ATTEMPTING A POLITICAL VISION FOR THE NIGERIAN
MUSLIM COMMUNITY - 2

[ Abstract & Preamble ]    [Our Responsibility ]   [Our Record ]    [Attempting A Vision ]   [ The Process & Conclusion ]  Our Responsibilities as Muslims Learning - The revelation of Allah to the Prophet of Islam started with the simple but profound command to read! This command to read is in the name of a " Lord who taught by the pen". This early reference to Reading, Teaching and the Pen, coming before anything else, indeed before belief and worship itself, conveys in no uncertain terms the position Islam has assigned to knowledge. It could not have come as surprise that the pursuit and the promotion of learning tops the list of the acts of worship. This was what the Prophet of Islam was saying when he said that the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr. In another saying he said whoever started out on the path of learning is actually walking on the path of paradise. Our responsibility both as individuals amid as a community is not only to pursue learning but to promote and develop it, creating an atmosphere where it will flourish and advance.   Justice - When the Most High described the Muslim community as the best evolved for mankind He immediately specified why: "because they command the right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah". (Q3:110) This seemingly short and simple statement is pregnant with so much meaning, the most obvious being the role of the community in the establishment and the maintenance of justice. The Qur’an continued to stress this role in strong and unequivocal terms that leave no one in doubt that the establishment of justice is not only "the nearest to faith" but indeed the measure of faith itself The Prophet of Islam also dwelt on this point. The establishment and promotion of justice thus becomes a cardinal responsibility of Muslims as individuals as well as community. Freedom and Democracy - The validity of one’s Islam is based on a free choice. The Islam of someone who has been coerced or intimidated into declaring is not valid precisely because that freedom of belief and conscience must precede faith. Freedom to choose a faith is absolute in Islam, one must not be compelled, coerced, intimidated or even stampeded. After accepting Islam one is bound by that choice to certain behaviour but he retains the freedom to be consulted on affairs that relate to his socio-economic and political life. The whole Muslim community operates on the basis of consultation, what the Qur’an calls shura. This principle of shura or consultation is the essence of democracy. So the Muslim community was established on democratic principles. It must be quickly pointed out that the present democratic principles developed in the West have not or are yet to measure up to the higher Islamic standards. It may be necessary to substantiate this claim. Democracy today is about consultation, freedom of expression, rule of law and transparency and accountability. Throughout the period of the Khilafa Rashida, no leader was ever imposed on the community, the latter had always arrived at a leader after consultation and ratification through bay’ah. During the reign of Umar b. Khattab, he issued a directive pegging the dowry for women on marriage during the sermons of a Friday prayer but was challenged, there and then, by a woman in the mosque and he conceded that ‘the woman is right and Umar is wrong’. What freedom of expression can supersede this? The same Umar was on a routine inspection of Madina, the seat of the Caliphate, when he smelt alcohol from a house. He knocked at the door and sought permission to enter. Realising it was the head of state himself they refused to open. Umar went round the back of the house and climbed over. He confronted the inmates that he has caught them drinking. They conceded that they were drinking but then said they did one wrong while he Umar did three: spying on them, coming in without permission and coming into a house from behind, quoting the relevant verses of the Qur’an. Umar conceded and left. There is hardly today a matching demonstration of the rule of law. One time Umar was about to climb the nimbar to give the sermon for a Friday prayer, one of his citizens pulled his gown and said he can’t proceed until he explains how he came about the long dress he was wearing. The dress was made out of a cloth which had been distributed as booty and the piece distributed to everybody was not enough to make the long dress that Umar was wearing. Umar only requested if his son Abdullah b. Umar could come forward to explain. His son came and said, knowing his father to be tall, he gave him his own piece so that he could have a sufficiently long dress. Thereafter Umar was free to proceed with the sermon. Such was the level of accountability and transparency in the Khilafa Rashida. We have chosen the example of Umar because he was thought to be the most absolute of the Caliphs. It appears that the government Islam established was too advanced for its own time and perhaps this is precisely why it did not last very long. It was a government of the future. It is only now, nearly one and a half millenium later, that human society is coming round to appreciate these principles. Democracy as developed in the West, still has a lot of catching up to do with the standards established by lslam. Muslims ought to have been the true custodians of democracy, but they are themselves ignorant of their own heritage, and having been under siege, perhaps since their expulsion Spain in 1492, they have lost their self confidence and developed a paranoia, xenophobia and what, for want of a word, one may call ideophobia. Muslims have a responsibility to promote and develop democracy for that was what Islam brought to humanity. Monarchy and dictatorship which dominated the history of Islamic polities was an aberration and was only possible because the world was too primitive to appreciate the values of democracy. This anticipatory aspect of the message of Islam is also demonstrated in many verses in the Qur’an whose meanings became manifest only after the advancement of science has made it possible to see and appreciate their content.