Text of the post:
Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali, may God have mercy on him, said:
“Every call that makes poverty attractive to people, makes them content with an inferior standard of living, persuades them to accept humiliation in life, or teaches them patience in accepting deprivation and degradation is an immoral call. Its purpose is to entrench social injustice and exhaust the toiling masses in service to one or several individuals. Before all else, it is a lie against Islam and a fabrication against God.” From Islam Falsely Accused, p. 56.
Comment:
1. These words plainly contradict all the texts encouraging people to have little of this world and to limit the accumulation of its transient possessions, which distract from the hereafter and scatter one’s concerns. The purpose of creating human beings and jinn is that their concern should be the hereafter. This alone invalidates the generalisation, let alone the judgement. Invoking social injustice as a reason is merely an opinion set against revealed texts, carrying no weight according to the scholars’ agreement.
2. Injustice of every kind is rejected and unlawful. How could it be otherwise when God, the Sovereign of all dominion, has forbidden it to Himself? Injustice by His servants is even more deserving of prohibition. But the term “social injustice” is used to mean that the mere existence of classes in society, rich and poor, strong and weak, owners and owned, is unjust to the lower classes, and that everyone must form a single class without differences. This is among the fanciful ideas advocated by Marxist socialism in ignorance of God’s wisdom in creation and testing.
3. The existence of classes in society does not necessarily entail injustice. Injustice is forbidden, as stated, and everyone is commanded to act justly in their own affairs and whatever they govern. God has a wisdom, indeed many wisdoms, in people’s differences, in placing some in service to others and in giving them differing ranks. He says: “Is it they who distribute your Lord’s mercy? We have distributed their livelihood among them in worldly life and raised some above others in rank, so that some may employ others in service. Your Lord’s mercy is better than what they accumulate” (al-Zukhruf 43:32).
Among the most important of these wisdoms are the acts of worship of gratitude and patience. The wealthy worship God by thanking Him for His blessings; the poor worship Him by patiently accepting His decree. Gratitude and patience are both noble acts of worship for whose realisation and manifestation this world and its contents were made a means. In every circumstance, a person must be either patient or grateful. God created creation to worship Him: that is the intended aim and desired end.
4. The idea that “the purpose of creating humanity is to develop and reform the world” has unfortunately infiltrated the thinking of many Islamist intellectuals and figures prominently in many of their writings, particularly those of al-Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb. It originated with philosophers such as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi, unbelievers who do not believe in God and the Last Day and regard religious laws as intended only to reform society and govern people. Islamists adopted this idea from them, although differing from them in the foundations of belief in God and the Last Day. Thus emerged the terms political interpretation and utilitarian interpretation of religion, conflicting with the true interpretation of Islam: servitude to God is the purpose of creating human beings and jinn, while reforming society and developing the world are means sought insofar as they fulfil that purpose. God knows best.
For more, see:
The reality of the doctrine of monotheism according to al-Qaradawi
Succession on earth means developing the earth
People’s positions on the benefit and wisdom of worship