ISLAMS GIFTS TO THE WORLD [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Islam, Freedom, and Justice

By: Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari

Since all power and authority belongs to God, men in
any office which confers authority must exercise their
delegated power as stewards and ministers of God to men.
Thus tyrants, imperialists, slavedrivers and exploiters
of fellowmen are outlawed. Islam enhances each person's
self-respect: it establishes that true and only equality
open to man - the equality in surrender to God for His
service amongst mankind. Such surrender enables each to
find his place in the whole without faction, partisan
rule or superiority. Each is his own master.

Islam champions and interprets human rights. It
regulates every detail of personal and community life in
equity. It is the trustee and guardian of freedom before
the Lord- Its first and paramount thought is unity. It
excludes no one - though some exclude themselves : it
opposes no one-though some may oppose themselves to it.
it makes no differences - though some may insist on being
different. Muslim calls to Jew who calls to Mage who
calls to Nazarene, saying: .-Why stand apart? Let us join
in our common creed that God is One'.

It is written: (Qur'an: Sura III, Al-i-Imran
-lmran's Family verse 62): Say: O
Peoples of the Heavenly Books! Resort to that word which
is common to us and you, which is that we worship none
save GOD; that we associate no partners with HIM; that we
exalt not from amongst ourselves any lord or patron other
than GOD.

The peoples of today's world yearn for unity, justice
and freedom. They long to be saved from exploitation and
war. They wander lost, like sheep gone astray. Let them
turn to the sunshine of Islam's regulations of life and
living. Under that common sun, all - black, white, red
and yellow-are at one in justice, freedom and equality.
For Islam, true excellence lies, not in the intellectual
or manual attainments of people of differing gifts; but
in the moral attainments of a pure heart. These are
equally open to all whatever their other gifts. As it is
written (Qur'an: Sura XLIX, Hujurat-The
Inner Apartments verse 13): O Mankind: We
created you from a male and a female; and made you into
tribes and nations that you may get to know each other.
and verily, most honoured before God is the most
virtuous.

The Prophet (on Whom be Peace!) explicitly affirmed:
Arab is not more privileged than non-Arab, nor
white than black. Spiritual excellence and true piety is
the only distinction amongst humans recognised by
God.

After the Prophet's victory at Mecca, a proud
self-seeking group of Arabs claimed privilege for their
tongue and race. To them he said: Thanks be to God
that by the sublime doctrines of Islam He has freed you
from the times of ignorance, and stripped off pride,
conceit and power-lust. Know now that in the Courts of
God only two groups exist. The group of the righteous who
are precious in God's eyes : and the group of the sinful
who hang their heads in shame.

A man said to the 8th Imam: There exists no man
on earth with an ancestry more noble than yours. To
him the saint replied: 'Their greatness and honour lay in
their piety and zeal to do God's will. By these
words the Imam rebuked the man who wished to flatter and
aggrandise the Imam's pedigree; and turned his mind to
thoughts of piety. Another said to the Imam: By
God! You're the best man alive. The Imam replied:
No oaths, man! There lives a man who is better
whose piety is greater and obedience to God more
complete. In God it is true that that verse of the Qur'an
has not yet been abrogated which says: 'Most honoured
before God is the most virtuous'.

God's service is perfect freedom. It is neither
restrictive nor limiting. Restrictions diminish a man's
capacities and happiness. But to serve God clothes the
soul in the whole armour of God, protects when evil
attacks, and foils all the fiery darts of the wicked.

True, serving God means obeying His laws. But this
obedience is the free choice of love. And His laws are
those absolute moral standards which formulate the
essence of man's true nature, as his Creator means him to
be at his best.

No man who has bowed his neck beneath the yoke of
money-grubbing or power-seeking can ever enjoy a free
life in a free society. The Imam Ali said: 'Piety
is the key to honesty and purity and to the acquirement
of merit in store against judgment-day. It is freedom
from the chains of every bondage; salvation from the
blows of every adversity. Piety puts a man's aim within
his reach, wards off evil, his soul's foe, and assists
him to attain his heart's desires. (Nahj-ul-Balaghe:
227.)

Remember that he gave this message in an epoch when
violence, oppression, wrong, class wars and racial strife
raged amongst men. Distinctions repugnant to reason, to
virtue and to freedom were rife. The weak and the poor
were bereft of every human right and social safeguard.
With matchless moral courage the pioneer of Islam
outlawed all those differences and conflicts, so
illegitimate, so superstitious and so mistaken. He
replaced them with the command that equality and perfect
equity should be observed for all individuals. He
ordained that, under the auspices of total submission to
the will of God, every sort of reasonable freedom should
be put within the possession of men; in such a way that
the underprivileged classes of society which had never
before had any sort of power to express their desires but
had merely provoked the reaction of violence and
oppression if they dared to protest against the will of
the powerful ruling classes, should now, under the
lifegiving justice of Islamic laws, find the political
and social power they lacked, and shoulder to shoulder
move forward until they had their full and rightful share
in the leadership of their nations.