A Mercy Case

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2024 American Political Ijtihād

a mercy case
1–2 minutes

I am an Independent.

This election cycle I have donated to Cornel West, Ilhan Omar, and Abdelnasser Rashid (a Palestinian State Rep. in Illinios).

After watching the DNC on Monday and Thursday, on this day of jumuʿah I am giving some ṣadaqa to Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to continue speaking for her people within the Democratic Party. May al-Qawī continue to give her the strength to walk the lonely road of the stranger in the halls of power, āmīn.

I believe in transparency and accountability in government, and so I try to emulate that in my personal life.

“…Cooperate with one another in goodness and righteousness, and do not cooperate in sin and transgression. And be mindful of Allah…(تَعَاوَنُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلْبِرِّ وَٱلتَّقْوَىٰ ۖ وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلْإِثْمِ وَٱلْعُدْوَٰنِ ۚ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ)”

[Qur’an 5.2]

“The highest form of struggle is to speak a word of truth in front of an unjust ruler (أَفْضَلُ الْجِهَادِ كَلِمَةُ عَدْلٍ عِنْدَ سُلْطَانٍ جَائِرٍ)”

[Prophetic statement narrated in Sunan Abū Dāwūd]

“The attitude of a faithful man to the universe is similar to the attitude of a man living in a country about which he is sure that its systems, laws and formations are just and fair, which those who are at the helm of its affairs are sincere and well-intentioned, and that in it opportunities of making advancement are available to everyone including himself. Such a man will naturally maintain that the only thing which may keep him or anyone else backward, is the lethargy and inexperience of the person concerned, and that he and all others owe a responsibility and are required to do their duty. A faithful man will hold himself responsible for his backwardness and will not blame his country and its administration for that. He believes that if there is anything wrong, which is because he and others like him have failed to discharge their duty properly. This feeling will naturally arouse his sense of self-respect and impel him to move forward hopefully.”

[Murtada Mutahhari, “Man and Universe”]

2 responses to “2024 American Political Ijtihād”

  1. ʿIlmprocess Avatar
    ʿIlmprocess

    Thank you for this

    This reminds me of some remarks by the late S. Fadlallah

    Thus, those who stop thinking and allow one person to impose his thought on them are intellectual slaves. Intellectual freedom would imply that they have to study his thought and either accept it if they are convinced by it or reject it if they are not. We, in our communities, not only in Lebanon, but also all over the Muslim and third worlds, are used to saying that people follow individuals then we say this group is the party of this or that individual but groups should not be named after to people but they should refer to the lines and Messages.

    …

    We are living in a state of freezing the thought. It is not the responsibility of the individual who put forth certain ideas since he did not seek to impose them, but our slavery to the leadership imposed his thought on ours and prevented the advent of any new one.

    This way of dealing with the leadership, whether political, social or religious… those who meant to give us a glimpse of light have led us to complete darkness as their ideas began to belong to a previous stage. Thought is an on-going process that enables us to surpass the thought of any particular thinker just as he surpassed the thought of those before him.

    In the light of this, we notice that even at the level of political thought and agendas of many of the secular and Islamist parties have been frozen, because they consider the ideas they adopt as sacred. That is why these parties were not able to pass that test of time since the thought of the new generations surpassed them.

    …

    We are living in a stage where everybody demands freedom, saying that Lebanon is meaningless without freedom. But tell me which party or political organization gives room for this freedom in its ranks, with the exception of none whatsoever. You are not allowed to criticize a leader or a wrong political stand although such criticism would enrich your party or organization since it gives them a new spirit.

    Our problem in this country, or in other eastern countries, lies in the ability to enslave the citizens whether by telling him that thinking is impressible, as a form of treason that undermines the religion and the nation, or by means of emergency laws and intelligence agencies which prevent the citizens from expressing outwardly what they think about, to the extent that those citizens have grown afraid of being caught in the act of thinking.

    Reply
    1. a mercy case Avatar
      a mercy case

      Thank you for being such a sincere conversation partner.

      Reply

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