political instinct (fitrah) and religious deviations

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Political Instinct (Fitrah) and Religious Deviations

by Dr Hakem al-Mutairi

All praises be to Allah, and may His prayers and blessings be upon he who was sent

as a mercy to all creation, to return them to the Fitrah and the sanctity of the Deen,and upon his all his descendents and companions...

I recently had the pleasure of receiving an invitation from the High Council for

Da’wah, a branch of the Ministry for Guidance and Waqf in the Sudan, to attend a

conference entitled “Future Horizons of the Islamic Da’wah,” which took place 13-15

October 2010. Around twenty-five papers on issues pertaining to the Islamic Da’wah

were presented and my paper, “Contemporary Islamic Political Discourse and its

Problems,” which was originally an article I published entitled “Political Doctrine: its

Necessity, its Gravity and its Absence in the Contemporary Islamic Movement,” was

presented during the first session. When my turn came to present, the conference

chair surprised the attendees by his saying: “and now, for Dr Hakem al-Mutairi’spaper, and pay attention to every word it says, as it’s serious”!

I opened the presentation with notes pertaining to the topic:

First: the paper’s topic is the problems of contemporary political discourse, not with

regards to other fields in which the contemporary Islamic Da’wah has succeeded,

such as the fields of Da’wah and propagation, education, upbringing, charity,

humanitarian work and Jihad. Seeing as Islamic political movements came with the

goal of re-establishing the Khilafah and the resumption of the Islamic way of life, this

paper studies the reasons behind the political movement’s failures in achieving this

goal or nearing it.

Second: the paper confines itself to Islamic political movements and does not

consider groups purely concerned with Da’wah, education, humanitarian work, etc.

Third: the paper looks at the Islamic political movement, in all its variations, as one,

considering the Ummah is one, the goal is one, which is the re-establishment of the

Khilafah, and these movements represent one political current, even if its schools,

interpretations and ijtihads differ.

Fourth: the paper aims to pose questions and highlight problems more than it does

to offer solutions and answers. If someone were to want to know the solutions, in the

eyes of the author, they may refer to his books, “Freedom or the Flood,”

“Liberating the Human; Disarming Tyranny,” “The Criterion (al-Furqan)

between the Facts of Iman and the Falsehoods of Shirk and Tyranny” and

“Ahl ul-Sunnah wal-Jamaa’ah: Problems of Aqeedah and the Political

Crisis.”

I then posed questions around the crisis of the contemporary Islamic political

movement. Why has its political discourse retreated to such an extent that it now

recognises as legitimate territorialism, nationalism and the ruling powers, with all

that such recognition entails, after it had once hoped to restore the One Khilafah for

the One Ummah?

How is it that elements of it have allowed themselves to get entangled in alliances



with foreign occupation forces, as is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the point

where they have participated in the occupation governments, whose armies lay

siege to resisting cities and demolish them over the heads of their occupants, and

after all this such an alliance does not expel it from the circle of the Islamic

movement and does not clash with any core fundamental of its Aqeedah and

doctrine?!

How is it that the Arab governments that the occupying enemy has employed as part

of its neo-colonialist project have come to be considered legitimate governments, or

governments which have an Islamically sanctioned mandate to rule, despite that the

fundamentals of the Islamic doctrinal Aqeedah message, let alone the legal Fiqhi

rulings which branch off from it, establishes that such an act is apostasy (Riddah)

and Kufr?!

I then went on to briefly explain the contents of the paper according to the allotted

time, and with the frankness of the Bedouin with which I was endowed, for by nature

I dislike courtesy at the expense of the truth and flattery at the expense of the Deen,for the only reason for our attendance was to be truthful to our people in our speech,

and sincere to them in expressing our advice and outlining our opinion, and this is

the reality of the Deen as in the authentic Hadith: “The Deen is advice... to Allah, to

His Book, to His Prophet and to the Imams of the Muslims and their public.”

All this, of course, within the limits of etiquette and good manners, as said the poet:

And, despite my arrogance and stubbornness... and the taint of my nomadic ways, I

am a literary man of eloquence

What has pushed us towards this grave matter, which has raised a divide in opinion

between us and our people, to the point where the truth has not left for us the luxury

of a friend, is love for Allah, for His messenger, for his Deen and for the Ummah,

which today faces all these unprecedented challenges which it must face; love for an

Islamic movement which has lost its way after having offered thousands of martyrs

and heroes throughout an entire century, only to reach its current conclusion: an

Islamic movement whose contemporary reality is represented by retreats followed

by further retreats until none of its goals remains other than holding on for its very

existence!

The only other conclusion is this alliance with the occupation, or with the allies of the

occupation in each country, in order for the Taghut to express its pleasure with them

– something that will never be!

I spoke of the crisis of the Islamic political movement, which can be summarised in

the following:

1. The absence, or obscure and foggy vagueness, of its Political Aqeedah (i.e.

political doctrine/ideological principles), which is the foundation for any

political project or system of political governance.

2. The lack of clarity in its Political Project, a project supposedly founded on

the Qur’an and Sunnah, but which in essence does not differ from what is

called for by nationalist and liberal political reformists, but for its raising of theslogan: “Islam is the Solution!”



Muhammad al-Hibr, which went something like this:

Sheikh Muhammad: what is the situation of the Islamic movement in Iraq?

The commenting professor: it split into three sections; one which got involved

with the occupation, one which resisted it and another which remained in isolation,

and each section has its ijtihad.

Sheikh Muhammad: a single movement splits into three groups over a matter as

serious and as clear cut as this one?! Is any more proof required to indicate the crisis

of the Islamic political movement as outlined in Dr Hakem’s paper?

Another such debate took place between an honest judge and an Islamic scholar

over the paper, and this is how it went as was related to me in meaning, not in exact

words:

The judge: what is your opinion of what Dr Hakem calls for in his books?

The scholar: Dr Hakem exceeded in the issue of the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided

Khulafaa’, even though they are merely ijtihaads which may have been suitable for

their time but are unsuitable for ours, and no one has claimed the authority of these

ijtihads!

The judge: it seems as though you have not read his books.

The scholar: I read parts of them.

The judge: what is meant by the Sunnah of the Khulafaa’, as I understand it and as

in the Hadith “Follow my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Khulafaa’,” is

the fundamentals upon which the Islamic political system is built, which were agreed

upon by consensus among the Khulafaa’ and which are proven by evidences from

the Qur’an and the Sunnah, such as the Khilafah, the unity of the Ummah, the right

of the Ummah to elect its governing body by means of contentment and consultation

(Shura), etc... what is not meant is their secondary ijtihads. Otherwise, what would

be inclined to say is the fundamental that we can agree upon as the foundation of

the Islamic political system, without which the system would no longer be considered

an Islamic system?

The scholar: that Islam came with general principles and left the door open to each

time and place, and that there is no specific system!

The judge: so then what Dr Hakem has said is true: that we do not have a specific

Political Aqeedah and therefore recognise as legitimate all manner and form of

different ruling governments.

The scholar: there is no Islamic movement in the whole world that recognises the

existing ruling governments as legitimate, as the Dr claims!

The judge: what would you call their active participation in these governments and

their recognition of their legitimacy, as well as their stigmatisation of anyone who

goes against these governments as ‘Khawarij’? Is that not conceding a degree of

legitimacy to these governments? And then do you not consider as apostasy(Riddah) and Kufr the entry into an alliance and coalition with the occupation and



the Shari’ah and that the mind has no authority whatsoever! This was in response to

the Mu’tazilah, who said that the mind is capable of distinguishing what is beautiful

and what is ugly, and therefore there is no excuse for those who disbelieved in Allah

because monotheism is obligatory by necessity of logic!

Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah responded to both groups that both their claims wereunheard of among the Salaf of the Ummah and that such claims are naught but

innovation, since the mind is the condition for accountability, and if minds were

incapable of discerning the beauty of what was brought forth by the Shari’ah they

would not have believed in it, so if it is claimed that minds cannot comprehend other

than what the Shari’ah has deemed beautiful, one ends up with a circular fallacy; a

logical impossibility unacceptable to our minds!

Sheikh al-Islam established that the correct answer, as evidenced by the Qur’an, is

that minds can distinguish beauty from ugliness by means of instinct and Fitrah, and

therefore the Qur’an chastises the Mushrikoon for their suspension of their mental

faculties: “Have ye no understanding?” however, there is no reward and nopunishment before the Shari’ah has been sent: “nor would We send Our Wrath until

We had sent an apostle (to give warning).”

From here, we understand the gravity of the error, both in Fatwa and in legal ruling,

of those who would concede the Ash’arite maxim, as the beautiful can become ugly,

and the ugly beautiful, by laying claim that this is the judgement and ruling of the

Shari’ah, so Human Instinct and Fitrah is reversed and the mind suffers a relapse as

it renounces its own light, and all in the name of the Deen!

The human is civil and social by his very nature, loving for others to treat him the

way he would treat them, as in the Prophetic Hadith, and this is an objective gauge,and as in the other Hadith in which a man asks permission from the Prophet (may

Allah’s Peace and Blessings be upon him) to partake in Zina, so the Prophet (may

Allah’s Peace and Blessings be upon him) replies: “Would you accept this for your

daughter?” He replies: no! So he asks: “Would you accept it for your mother?” He

replies: no! So he says: “Similarly, people do not accept it for their daughters or their

mothers.”

In the same manner that the human is civil and social by his very nature, instinct

and Fitrah, he is also political by his very nature and his Fitrah, for he loves justice

and sees it as something beautiful and he despises injustice and sees it as

something ugly; similarly, he sees freedom as beautiful and servitude andenslavement as something ugly, etc.

It is in this context that the authentic Hadith is narrated: “The best of your leaders

are those whom you love and who love you, and whom you pray for and who pray for

you; and the wickedest of your leaders are those whom you despise and who despise

you, and whom you curse and who curse you.”

This is a clear evidence that the collective mind and the collective sentiment is in

agreement on its political judgement of the ruling authority, and is in possession of

an objective gauge with which to measure this authority’s behaviour, because the

human by his very nature, instinct and Fitrah is capable of discerning the rulingauthority’s justice and injustice, and its beneficence from its wickedness. Therefore,



the praise and condemnation in the Hadith was aimed at the leaders, not the public,

because the general judgement of the public is correct: those whom they love and

whom they pray for are among the righteous, and those whom they despise and

curse is among the wicked; the Ummah is not implicated in any of this as it is the

judge and the referee of the rulers, and not the opposite!

This is confirmed by another Hadith: “Sin is what you keep in your chest and you fear

others to look upon.” This contains evidence that people possess a gauge with which

to distinguish and discern righteous deeds from sin and good from evil!

If this is indeed the case and the human, by virtue of his natural Human Instinct and

Fitrah, is able to recognise good and evil and beauty and ugliness, then he is not

removed from this instinctual state of natural Fitrah unless he undergoes a

fundamental change by means of a mutated and deformed religious

conceptualisation or a breaking down of his moral fibre, which would cause the

human to deviate from his natural state, as in the authentic Hadith Qudsi: “I created

My servants Hunafaa’ (monotheists), then the Devils led them astray.” This includesdevils from among the Jinn and those from among humans and their Taghuts, as

Allah says in the Qur’an: “Of those who reject faith the patrons are the Taghut: from

light they will lead them forth into the depths of darkness.”

If the natural human by his very instinct and human Fitrah rejects anyone’s

transgression against his person, his wealth, his honour, his land, or his nation, and

finds some cause that pushes him to fight and defend his rights, and similarly he

finds natural cause to reject the injustice and oppression of the state, then only if he

undergoes a doctrinal religious transformation which beautifies bowing down to

injustice and oppression and shames the defence of land and honour does he

undergo a relapse and reversal where what is ugly seems in his eyes to be beautiful,such as the belief that Allah has ordained and willed this injustice and oppression

and that it is not up to him to refuse what Allah has willed and ordained!

Or he believes that this is a punishment from Allah because of his own inequity and

the injustice of his people and that he must accept this as Allah’s purification of

them!

Or he believes that Allah did not create them to die for their land and their borders

or for the Dunya and its ornaments, but rather he created them to worship him as

One!

Or he believes that it is forbidden for him to fight, because it may cause Fitnah and

strife and innocents may die as a result of the actions of the resistance and therefore

they must desist from fighting!

Or he believes that fighting and resistance is forbidden in the absence of the

legitimate Khaleefah in the Ummah or until the Mahdi arrives, etc!

Or he believes that the invading and occupying enemy entered his land under a

contract that carries the potential of reasonable doubt to be mistaken for an

Islamically legitimate contract, under permission from the ruling governments, and

therefore their presence possesses a sanctity that prevents one from resisting it!

Or he believes that the governments which fall under the enemy’s hegemony and



influence possess legitimate authority and that resistance is forbidden without their

permission!

All of these doctrines and others lead those believing in them to bow down to the

foreign occupation and the internal tyranny and injustice, nay it leads him to accept

and coexist with this reality which is rejected by healthy instincts and Fitrahs and bylevel minds, even if they belong to idolatrous polytheists!

When such a person is subjected to the injustice and tyranny of an oppressive

regime, he may deem it righteous to refrain from resisting it as a worship with which

to get closer to Allah, as though he believes that his rejection of injustice removes

him from the circle of the Believers or of the Deen or of the Firqatul Naajiyah (the

group saved from Hellfire)!

And he may imagine that it is forbidden for him to even despise the unjust ruler, so

he deems it righteous to love him, praise him and pray for him; he thereby exits the

natural and balanced Human Instinct (Fitrah), which despises by its very nature

whoever would deal it injustice or would transgress against it!

He may reach a state in which he loathes everyone who despises the tyrant; nay, in

which he would also incite to kill and fight whomever despises the tyrant!

All this deviance from the natural Human Instinct (Fitrah) due to deviance in

understanding the Deen!

It is because of this that all nations, despite their differences in Deen, resist by virtue

of their natural Fitrah and reject by virtue of their Human Instinct what Muslims

today accept in the name of the Deen!

And everything considered to be an ethical crime by idolatrous and irreligious

nations is considered by Muslims now to be something permissible! Be it treachery,

allying oneself with the occupying enemy, consuming the wealth of nations claiming

that they are in fact princely gifts (obtained thus with no supervision and no

questioning), or the imprisonment of tens of thousands without charge or accusation,

and all other manner of such crimes!

All these matters have become acceptable and justified in the name of the Deen for

many Muslims, while to the Kuffar they remain ethical crimes in the name of and

reason and instinct! What other nations reject by virtue of their instinct and reason,

many Muslims may justify with the claim that it is what the Deen commands!

It is because of this that the Prophetic Hadiths have informed us that there will come

a time when what is good will become evil and what is evil will become good!

The Sahabah (may Allah be pleased with them) used to recognise as beautiful and

admirable by means of pure instinct and sound reason what the later generations

have failed to realise thanks to their grotesque transfigurement in the name of the

Deen and the Sunnah, as shown in the authentic Hadith about the Romans and 'Amr

ibn al-'As' speech about their traits: "...and the fifth trait is admirable and beautiful:

they are the most resistant to the injustice of kings!"

Similarly, if the human is subjected to disfigured imaginings and mental illusions, he



might suffer banishment from his state of natural political and social instinct, as in

when he imagines that surrendering to the occupying enemy and cooperating with

them is what is dictated by 'the nature of politics' and 'the necessity of good

judgement'! And he believes that those who resist the occupier are doing more harm

than good! And he comes under the illusion that good judgement necessitates

'benefitting from' the occupation so that the Ummah may strengthen and rise!

Thus, what is considered treason and treachery by all nations on earth is considered

by Muslims, their Islamic movements, their Islamic preachers and their Islamic

scholars, all but those few whom Allah has protected, to be 'politics'! And all this for

nothing but for the prevalence of this obsessive madness and political insanity that

has been practiced by them for over a hundred years, under the claim of the

Ummah's weakness and inability to face its enemy, despite the fact that their

countries have obtained the nuclear bomb, as in Pakistan; are producing advanced

weapons systems, as in Iran and Turkey; are the wealthiest and most oil- and gas-

rich countries on earth, as in the Gulf states, Lybia, Iraq and Algeria; and in number

they have reached 1.5 billion! Yet despite all this, they remain psychologicallydefeated and plagued by mental doubts, imagining that the Ummah is incapable of

defeating the Western colonialist enemy while they see the weakest Islamic

population in Afghanistan is able on its own to defeat the NATO coalition back by all

its forces and armies, so how would it be if the Ummah stood with them and

supported their Jihad and their resistance that is recognised as legitimate by all

divine Shari’ahs and international charters?!

Even the resistance in Iraq was capable on its own to defeat the occupation armies,

to the extent that the enemy admitted its own defeat in 2007, were it not for the

treachery of the Arabs and non-Arabs in their effort to lay siege to the resistance and

were it not for the religious Fatwas of the Muftis who suffer from Fitnah and the

political absurdities of the obsessed politicians, all of which were harsher on the

resistance than the occupying armies!

The Ummah was not betrayed by inadequacy in numbers or arms, but rather it was

betrayed by the corruption of its governments and the treachery of its scholars and

politicians, as was reported in the Hadith: “The nations will gather against you the

way the hungry gather around their meal.” They asked: “Oh messenger of Allah, will

we be few in that day?” he said: “no, you will be many, but you will be scum like the

scum of the river, and Allah will snatch the fear from the hearts of your enemies and

throw into your hearts al-Wahn: the love of life and the hatred of death”!

The Political Instinct of many Muslims has been corrupted – I do not mean their

general public, most of whom are sounder in mind and purer in soul, but rather their

elites who have joined with their governments in appropriating the Ummah’s wealth

and selling it for the most meagre and miserable of prices! This was before the

corruption of the Political Aqeedah, which rendered many Islamic political

movements, as is the case with many of the Ummah’s scholars and preachers, a

heavy load and a dangerous evil on the Ummah, its Deen and its freedom and

independence, after ‘gaining the West’s acceptance and pleasure’ has turned into a

purpose to which the movement strives, while Allah says: “They will continue to fight

you until they turn you away from your Deen if they can,” whereas the insanely

obsessed and those suffering from the whispers of the Devil talk of the necessity to



establish Islam’s innocence from the charge of terrorism and the incumbency of

civilisational interaction and building bridges with the colonialist West before its

armies, which continue to demolish the villages of Afghanistan over the heads of its

women and children, depart; and before they exit Iraq, a fifth of whose population

has been killed, maimed or become refugees thanks to the transgression of the

Crusader armies; and before the liberation of Palestine, whose population has beensuffering the most horrendous of torture with active American and European support

for the past sixty years!

The extent to which many Islamic political movements have come to be considered a

bad omen for the Ummah was succinctly expressed by the gracious sheikh

Muhammad Qutb when he asked one of the leaders of the Islamic movement after a

meeting: “have you discussed the condition of the Ummah?”

The Islamic leader said: “No!”

So, sheikh Muhammad Qutb replied: “So then the Ummah is fine!” 1

1 Whilst being weary of attempting to state the obvious, I would like to highlight the doublemeaning of Qutb’s comment for fear that it may have been lost in translation: on the despairing

absurdist front, the Ummah remains fine so long as the movement’s leaders do NOT discuss itscondition; on the sarcastic front, the Ummah is obviously doing absolutely fine, so there is no needwhatsoever for the movement’s leaders to discuss its condition!

political instinct (fitrah) and religious deviations

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