3 July 2013
‘It may be that the leading characteristic of barbarism is not violence or insecurity but historical amnesia, the imprisonment of mankind’s ancient self within a two-dimensional present, the invention of a world without legacy and without foresight…To forget our history is not to be free, but to be mad. Far from making us free, presentism would make us unable to act, for what we did would be meaningless.’
This written by the profound historian, Jonathan Clarke.
As Muslims today we exist with two forgotten histories – the history of the age of the political class (1789 to 2008) collapsing before the new age of oligarchic numbers wealth, and a second history, that of our Muslim heritage. Right away let me insist that not one activist, terrorist or salafist knows a single vital factor of the Deen of Islam. The ‘Aqida is shattered. The taken Zakat (Amir, Collectors, Jama’at which pays, Bait al-Maal) is abolished, and Muslim women have been simply negated in black shrouds. The ‘amal of the great Sahaba, the generosity, the hospitality, the preference of their own trial to that of their brother. Preference, the core of Futuwwah means that the suicide bomber would be prevented and his place taken by the bomb-planner!
In place of Amirs we have unelected and unaccepted hidden leaders, cowards inciting others to violence, exact replicas of the hashishiyyin of the Middle Ages.
In Egypt there is the abysmal spectacle of men voted majority power and unable even to yield political power in the capitalist state. Why? Because universal franchise produces monkeys. Because the capitalist state functions on obedience to the capitalist medium of exchange (numbers and papers) as well as its institutions (banks and stock exchanges), and corporate structures.
Let us take just one financial and foundational fact of an Islamic ethos.
Here is ibn Khaldun – unread by Mursi, Mulla ‘Umar and Boko Haram! From the Muqaddima : (2.18)
“According to the Sahih, the Messenger of Allah hated taxes. When he was asked why, one day he replied: ‘A man who has submitted to taxes lies when he speaks, and does not keep his word when he makes promises.’ If a people are degraded by the payment of taxes there is no hope that they will one day have power.”
The individual’s not paying taxes will change nothing. Taxation is the foundational mechanism of the tyrannical state. The core affair is fiduciary. As in Egypt. The High Command of the military own one third of the wealth of the country. The Ikhwan rejected the Madh-habs and with them went the ‘amal. Based on Reda and Abdu they had submitted to deviant followers of bankism. Without ‘Aqida they cannot arrive at the recognition that Islam is a dual Shahada with a dual contract – ‘Ibada to Allah and just exchange in trade without a shadow of usury.
The New Age is approaching. It is time to worship Allah as commanded by Him, and to deal with our fellow men, as Allah’s blessings and peace on him commanded, person to person and without usury.
