A Morality of Discrimination

In order to understand morality in an Islamic sense one has to accept that Islam is not a concept-based reality located in the minds of the Muslims but rather – in the first instance – a way of life based on that of a Messenger and formulated in legal terms. One of the names of Allah ta’ala is al-Haqq which means ‘Truth’, ‘Reality’ as well as having connotations of ‘Law’ – i.e. He, ta’ala, is the ‘court of the last instance’ with respect to haq/huqouq, all the various rulings with regard to Himself and His slaves on earth; in this respect one may examine the ayat in sura al-Ma’ida, The Table: 48, ‘And We have sent down the Book to you with truth, confirming and conserving the previous Books. So judge between them by what Allah has sent down and do not follow their whims and desires deviating from the Truth that has come to you. We have appointed a law and a practice for every one of you.’ A translation of the famous hadith of Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him ‘I have been commanded to judge by the outward’ is a further indication that our reality is visible, tangible and subject to assessment, unlike the very loose, ever-changing and quasi-mystical reality of the christians. Thus we have justice expressed outwardly in law, and they have concepts expressed inwardly in the intellect. We have clear outward limits and they have indefinite – often idealistic – ideas which have little relation to reality. This is where a danger lies: when Muslims adopt a moral – in a christian sense – attitude to Islam the tendency is to formulate an idealistic, pious, Islamic world in their heads. This of course has little to do with the reality of everyday life and a frustration and ultimately anger forms which leads certain of the weak to blow themselves up. This moralistic approach, this living out of a perfect iman in one’s head is often to be experienced at the hand of the false salafis.

We can witness and we know from the Quran that christianity is not the deen of ‘Isa, ‘alayhi salaam: trace elements of it remain, like charity, humility and compassion, and a vague recognition of the Unseen. Instead we have a ‘religion’, i.e. a ‘faith of concepts’ in the head – but no outward behavioural pattern or rulings governing real life, i.e. trade, contracts and finance. This ‘religion’ is in turn controlled by the church and a priestly class who have made of it a spiritual business: ‘If you take us as your representatives, we shall take care of your concepts.’

Nietzsche understood this with la ilaha illallah, i.e. by his triumphant declaration of the end of the christian god, the idols, the sacrament, the concept of original sin, the tyranny of the church and priests, and his strident refusal to feel guilty about it. In short he purified himself of the superstructure of toxic, christian language and emerged free.

European translations of the Quran and the sunna were first made – and still are to a large extent – using this christian terminology. But it did not correspond to what was meant. Instead of zakat, people were reading of ‘alms’ and ‘poor tax’, instead of wudu, ‘ablution’, instead of salat, ‘prayer’, instead of Allah, ‘god’, instead of hajj ‘pilgrimage’. So the Muslims with no access to the Arabic became imprisoned in the intellectual structure of christianity: they became ‘sinners’ and at times felt ‘guilty’, etc. etc, because this was the only language available to them. The truth is however that there is no ‘sin’. If we commit a wrong action, then we turn in tawba and basta! the matter is finished, the heart is purified – and without any priestly intervention. The Arabs had to invent a word for guilt: shu’our al-dhanb, i.e. a sensation, a consciousness or a perception that one has committed a wrong action, that is, a feeling that lingers and weighs one down. But this is not our deen: at any given moment we can free ourselves, purify ourselves of our past actions.

We are of course instructed in many translations of the Quran to ‘command to the good and forbid evil’ which sounds somewhat moral and christian in tone. But a closer examination of the prophetic language reveals that in fact we are instructed to ‘command to what is ma’rouf, i.e. known [to be socially sane, healthy and just] and forbid what is munkar, i.e. unknown [or unrecognized by sane healthy and just members of society] – as is clear from the non-christian translation of the Bewleys: ‘command to what is right and forbid what is wrong’. We are commanded to the right and wrong of the fitra which corresponds to our natural being, to a balanced way of living rather than mere moral, intellectual concepts. And this commanding or forbidding is not a finger-wagging whine of passive incapacity, but rather – in the first instance – an active involvement in the situation one finds oneself in, an embodiment of the words of the Rasoul sallalah alayhi was salam ‘if you see something wrong then change it with your hand’.

There is then no christian guilt with us – and by extension no collective or personal feelings of guilt. Any such tendency to such things is merely the residue of christian terminology in the language we use. Rid oneself of this terminology and one frees oneself of such feelings or concepts. At the height of its power and glory the Osmanli dawlat expressed itself with up to sixty percent of Islamic terminology and Arabic words ; Urdu is permeated with the same – up to thirty or forty percent, as is Swahili, Malaysian, Hausa, Bahasa Indonesie, Persian, Tamazight etc. Indeed we may judge the degree to which Islam is present in any given territory by the penetration of its language. Europe is in the early stages of such a transformation and as such many Muslims resident here live under the shadow of priestly morality. This is why Nietzsche is required reading for many. He can help to a return to the original meaning of ‘morality’, i.e. a quality of character and behaviour based on healthy discrimination.