Movement Islamists addressed Muslim peoples with the slogan “Islam is the solution.” The Tunisian would-be philosopher Abu Yarub al-Marzouki has now presented a broader, grander slogan: “Political Islam represents humanity’s future,” making it the title of a recent article. Al-Marzouki undoubtedly understands more deeply than those promoting the first slogan. They generally did not know the reality of what they said, while those deceived by them, gripped by despair and frustration, found in it a thread of hope for a better material life. Al-Marzouki, however, understands and intends his words. My purpose is to uncover his meaning and explain its contradiction of Islam and deviation in understanding it.
Al-Marzouki wrote: “Political Islam, which represents the future of humanity, not Muslims alone, is what the Qur’an defined by assigning the human being two functions, both absent from these regimes:
– A strategy for fulfilling the conditions of developing the earth: work based on knowledge.
– A strategy for fulfilling the conditions of succession upon it: work based on ethics.”
He also wrote: “The political Islam of which I speak, representing humanity’s future, is the Noble Qur’an’s two revolutions, obscured by the distortion of the religious community’s sciences and history. These are the two maladies I have tried to diagnose by explaining their causes, completing what the Arab critical school’s figures began. Political Islam is fulfilling the conditions for unifying humanity through the Noble Qur’an’s values: making governance of the visible world subject to the values of governance of the unseen world, as manifested in the natural and historical world’s order when read through the principles of the first verse of al-Nisa and the thirteenth verse of al-Hujurat.”
I say: These are his principal statements revealing his belief and understanding of Islam’s message. His discussion of the Ennahda party and Tunisia’s circumstances lies outside my concern. I seek only to explain his actual philosophical meaning, then weigh it against divine revelation.
Creation’s purpose in the religion of philosophers, generally all of them, goes no further than achieving worldly happiness, whether understood as knowledge, utility, interest, pleasure, or material or spiritual happiness. Its highest embodiment is the ideal city, the ultimate end of human existence. Thus those of them affiliated with Islam rejected the Qur’an’s explicit bodily resurrection, affirming only the resurrection of souls. They regarded this as sufficient fruit of the happiness or misery for which souls worked in and for this world, its effect continuing upon them after their return!
Movement Islamists revived this creed after shedding its atheistic dimension, reformulating it into what Wahid al-Din Khan and Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi called the theory of the political interpretation of Islam. Al-Marzouki’s saturation in this theory is unsurprising: he is deeply connected to ancient philosophy, philosophy affiliated with Islam, and modern Western philosophy. Their central idea is precisely the worldly happiness and ideal city just described. He read the Qur’anic message through this integrated philosophical theory, interpreting it to suit the ‘ideal city’, and claimed that the Qur’an defined political Islam by assigning humans two functions: developing the earth and achieving succession upon it.
Like other would-be philosophers and Islamist thinkers, al-Marzouki knows well that this has no basis in God’s religion and is merely a sweeping false claim. He therefore immediately claimed religion had been lost and the community was ignorant: “The Noble Qur’an’s two revolutions, obscured by the distortion of the religious community’s sciences and history.” According to him, then, development and succession are the Qur’an’s two revolutions, lost and concealed through distortion of religious sciences and history! Finally, would-be philosophers, journalists, and intellectuals arrived to correct Islam’s course, uncover Qur’anic realities, and guide Muslims to the concealed, lost, forgotten straight path!
Al-Marzouki announces that political Islam will fulfil “the conditions for unifying humanity through the Noble Qur’an’s values: making governance of the visible world subject to the values of governance of the unseen world, as manifested in the natural and historical world’s order when read through the principles of the first verse of al-Nisa and the thirteenth verse of al-Hujurat.”
The al-Nisa verse says: {People, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul, created its mate from it, and spread from them many men and women. Fear God, in whose name you ask one another, and respect family ties. God is ever watching over you (1)}. The al-Hujurat verse says: {People, We created you from a male and female and made you peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. The most honoured of you before God is the most God-fearing. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware (13)}.
Anyone reading these verses with understanding, reflection, and devotion knows they provide no indication of ‘unifying humanity through Qur’anic values’. They explicitly invite humanity to single out the Creator through sincere worship and fear of Him, submitting to His religion, obeying His command, and following His law, as detailed in many verses, including:
{People, worship your Lord who created you and those before you, so that you may become God-fearing (21)} [al-Baqarah].
{People, the Messenger has come to you with truth from your Lord. Believe; it is better for you. If you disbelieve, to God belongs whatever is in the heavens and earth. God is All-Knowing, Wise (170)} [al-Nisa].
{People, fear your Lord and fear a day when no parent can avail his child, nor any child avail his parent. God’s promise is true. Let worldly life not deceive you, nor the deceiver deceive you about God (33)} [Luqman].
{Say: People of the Book, come to a common word between us and you: that we worship none but God, associate nothing with Him, and do not take one another as lords besides God. If they turn away, say: Bear witness that we are Muslims (64)} [Al Imran].
These two verses and the others therefore establish separation and distinction among people: Muslims and unbelievers, the guided and misguided, the God-fearing and wicked. {There is no compulsion in religion. Right guidance is clear from error. Whoever rejects false gods and believes in God has grasped the firmest, unbreakable handhold. God is All-Hearing, All-Knowing (256)}.
The philosophical creed al-Marzouki clothes in Islam and calls the Qur’an’s revolution radically contradicts the creed of God’s messengers. I will indicate only several comprehensive principles:
1. It contradicts the purpose for which God created creation, sent messengers, revealed books, and commanded worship and laws.
Concerning creation’s purpose, God says: {I created jinn and humans only to worship Me (56)} [al-Dhariyat].
Concerning the Book’s revelation: {Alif Lam Ra. A Book whose verses are perfected and then explained by One Wise and All-Aware (1), that you worship none but God. I am a warner and bearer of good news to you from Him (2)} [Hud].
Concerning religious obligation: {They were commanded only to worship God, devoting religion sincerely to Him as upright believers, establish prayer, and give zakat; that is the upright religion (5)} [al-Bayyinah].
In the famous authentic hadith, Gabriel asked the Messenger about Islam, faith, and excellence. His answer mentioned only Islam’s pillars, faith’s foundations, and the reality of excellence through fearing and remaining aware of God. He mentioned neither development nor succession. This is also necessarily and conclusively known from the many multiply transmitted hadiths describing his call to God and teaching people His religion and law.
2. It contradicts the messengers’ call to their peoples. All commanded their peoples to fulfil creation’s purpose, affirming God’s oneness, worshipping and obeying Him, not development or succession.
Through general and specific evidence, God explains that all messengers shared one call: realising “There is no deity but God.” Speaking generally, He says: {We sent no messenger before you without revealing to him: There is no deity but Me, so worship Me} [al-Anbiya: 25]; {We sent a messenger to every nation: Worship God and avoid false gods} [al-Nahl: 36]; and {Ask the messengers We sent before you whether We appointed deities to be worshipped besides the Most Merciful} [al-Zukhruf: 45], among other verses. Naming Noah, Hud, Salih, and Shuayb specifically, He relates that all told their peoples: {My people, worship God; you have no deity other than Him}.
3. It contradicts the Qur’an’s account of worldly life and the human function within it. Numerous verses describe this abode as one of trial, examination, and testing. Its inhabitants are tested through the self, desires, Satan, faults, and calamities. Working for it, competing in it, and exaggerating its development and service are blameworthy in God’s judgement. Muslims must regard it as means and causes, not purposes and ends.
God says: {Worldly life resembles water We send from heaven, mingling with earth’s vegetation eaten by people and livestock, until the earth takes on its adornment and beauty and its inhabitants think they have power over it. Our command then comes by night or day, and We make it harvested, as though it had never flourished yesterday. Thus We explain the signs for people who reflect (24)} [Yunus].
He says: {Present to them worldly life’s example: water We send from heaven mingles with earth’s vegetation, then becomes dry fragments scattered by winds. God has power over everything (45). Wealth and children adorn worldly life, but enduring righteous deeds are better with your Lord in reward and hope (46)} [al-Kahf].
He says: {Know that worldly life is play, diversion, adornment, mutual boasting, and rivalry in wealth and children. It resembles rain whose growth delights cultivators, then dries and turns yellow, then becomes debris. In the Hereafter there is severe punishment, and forgiveness and pleasure from God. Worldly life is only deceptive enjoyment (20)} [al-Hadid].
He says: {People’s love of desires is adorned for them: women, sons, accumulated heaps of gold and silver, fine horses, livestock, and cultivated land. That is worldly enjoyment; with God is the finest return (14)} [Al Imran].
He says: {People, God’s promise is true. Let worldly life not deceive you, nor the deceiver deceive you about God (5)} [Fatir].
He says: {Rivalry in abundance distracts you until you visit the graves. No, you will know; again, no, you will know. No, if only you knew with certain knowledge! You will surely see the blazing Fire (6), then see it with the eye of certainty (7), then that day you will be questioned about enjoyment (8)} [al-Takathur].
He says: {This worldly life is only diversion and play. The abode of the Hereafter is truly life, if only they knew (64)} [al-Ankabut].
He says: {Whoever desires worldly life and its adornment, We fully repay their deeds in it, and they are not shortchanged (15). Those have nothing in the Hereafter but the Fire. What they accomplished there is nullified, and their deeds are invalid (16)} [Hud].
He says: {Whoever desires the immediate life, We hasten for him in it whatever We will, for whomever We intend. Then We appoint Hell for him, which he enters condemned and banished (18). Whoever desires the Hereafter and strives for it with its proper striving while a believer, their striving is appreciated (19). We extend to each, these and those, from your Lord’s gift; your Lord’s gift is not withheld (20). See how We favour some above others, but the Hereafter is greater in degrees and distinction (21). Do not set up another deity alongside God, lest you sit condemned and forsaken (22)} [al-Isra].
He says: {Whoever desires the Hereafter’s harvest, We increase his harvest. Whoever desires this world’s harvest, We give him some of it, but he has no share in the Hereafter (20)} [al-Shura].
He says: {Do not let their wealth or children impress you. God intends only to punish them through these in worldly life and that their souls depart while unbelievers (55)} [al-Tawbah].
He says: {Worldly life is only play and diversion; the Hereafter’s abode is better for those who fear God. Will you not understand? (32)} [al-Anam].
Verses expressing these meanings are very numerous. Authentic hadiths condemning this world and its seekers, encouraging detachment, and warning of its temptation are beyond enumeration. Scholars have compiled many books on them, well known among Muslims.
The point is that philosophers’ creed concerning creation’s purpose and human existence’s wisdom wholly contradicts Islam’s creed. Movement Islamists reformulated it into a deceptive new mould. Those closer to philosophy present the idea more explicitly and stand further from the Qur’an’s and prophethood’s methodology.
The greatest danger of the political interpretation of religion is undoubtedly its distortion of Islam’s foundations and the Qur’an’s objectives, sufficient corruption and harm in itself. It also distorts Islamic preaching and deceives its audiences, Muslim and otherwise. This distortion is among the greatest causes of aversion to Islam and sound devotion, and of atheism’s emergence. How many weak Muslims became atheists after the revolutions of Arab devastation, discovering that ‘Islam is the solution’ was a great lie, enormous deception, and cunning political trick! They should have returned to the Qur’an and Sunnah to learn that this slogan has no Islamic basis, in wording or meaning.
When al-Marzouki now says, “Political Islam represents humanity’s future,” he invites atheism even if unintentionally. Sensible people know that ‘humanity’s’ problems, stated so generally and absolutely, are not solved by Islam, devotional or political. Islam is a religion guiding those who believe and practise its rulings to happiness in this world and the Hereafter. Socially and humanly, guidance, justice, and improved circumstances occur insofar as true religion, in creed and law, is established in a particular time and place, as under the Prophetic state, rightly guided caliphate, and some righteous kings. As for ‘humanity’s future’, from its first day the Noble Qur’an declared that evil, corruption, aversion to truth, and hostility towards its adherents predominate in humanity’s reality:
{If you obey most of those on earth, they will lead you away from God’s path. They follow only conjecture and merely guess (116)} [al-Anam].
{But most people are not grateful (243)} [al-Baqarah]; {But most people do not believe (17)} [Hud].
{Most people will not believe, however eager you are (103)} [Yusuf].
{We sent you only to all humanity as bearer of good news and warner, but most people do not know (28)} [Saba].
The Qur’an also declares this abode one of trial, examination, and purification. People are tested through one another by God’s differing grants of knowledge, deeds, strength, authority, wealth, and standing; by the injustice, aggression, and corruption some inflict upon others; and by the illnesses, pains, sufferings, deficiencies, and afflictions placed within it. All are His trial and examination:
{Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion, who has power over everything (1), who created death and life to test which of you is best in deeds. He is the Almighty, the Forgiving (2)} [Tabarak].
{He made you successors on earth and raised some above others in degrees to test you through what He gave you. Your Lord is swift in punishment and indeed Forgiving, Merciful (165)} [al-Anam].
{We made some of you a trial for others. Will you be patient?} [al-Furqan: 20].
{Had God willed, He would have taken vengeance upon them, but He tests some of you through others} [Muhammad: 4].
{God favoured some of you above others in provision. Those favoured will not hand their provision to those their right hands possess so they become equal in it. Do they then deny God’s favour? (71)} [al-Nahl].
The Qur’an is innocent of the false, wicked claim al-Marzouki attributes to it and its message. This exalted Book is above having as its message a call to developing the earth and succession upon it. Every noble verse strongly refutes this claim and explains explicitly and conclusively that the Qur’an’s message is exclusively inviting all people to worship God alone without partner, follow His Messenger, obey His law, seek His pleasure, and strive for salvation in eternal life hereafter.
God says: {People of the Book, Our Messenger has come to clarify much of what you concealed of the Book and overlook much. A light and clear Book have come to you from God (15). Through it God guides those pursuing His pleasure to paths of peace, brings them from darkness to light by His permission, and guides them to a straight path (16)} [al-Maidah].
At the beginning of Ibrahim He says: {Alif Lam Ra. A Book We revealed to you to bring people from darkness to light, by their Lord’s permission, to the path of the Almighty, the Praiseworthy (1), God, to whom belongs everything in the heavens and earth. Woe to unbelievers from severe punishment (2), those preferring worldly life to the Hereafter, barring God’s path and seeking to make it crooked. They are far astray (3). We sent no messenger except speaking his people’s language to explain to them. God lets whom He wills stray and guides whom He wills. He is the Almighty, the Wise (4)}.
He says: {Those We gave the Book rejoice in what has been revealed to you, though some factions deny part of it. Say: I was commanded only to worship God and associate nothing with Him. To Him I call, and to Him is my return (36)} [al-Rad].
He says: {This Qur’an guides to what is most upright and gives good news to believers doing righteous deeds that theirs is a great reward (9), and that We prepared a painful punishment for those not believing in the Hereafter (10)} [al-Isra].
He says: {I was commanded only to worship the Lord of this city, who made it sacred and to whom everything belongs, and to be among Muslims (91), and recite the Qur’an. Whoever is guided is guided for his own good. To whoever strays, say: I am only one of the warners (92)} [al-Naml].
He says: {Those reciting God’s Book, establishing prayer, and spending from Our provision privately and publicly hope for a trade that will never fail (29), so He may fully pay their rewards and increase them from His favour. He is Forgiving, Appreciative (30)} [Fatir].
This is the Qur’an’s clear, explicit message. Woe to anyone speaking falsely about God’s Book, distorting its verses, and through philosophies and desires attributing purposes and objectives indicated neither by its explicit words nor implications, imagining himself guided while plainly astray: {Who is more unjust than one inventing a lie against God or denying His signs? The criminals will not prosper}. This sound understanding of the Qur’an’s message, creation’s wisdom, obligation’s function, and worldly life’s reality does not invite despair, abandoning the command of right and prohibition of wrong, neglecting God’s command and law, or failing to pursue them through lawful means. Muslims individually and collectively are addressed by God’s law and charged with upholding His religion according to their available knowledge, ability, and capacity. They act from servitude to God and obedience to His command, not imagining practical religious rulings explain creation’s purpose according to philosophers and thinkers, or serve to build an ideal city or ‘humanity’s future’. We are addressed by and responsible for the religious legislative command, not the universal decree. God says: {God burdens no soul beyond its capacity. It gains what it earns and bears what it incurs (286)} [al-Baqarah], and: {Those who believe and do righteous deeds, We burden no soul beyond its capacity, are the people of Paradise, remaining there forever (42)} [al-Araf].
Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated from Abdullah ibn Umar that the Messenger said: “Each of you is a shepherd, responsible for his flock. The ruler over people is a shepherd responsible for his flock. A man is a shepherd over his household, responsible for them. A woman is a shepherd over her husband’s home and children, responsible for them. A servant is a shepherd over his master’s property, responsible for it. Each of you is a shepherd, responsible for his flock.”
Muslims therefore perform God’s required acts of obedience, compete in righteous deeds, hasten towards everything benefiting humanity, and establish justice within their knowledge and capacity, doing all this with faith, seeking reward, divine pleasure, and salvation hereafter.
One guided by the Qur’an and Sunnah should wholeheartedly pursue his Lord’s pleasure and good for himself and all people, knowing no path to despair, living in no world of illusions and fantasies, and distracting himself with no theories and philosophies. God’s help is sought and upon Him we rely. His is praise in this world and the Hereafter; He is the Wise, the All-Aware.
Written by Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani.
Leicester: Monday, 20 Safar 1443, corresponding to 27 September 2021.