...............continued from part 18
Politics Throughout the History of Islam
Fitrah
A baby, when born, is in the state of purity. This condition is known as fitrah. It is only when he or she grows up will values, norms views and other facets of socialization are acquired. This set of acquired qualities may not always be in conformity with the human fitrah. For example, cleanliness is a human fitrah, but acquired habits may just indulge a man otherwise. When Allah sent injuctions and commands to all human beings, they are all in conformity with the human fitrah, but acquired qualities of human beings would find such revealed injuctions to be in contradiction and at times antagonistic to the qualities they had cquired.
The presence of taqwa in a Muslim would tame and subdue such deviations from the fitrah, and as a result, compliance to the injuctions is willfully carried out. For those without iman and without taqwa, the deviation from the fitrah would result in non-compliance to the injuctions and commands of Allah. Power is needed to effect compliance to Allah's injuctions and commands.
Power
Deutsch (op.cit. pp.27) defines power as the ability to alter changes already underway that would continue without the intervention. Allah's injuctions are certainly corrective measures to recourse human deviations to the guided path, or AsShiraat Al Mustaqim
الصِّرَاطَالمُستَقِيمَ
Guide us to the Straight Path (1:6)
But again, man is given the liberty of choice; no one can force anybody to embrace Islam:
لاَإِكْرَاهَفِيالدِّينِ
Let there be no compulsion in religion (2:256)
On the other hand, if a person has embraced Islam, his or her compliance to the injuctions of Islam is mandatory and compulsory. Power is needed to police the compliance, because a non-compliance ia a mungkar (reprehensible), because the Qur'an commands
وَلْتَكُنمِّنكُمْأُمَّةٌيَدْعُونَإِلَىالْخَيْرِوَيَأْمُرُونَبِالْمَعْرُوفِوَيَنْهَوْنَعَنِالْمُنكَرِوَأُوْلَئِكَهُمُالْمُفْلِحُونَ
Let there arise out of you
A band of people
Inviting to all that is good
And forbidding what is wrong:
They are the ones
To attain felicity (3:104)
This verse explicitly calls for Muslims to attain power in order to uphold the injuctions therein. Therefore power is an important ingredient of the deen of Islam.
Power is also needed to safeguard Islam. The ten years of tenure of the first Islamic state of Medina saw numerous attempts to ravage Islam to extinction, and without the posession of power, there could be time when, as Muhammad s.a.w. supplicated to Allah against its fruiting during the Battle of Badr, no one to worship Allah.
Attacks on Islam had been numerous and incessant. The Salman Rushdie insult and insinuation of Islam stands as one of the more painful attacks of recent years, and the fatwa by Khomeini on this matter will stand out until the Last Day. Power, in this case, safeguarded Islam. But the attacks on Islam continue to this day, such as the publication of caricatures of the Prophet s.a.w., the release of the video clip called fitna by a Danish politician and so on and so on. Muslims throughout the world protested and demonstrated against such atacks, but lack of power among the Muslim masses seem to land the protests without a bite.
...............to be continued
