husayn (as), which says: ‘By Allah (I swear), afflictions, poverty and being killed comes more swiftly to those who love us than racing horses or a torrential stream (rushing) to its end. And if that were not the case, we would deem you as not being one of us.’ (Al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, 67/246). Imam Sadiq: “verily the most severely tried people are the prophets then those who follow them and so in the order of virtue”. Once the cosmic drama has been played out, and all the actors have fulfilled their parts, and done their deeds, then divine justice will appear in the form of a man who will overturn the oil barons, the bankers, the Monsantos, the Blackwaters, the politicians pushing for war for the sake of their private investments, the pornography producers, the slave owners, the child exploiters and the land thieves. Divine justice appears in the form of the Imam of our Time, who reappears to redress the balance, and Imam (Sadiq) says something beautiful about this: Imam Mahdi (as)’s appearance will ‘confound the calculations of the astrologers’. It is through the decree of Allah (swt) which responds to every sincere du‘a and which smashes every prediction, which will bring about justice. Therefore, as believers, our strength lies in putting our trust in the decree and in connecting our intention to that. The decree overrides all planetary trends; that is its beauty; and du‘a is the means by which the believer can alter the decree, both for himself and herself in the private life and in the fabric of the cosmic drama, as it unfolds. Empires always fall. They always have, and today’s empire will also fall, sooner or later. We can see that happening already. Our job is to try to work for justice in every aspect of this life, in a universal sense, both in our own homes and on a wider scale, taking down the barriers of class and race prejudice within our minds and ceasing co-operation, as much as possible, with companies and organisations of any kind that are tipping the scale of economic injustice in the name of a freedom which costs so many other people theirs. "The bane of speaking is doing so too long" -Imam Ali (AS).
Dr. Rebecca Masterton Rebecca Masterton wrote:
Divine Justice. Sep 20, 2012 Detroit 30-6-12
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim All Praise is due to the Sustainer of the Worlds and the multiple universes, galaxies and planets who has endowed us with consciousness and the command to use that consciousness with wisdom; and blessings upon the one who was born into this world in order to clarify the darkness, Muhammad al-Mustafa and whose who came after him, his purified progeny.
Today the subject of discussion is Divine Justice, as well as that of Western freedom. I will reflect upon Divine Justice to begin with inshaAllah. For anyone looking at the apparently arbitrary suffering in the world, they might question where is Divine Justice? A child who has committed no sin dies of a terminal illness; there are massacres of the innocent; the plundering of land and resources of those who have never harmed anyone. Justice as the law of balance How does divine justice manifest in this world? What can we expect from it?
Allah’s (swt) justice is a pillar of this Din and it is the basis of its logic. Al-hamdulillah in the school of Ahl al-Bayt (as) we are not asked to set aside our logic when it comes to ascertaining what is right and what is wrong. We have often be taught by the Ahl al-Bayt (as) to ask Allah (swt) not to judge us by His justice, but to judge us by His mercy.
Does this mean that His justice is not merciful? No, rather, justice is a divine law in which everything in existence is kept in balance. Whatever injustices we have committed, there must be an equal consequence of that in our lives, in the universe and in the next world. Our injustice pollutes the cosmic realms; it must be purified.
The Holy Qur’an says ‘Surely Allah commands justice, doing of good, and providing for the close kin (ītā’ dhi-l-qurba), and forbids the abominable, the reprehensible, and transgression.’ (16:90). Thus, if our souls have commanded us to commit injustice, we have polluted ourselves, the world around us, and the cosmos, and our actions must necessarily be purified for the sake of others and for the sake of maintaining balance.
Yet we ask Allah (swt) to return our acts of injustice with mercy instead. We can attempt to redress the imbalance we have created through returning back to the path of purification and by purifying our own actions through the doing of beautiful deeds after we have done ugly deeds. Thus, we ask Allah (swt) to give us respite so that we can restore the balance. The Holy Qur’an says: ‘O you who believe, stand firm for justice, as witnesses to God, even though it be against yourselves, your parents, or close kin, whether rich or poor, for God is closest to them both. Do not follow passion in place of justice.’ (4: 135)
It also commands ‘And whenever you speak, be just, even though it concern a close relative.’ (6:152). It may be asked, why speak of the justice that we should implement, when we are speaking of Divine Justice? It is precisely because Allah (swt) manifests His justice not only in the consequences that arise from our actions, but also through us in this world. We have the choice whether to manifest His justice or not; if we are looking for a just world, then we need to strive to implement that justice Since we as adherents on this path know about the importance of justice, we are all the more responsible for putting justice into practice, with our near relatives, with our brothers and sisters in this Deen and with our brothers and sisters in humanity.
As the Holy Qur’an says ‘you are a people most balanced.’ According to some tafsirs, this refers to the Ahl al-Bayt (as) are a people most balanced (Qur’an) and to others it refers to umma as a whole. Whatever the case, we have them to refer to with regard to being balanced. As Imam ‘Ali (as) said about the Ahl al-Bayt (as): ‘Do not go ahead of them, as you would thereby go astray and go not lag behind of them as you would thereby be ruined.’ (Sermon 96). Justice = belief/unbelief = oppression Interestingly, when we read Ayat al-Kursi, we see that belief in Allah (swt) is posited opposite belief in oppression. Al-tughyān means rebelliousness, tyranny, exceeding proper bounds.
Tughyān is inordinate injustice; inordinate imbalance. You cannot be a believer and engage in oppression at the same time. Those who believe do battle for the cause of God and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of the taghut. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo! the devil's strategy is always weak. (4:76) An act of oppression is an act of kufr; an act of concealing the truth within your own self and within the cosmos. Avoiding committing acts of tughyān requires an enlightened consciousness, which has the wisdom of insight and the strength to override unjust personal desires.
This can also be seen in Ayat al-Kursi, where it says that Allah (swt) brings the one who believes in Him from darkness into light; the unbelievers are those whose companions are oppressors, and these companions bring them from light into darkness; not only darkness at the level of the soul which will manifest when they pass out of this existence, but darkness at the level of the consciousness, at the level of the world and at the level of the cosmos.
We are meant to manifest the cosmic self in this world. If we don’t realise this cosmic self, we are in danger of allowing ourselves to be oppressed. Oppression comes when the cosmic self is not acknowledged by our own selves and those around us. We allow those to oppress us, because they take advantage of the fact that we haven’t fully realise our selves; we doubt our selves; our selves are obscured in darkness; we are not confident in our selves – but this is the self which has been given to us by Allah (swt); we can call this self a consciousness. All of us were given this consciousness which makes us beautiful beings in human form. When this is not honoured, we feel pain and oppression.
The cosmic self is the soul that witnessed in the realm of alast. Witnessing is manifesting. ‘Asabiyya/racism Islam is the transmission of the light of Divine consciousness into the world through the consciousness of the purified human being. This is why it is a message for all humanity, because no human being wishes to be oppressed. Thus, we can begin to purify our consciousness by seeing the humanity in our brothers and sisters who are on this path and this can be embarked upon by breaking down tribal, caste and racial barriers in our minds and actions, for how just is it that we avoid, block or limit our brothers and sisters because these artificial barriers? It is interesting to see that Imam al-Ridha (as) had to deal with the same injustice with regard to his own son, the ninth Imam, Imam al-Jawad (as). There is a powerful narration in al-Kafi, where an uncle of Imam al-Ridha (as), ‘Ali ibn Ja‘far, says to Hasan grandson of Imam Zayn al-‘Abideen (as), ‘By Allah (swt), Allah saved Abu-l Hasan al-Ridha (as).’ Hasan grandson of Imam Zayn al-‘Abideen (as) replied, ‘Indeed, by Allah, his brothers treated him unjustly.’ Ali ibn Ja‘far (as) said, ‘Indeed, by Allah, and we, his uncles, treated him unjustly.’ When the ninth Imam, Imam al-Jawad was born, because his mother was a Nubian lady, the uncles and brothers got together and denounced him, saying ‘There has never been among us an Imam of colour.’ Imam al-Ridha (as) replied, ‘He is my son.’ Thus, based upon their narrow minded idea of what might be an acceptable colour and race for an Imam, they tried to denounce his legitimacy. How different is this from the practice of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, who rejected Imam Ali’s (as) caliphate, based upon the fact that Imam Ali (as) was of Bani Hashim? (Al-Kafi, vol. 1, p. 456). It could be argued that one of the gravest problems holding back the umma is its clinging to ‘asabiyya –tribal pride – where the brotherhood and sisterhood of mu’mineen is shunned in favour of Muslims from the same clan and with the same name; and it is also the injustice meted out to Muslims who are a different colour and race. Just last year I heard from an African-American sister how she had attended an event, and her salaam was ignored by another sister. I even heard how some brothers have been rejected and shunned to the point that they have become disillusioned with Islam itself. Therefore, ‘asabiyya, and racial pride is a characteristic of jāhiliyya, and those who uphold it and do injustice to others through it will have to answer to Allah (swt) for shunning and blocking those from different races seeking universal brotherhood based upon the teachings and practices of the Holy Prophet (s) and his purified progeny. Use of the intellect As it says in the Holy Qur’an, Allah’s justice is such that we are warned first, before we are left to follow our own will or desires: 17:15 Whoever goes aright, for his own soul does he go aright; and whoever goes astray, to its detriment only does he go astray: nor can the bearer of a burden bear the burden of another, nor do We chastise until We raise a messenger. Another sign of His justice is that He has endowed us with intellect which we are free to use in whichever way we please. We are free to reflect upon, think about, look at, listen to, occupy our intellect which whatever we like; yet He has sent the Ahl al-Bayt (as) to warn us and guide us so that we do not destroy ourselves with this intellect, by being taghuti towards our own selves and towards our own lives. Thinking about the latest cases of people using so-called ‘bath salts’ and PCP, powerful hallucinogenics, we can see the catastrophic, depraved and even Satanic results in abusing our own intellects. Surely the people who used this had a mind and some intelligence. What would they have thought if they could have seen ahead to how their lives would end? There but for the grace of God, as the saying goes. So His justice manifests itself in the fact that we have been given consciousness and free will, and the potential to enact that justice on the earth. This does not just mean justice to human beings, but justice to every living thing. What we see today, is the promotion of a form of freedom that is very costly to the living the planet. Capitalist countries around the world want to be free to use the earth on which we live in any way they please, because somehow there is the illusion that it is their right to use it as they please. I remember going to Peru, the land of coffee, where the adverts on TV at home in the UK showed abundant coffee beans growing. I discovered that it was almost impossible to find a real cup of coffee. When I asked for coffee I received a sachet of instant powder and a cup of hot water. What had happened to the land of coffee? Well, all the coffee had been exported to the northern hemisphere, to the capitalist countries around the world, who sipped the coffee, comfortable with the illusion in the advert that that’s the kind of coffee you could find in Peru. And I realised then, that the southern hemisphere basically funds the lifestyle of the northern hemisphere. Those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, where we can select from a range of different flavoured coffees in different sizes and blends, are protected from the brutal reality in which those who grow and export the coffee live. The capitalist countries of the northern hemisphere have a very expensive type of freedom; it is a freedom which comes at the expense of those unfortunate people who happen to live on top of fields and those unfortunate people whose interests happen to stand in the way of the interests of its behemoth-sized central banks. As long as people are distracted by the mind boggling range of coffees from which to select, the banks can carry on quietly expanding and exacting crippling interest payments from those who have been unfortunate enough to borrow from them. We might say that the capitalist world translates only as the Western world, but we well know, in this day and age, that the Dajjal has reached the outskirts of Haram in Makka, symbolised by a giant multi-storey department store, topped by a monstrous clock, as if the call to prayer is no longer enough for knowing the time of day. Countries that appear to be Muslim, or which follow a certain Muslim lifestyle, have been only too happy to sign up to a banking system that ensures that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer; and not only that, the rich are going to protect their assets through every overt and covert means, whether that is funding militias, cooking up phoney wars or arranging the assassinations of inconvenient leaders who want to nationalise their country’s resources. With the flourishing of capitalism comes the mass expansion of cities; with the mass expansion of cities comes the mass extinction of species; lions in Ethiopia are finding human beings in their backyards and the human beings are shooting them; elephants in Sumatra are finding human beings in their backyards and the human beings are shooting them; birds in Europe have been decimated by the greed for greater agricultural production; fish have been poisoned by toxic metals. You cannot have real freedom if you do not have knowledge, yet we see the dumbing down of education across the globe, spreading out from the States into Russia and Iran. People can’t cope with reading books; information has to be broken down into bite sized pieces. The brain cannot compute complex concepts; it has lost its flexibility and agility. Everything must be explained in simple format for people to understand. All the better for those running the banks, who can run rings around the masses who have lost the ability to think. None of us who call ourselves Muslim can afford to be complacent. The privileges that come with being on this path are conditional. Those Muslims who commit injustice, Allah (swt) will replace them with better, as the Holy Qur’an has said. Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow half of us will be replaced with a new generation who practice greater justice than us, and who are more active in resisting tughyan. We might like to think that we are resisting tughyan by speaking out; or that we striving to establish justice by giving sadaqa and supporting the casualties of the taghuti economic system, but the fact is, that this system is massively supported by huge wealth. All of us, whether we like it or not, are going to be supporting it in some way, whether it is through consuming the TV programmes that contribute to a depletion in intelligence; eating food that contributes to a depletion in intelligence; buying products that have been made through slave labour in other countries; or which have been made from metals and minerals mined in war zones. So we need to pay a big kaffara, to try to off-set the balance of inadvertently supporting this system. Imam al-Sadiq (as): ‘The kaffarah for working for a king is to fulfil the needs of believing brothers.’ We cannot avoid being caught up in the Dajjal’s web, but from that position, we can work to aid the sincere mu’mineen, whatever colour they are and from whatever country they are and whatever language they speak. Imam al-Sadiq (as) said ‘Almighty God has servants in the courts of oppressive kings who can help fend off oppression from God’s friends. They are saved from the fire by God.’ (Tabarsi, Chapter 6). Abu Mikhnaf al-Tabari has narrated from Uqbat ibn Abi al-Ayzarat, and Majlisi narrates from al-Manaqib the final words of Imam Husayn in his last days upon entering Karbala. He said "Oh you people, the Apostle of God, peace and greetings be upon him and his family, said ‘Oh people! This is from the Apostle of God, who said, 'If anyone notices a ruthless sultan encroaching upon God's boundary, breaking His covenants, opposing the traditions of the Prophet, and behaving indecently among the people, one must stand in opposition to him, by action and word. Otherwise it is God's right to take him to his proper place. One must first advise him, and if this fails, must use force. Whoever endorses such sultan's actions through silence, God will take him to hell as an accomplice. O people! Watch and beware that they (this government and its followers) have chosen obedience to Satan, have forsaken God's obedience, have manifested corruption, have abrogated God's ordinances, have appropriated public funds, have permitted what God has prohibited and have prohibited what God has permitted.’ Holy Prophet (s) said ‘Whoever knowingly accompanies and helps an oppressor has abandoned Islam.’ We know that most governments around the world, especially those that have used drones to kill innocent people in the name of spreading freedom and civilisation; and especially those that have supplied arms to be used against people campaigning for democracy in places such as Bahrain and Egypt, are undoubtedly violating divine laws, but it is not just the Muslim world that has experienced the burden of injustice and dictatorship that has been propped up by the interests of banks; the pressure is felt on all sides in all kinds of ways, by the whole ecosystem of our earth, as well as by human beings. The kings and sultans of today are also the multinational conglomerates; the people who build tall buildings for no purpose other than to show off their wealth, while their country people go without basic sanitation and education; the people who want to profit from the mass production of everything and anything; who are stealing people’s land at the point of a gun; and who want to promote a culture of entertainment consisting of sex and violence, so that people don’t think. Divine justice hidden behind worldly injustice. From its inception, Islam has always accepted that there will be injustice. There is no lamenting ‘Why do people do so much evil?’ It has been a part of the cosmic drama from day one, when Allah (swt) brought Adam into being, the first of a nation that would shed blood. Oppression is a part of the human destiny. The Holy Qur’an says ‘Certainly We have created man to be in distress.’ (90:4). The message of Islam is that it holds the key to transcending this oppression –if not through physically opposing it, then through being metaphysically perfected as a result of it. When we look at the justice of Allah (swt) and the narrations from the Ahl al-Bayt (as), we can see that the oppressed sincere believers have a special status in the eyes of Allah (swt), and if anything are more privileged from a metaphysical perspective: Al-Sabbah ibn Siyabah narrated: I asked Abu Abd Allah (as): ‘The affliction that befalls a believer is it because of a sin?’ ‘No’, he replied. ‘It is so that He may hear his wails and complaints and supplications for which good deeds are recorded for him and misdeeds are wiped out from him, and a treasure is amassed for him for the Day of Resurrection.’ (Kitab al-Mu’min, p. 39). Sometimes divine justice is hidden in the distress sent to mankind: Shakir 6:42 And certainly We sent (messengers) to nations before you then We seized them with distress and affliction in order that they might humble themselves.’ It is brought upon each nation so that they can become conscious. And the most beautiful saying of the Master of Martyrs, Imam Al-Husayn (as), which says: ‘By Allah (I swear), afflictions, poverty and being killed comes more swiftly to those who love us than racing horses or a torrential stream (rushing) to its end. And if that were not the case, we would deem you as not being one of us.’ (Al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, 67/246). Imam Sadiq: “verily the most severely tried people are the prophets then those who follow them and so in the order of virtue”. Once the cosmic drama has been played out, and all the actors have fulfilled their parts, and done their deeds, then divine justice will appear in the form of a man who will overturn the oil barons, the bankers, the Monsantos, the Blackwaters, the politicians pushing for war for the sake of their private investments, the pornography producers, the slave owners, the child exploiters and the land thieves. Divine justice appears in the form of the Imam of our Time, who reappears to redress the balance, and Imam (Sadiq) says something beautiful about this: Imam Mahdi (as)’s appearance will ‘confound the calculations of the astrologers’. It is through the decree of Allah (swt) which responds to every sincere du‘a and which smashes every prediction, which will bring about justice. Therefore, as believers, our strength lies in putting our trust in the decree and in connecting our intention to that. The decree overrides all planetary trends; that is its beauty; and du‘a is the means by which the believer can alter the decree, both for himself and herself in the private life and in the fabric of the cosmic drama, as it unfolds. Empires always fall. They always have, and today’s empire will also fall, sooner or later. We can see that happening already. Our job is to try to work for justice in every aspect of this life, in a universal sense, both in our own homes and on a wider scale, taking down the barriers of class and race prejudice within our minds and ceasing co-operation, as much as possible, with companies and organisations of any kind that are tipping the scale of economic injustice in the name of a freedom which costs so many other people theirs. "The bane of speaking is doing so too long" -Imam Ali (AS).
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