by SHEIKH Iyad Abdallah
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to God, and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and all the Prophets, their families, companions, and followers.
Dear audience,
I know that what I am about to say is present in the hearts of all of you, but very rarely do I hear anyone express it openly as I am doing now.
“Security and safety” are the greatest concerns of all nations, authorities, and human activities today. Statistics show that approximately one-third of human production is spent on security in its various forms and institutions, whether military or civil. Yet, terror continues to expand and deepen. All forms of crime persist, wreaking havoc on any peace that humans attempt to establish in any corner of our troubled world.
Why? The answer is simple: The world, for the past century and a half, has been ruled by forces that consider religions to be the primary enemy that must be eradicated. They believe that humanity can create peace and security simply by enacting laws and enforcing them through force upon nations and individuals.
When a dominant individual tells a suppressed person, “I will impose a law on you, and you will obey it, or else I will take revenge on you,” the natural reaction of the suppressed person is to outwardly obey the law as long as the oppressor is watching and strictly enforcing it. But as soon as the oppressor’s grip loosens or weakens, and he is being punished, the suppressed individual will break the law without hesitation, regardless of whether the law is beneficial or crucial for social order. For instance, in a developed country where electricity fails on a certain night, the number of murders, thefts, and robberies skyrockets. The law enforcement agencies retreat to protect their facilities and personnel (leaving the streets vulnerable to crime)!
Similarly, when a politician decides to purge the security apparatus and judicial institutions responsible for persecuting law violators, he will find himself facing a formidable monster. He will discover that these agencies are run by corrupt gangs, whose purpose is to cover up criminal networks that violate laws around the clock, becoming a source of accumulating vast amounts of money. He will also discover that many prohibitions in the laws made by humans for the purpose of protecting their societies, as declared, are nothing more than excuses to convert widely-desired activities into actions that must be practiced in secret. This makes these prohibited activities rare, expensive, and highly profitable. This was seen in the United States when it passed a law banning alcohol trade, unleashing the largest network for smuggling, killing, and bribery to protect the secret alcohol trade, known as “the Mafia,” and this network continues to grow to the extent that it almost controls our world openly.
All of this is because the authorities that oppose religions and govern the world aim, through their laws, wars, and procedures, to permit everything that is forbidden in religions, in the name of human welfare, progress, and advancement. The truth is that those in power target all forms of virtue, chastity, honor, and cooperation for the greater good, merely because religions advocate them and for no other reason. They have been influenced by false beliefs propagated by followers of the French tyrant Robespierre, who wrongly attributed religions as the cause behind humanity’s lack of progress in discovering germs, sanitation, advanced medicine, and that the Earth was round. This was the reason why he declared that Christianity was no more the identity of France!
When humans believe that laws are man-made, they perceive them as a means of oppression and submission of the weak by the strong. They will have no respect for these laws in the heart and will wait for an opportunity to defy them. They will strive to break these laws whenever possible. That is why today we find that all humans, whether they be rulers or ruled, violate the prohibitions of the laws they write with their own hands, every single moment, without any remorse or regret.
In contrast, during the centuries when humans were guided by the teachings the religious leaders, crime was infrequent, rare, and almost negligible. In my country, for example, bribery was considered a shameful act that only the morally corrupted would engage in. Both the giver and receiver of bribes were frowned upon because people believed that bribery was forbidden in their religion, and that God would punish those involved in it on the Day of Judgment; even the smallest moment of God’s punishment would make them forget all the worldly pleasures they had enjoyed. Apply that to all other crimes.
When people find that adultery was once considered a crime and prohibited, but later became permissible, and the law now punishes those who prevent its commission, they will view all crimes as mere violations of the law. The law will be seen as a means of oppression, leading to a path where all prohibitions will eventually become permissible: from bribery, adultery, deception, to armed robbery, murder, genocide, organ trafficking, kidnapping, and even cannibalism. The situation will progress until the state allows people to kill each other in the streets under the pretext of curbing theft, as seen today in some South American countries.
Crime has now overwhelmed our lives to the extent that all world literature revolves around crime and criminals in various forms, and the escalation is terrifying.
Faith is what makes a human being civilized, refraining from deception, from violating the rights of others, and harming oneself or others. Faith prevents women from committing adultery, aborting their fetuses, and abandoning their infants in garbage cans or on the streets, escaping from the responsibilities of motherhood. Faith prevents a man from raping a woman and then killing her to conceal his crime. Faith prevents a mother from killing her son and her husband for her lover. Faith prevents a police officer or a judge from being mere watchdogs for crime networks while enforcing the law harshly and brutally on innocent people, breaking their necks during arrests.
Faith is based on the belief that a human is a soul breathed into a body, which feels pain and happiness and will be held accountable for its actions in its short, yet lengthy journey on Earth. Faith is the most powerful authority, the fairest judge, and the most effective security system that monitors all humans and prevents crimes before they occur. This is unlike the current security forces, which come to impose a noose around the corpse of the victim, scare his/her relatives with investigations after the murder, show strength once the criminal leaves the crime scene untouched, and then record the case against an unknown perpetrator.
One night, the Muslim caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, passed by a narrow street in Medina and leaned his back against a wall. He overheard a woman telling her daughter to mix milk with water to sell it the next day. The daughter reminded her mother of Umar’s prohibition against such mixing, which he had announced during his Friday sermon. The mother replied, “Where is Umar now to see us?” The daughter wisely responded, “If Umar does not see us, then surely our Lord and Umar’s Lord sees us.” The caliph took note of that particular house and returned the next day to inquire about the young girl and to marry her to his son.
The saying of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, goes: “I know a group of people from my nation who will come on the Day of Judgment with deeds like the white mountains of Tihamah. However, God will make their good deeds like scattered dust.” The companions asked, “O Messenger of God, describe them to us so that we may not become like them while we are unaware.” He replied, “They are your brothers, and from your own race, and they perform acts of worship at night as you do, but they are people who, when they are alone with what God has forbidden, they transgress it.”
It is known that God does not forgive the sins of those who are not believers, even if they show belief. This is the condition of these people. This hadith reminds us of many people we encounter every day in our advanced and progressive society.
