40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #39 - Without Justice, There Can Be No Peace
We hear the slogan, "No Justice, No Peace!" often. In Hadith #39 of the 40 Hadiths on Social Justice Series, Sh. Omar Suleiman discusses the concepts of justice and peace, and the importance of justice in creating peace.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. It's hard to believe honestly we're getting to the last two of this series. It's been a very long time since we've had this series. And as I said last week, I wanted to move away from the discussion about the particulars and go back to the concepts, sort of wrapping up everything that we've studied over this last year and some. We started this class a little over a year ago. So all the particulars that we've talked about, economic justice, environmental justice, different forms. And if you remember, we started off the first five to seven, I believe the first five to seven classes on concepts. Sort of framing how justice operates in Islam. And today, or tonight, next week, we're going to go back to that. So framing really now with all of those particular issues in the rare view. So we've gone through so many of them, so now how do we bring it all together? And I think there are a few questions that come to mind, and we'll address these questions within the next two weeks. The first one is the emphasis on justice versus the emphasis on peace. Most of the time, movements for justice are actually shut down in the name of peace and reconciliation. Where basically one party, usually the oppressed, is compounded in the burden that is placed upon it and told to forego its rights for the sake of the greater picture. And there is less responsibility and burden placed upon the party that has the greater power in that situation. So usually in the name of peace, justice is actually done and in justice. Also the concept of how gradual reform should be. Should reform be rapid, or should it be gradual? So how gradual should reform be? We tend to have an absolutist mentality in regards to this. So to speak about it in regards to the graduality and the way that the Prophet, peace be upon him, operated in that sense.
Another one is obeying unjust law, or obeying an unjust ruler. That's a question that comes up many times, an unjust authority. At what point do you cross the lines of disobedience, if you will? And the last one is priorities in morality and dealing with justice or dealing with morality. And what I mean by that is that many, particularly religious folk, particularly Muslims, will say, well, why are we dealing with this issue when we also have to deal with that issue? So how do you prioritize amongst issues in regards to seeking about a more just society? So these are the questions that I hope we'll actually be able to tackle within the next two weeks. And this week in particular, what I want to focus on is this concept of justice and peace. It's a very famous slogan, no justice, no peace. And I want to actually give that a firmer understanding beyond just the slogan and beyond just the protest motto. What does this actually mean, no justice, no peace? And of course, no justice, no peace verbatim is not taken from the Quran or from the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him. But at the same time, it does have a basis, and I want to talk about it from that regard. And I think that Islam probably speaks to that idea more so than any other system, theological or not theological. Islam really does highlight this idea of retributive justice and the concept that there can be no peace without justice. So how do we understand this? I start off with a hadith, an incident that took place with the Prophet, peace be upon him. It's narrated from Uthman ibn Mad'un, may Allah be pleased with him. He says that while the Prophet, peace be upon him, was sitting in the courtyard of his house in Mecca, Uthman passed by the Prophet, peace be upon him, and he smiled at him.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, smiled back at him and told him, why don't you sit down? Uthman is walking on the streets and the Prophet, peace be upon him, says, why don't you come join me? Why don't you sit down with me? So he said, sure. So he came and he sat with the Prophet, peace be upon him, facing him. And while he was talking to the Prophet, peace be upon him, the Prophet, peace be upon him, looked up to the skies. So in the middle of this conversation, at some point, the Prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon him, lost focus, if you will, on the conversation and started to look up. And as the Prophet, peace be upon him, did that, Uthman said, I said to the Prophet, peace be upon him, I've seen you do something I've never seen you do before. Why? Because the Prophet, peace be upon him, had a reputation. What was his reputation? His reputation was when he spoke to you, he faced his entire body towards you. He was not distractible. In fact, the Prophet, peace be upon him, once had a ring and he looked at his ring a few times in conversation and he felt bad. He said, you know, I feel like I'm looking at this ring too much. So he took the ring and he cast it to the side. So imagine if the Prophet, peace be upon him, had a cell phone, right? And what that would mean in terms of distractibility, in terms of conversation. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, had the habit of turning to you fully when he spoke to you, giving you his ear, not removing himself until you finish speaking to him, giving you his full undivided attention. So this was unlike the Prophet, peace be upon him, to look up in the middle of conversation or to seem distracted. So Uthman said, I've seen you do something that I never saw you do before. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that the angel Jibreel, Gabriel, just came to me. So he descended upon me with a verse. So Jibreel brought the Prophet, peace be upon him, revelation at that moment. And he said, what did he say to you? So he recited,
Inna Allaha ya'muru bil-adli wal-ihsan wa-ita'idhi al-qurba wa-yanhaa anil-fahsha'i wal-munkari wal-baghi yaAAidukum laAAallakum tathakkaroon. The verse, which translates to, Verily Allah commands justice and doing good or performing excellence, beauty. Inna Allaha ya'muru bil-adli wal-ihsan. So Allah commands you with justice as well as showing excellence. Inna Allaha ya'muru bil-adli wal-ihsan wa-ita'idhi al-qurba. And showing generosity to your relatives. Wa-yanhaa anil-fahsha'i wal-munkari wal-baghi. And he forbids you from indecency and wrongdoing and tyranny. So God commands you with three. He commands you with justice, with excellence, and with generosity to your relatives. And he forbids you from indecency and wrongdoing and tyranny. And I'll talk about the difference between indecency and wrongdoing in this context. Fahsha'i wal-munkari. YaAAidukum laAAallakum tathakkaroon. He admonishes you so that you may pay heed. So this verse was revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, at that moment. This hadith is narrated in Adab al-Mufrad. It's narrated in Ibn Abi Hatim and Ibn Kathir comments on the chain. And he says that it is a good hadith, meaning it's a sound narration. Now this verse in particular from the Quran is considered so comprehensive, okay, that Ibn Mas'ud, the great scholar of Quran and the companion of the Prophet, peace be upon him, says this is the most comprehensive verse that was ever revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him. That the entirety of the religion is encompassed in this verse. The entirety of faith is encompassed within this verse. And by the way, it's chapter 16, verse 33. For those that want to take notes, Surah al-A'raf, chapter 16, verse 33. So it's the most comprehensive verse of the Quran.
And it contains the entire faith within it. And by the way, this is also the verse that was popularized to be mentioned in every single sermon, every single khutbah by Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, the last of the rightly guided khulafa, the last of the rightly guided caliphs, that he started to mention this verse or recite it every single khutbah al-Jum'ah, every single Friday sermon. So it continued after Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, rahimahullah ta'ala, as a tradition amongst the scholars that they would recite this verse in the end of the khutbah, in the end of the Friday sermon, the way that we do over here. So the verse again says, God commands you with three, Allah commands you with three. Inna Allah ya'muru bil-adli wal-ihsan wa ita'il al-qurba. He commands you to do justice. He commands you to show excellence. And he commands you to be generous with your relatives. And then he forbids you from three, al-fahshaa wal-munkar wal-baghi. He forbids you from, the translation here is, indecency, wrongdoing, and tyranny. He forbids you from indecency, wrongdoing, and tyranny, and he admonishes you so that you may pay heed. So what does this have to do with the concept of justice versus peace? And this is really what I want to focus on insha'Allah ta'ala for a while. Well, first and foremost, God does not command you with anything except that he himself does it in his capacity. Allah does not command you to show mercy while he shows cruelty. So Allah is arham ar-raahimi. He's the most merciful of those who show mercy. All of the mercy that we show in this world is only a fraction of the mercy of Allah that he descends upon us. So Allah himself shows mercy.
Allah does not command you to do justice, but then he himself be unjust, or be an oppressor. In fact, Allah says, O my servants, inni harramtu dhulma ala nafsi, wajaltu hu baynakum muharrama, fala tadhalimu. O my servants, I have forbidden oppression for myself, and I have made it forbidden amongst you. Meaning no one could restrict God, but Allah chooses for himself that oppression is not befitting to the creator of all. So he's the most just. So when he commands you to do justice, he himself performs justice. So Allah himself is the most merciful and the most just. And this is also something that Al-Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim, and I'm sure I mentioned this in one of the first classes, may Allah be pleased with him, he said that the three components of fitrah, of your natural disposition, again, the three components of your natural disposition, meaning every human being is created with three things. A sense of tawheed, which is monotheism, so a sense of a belief in one God. We believe in Islam, that a child naturally has a belief in a higher power, they believe in Allah, they believe in God. They're born with that natural Islam, that natural belief in God and submission to God, and that if a child was left alone in the desert with no other external influences, that they would naturally develop a relationship, or they would know that there's a God, a one God that sees them, and they would connect. So that's fitrah, that's your natural disposition. You believe in the oneness of God, you are born with a sense of justice, and you are born with a sense of mercy. There are interesting experiments that have been done, or tests that have been done to actually show that children have that sense. When children watch cartoons, someone sent me this long, and he was a doctor, I'm not a doctor, as you can probably tell,
but he sent me this long study that was done on children, and the way children reacted to cartoons, they saw a clear wrongdoer, and the victim in the cartoon, and how children identified, or felt a sense of injustice, even if they were watching an oppressor in the form of a fictional animal. Children naturally have that. And then someone says, well, I see many human beings that don't show any justice, show any mercy, and have no sense of belief in God. That is the nature versus nurture argument, what you are born with versus what is nurtured inside of you. So you are born with a natural sense of monotheism, a natural sense of justice, a natural sense of mercy. Also, the very first notion of justice, as we said early on in this class, is justice with Allah, justice with God himself. And this is really interesting, because the rights of God are greater than the rights of anyone upon you. And Sufyan Ibn Uyayna, may Allah be pleased with him, he says something very beautiful. He says that in this context, first and foremost, interpreting adl and ihsan, justice and excellence. So ihsan is beauty, it's excellence, it's a higher standard. Justice is the minimum standard, excellence is a higher standard. So he said the context of justice, adl, and ihsan here, what it's referring to is that in regards to God, at least when you are alone, when it's just God that sees you, at least you show him the same amount of regard in private that you do in public. The bare minimum, so if you only honor the sight of God upon you when other people are around, but then you disgrace that sight when you're alone, then that's not just with Allah. So the first sense of adl with God, the first sense of justice with God, is that you have a consistency. The way that you honor his sight and honor his rights.
You don't transgress in private, you don't transgress in public. And the standard you have in public is at least consistent with the one that you have in private. Otherwise it's hypocrisy. Otherwise if there is a discrepancy there, then it leans towards hypocrisy. So he said that's adl. He said ihsan, excellence, is that your private relationship with Allah is even better than your public relationship with Allah. Meaning when you are alone, you honor the sight of God even more. You stand up in secret prayer, you perform acts of secret charity, you privately fast, you privately do things that would show him that you act for his sight and his sake alone. That no one else interferes with that relationship that you have with Allah. So he said that's ihsan, that's excellence. And that's what the Prophet, peace be upon him, taught as well. When he explained ihsan, excellence, in worship, he said that you worship Allah as if you can see him. And if you can't see him, then you know that he sees you. You worship Allah as if you can see him, and if you can't see him, then you know that he sees you. Meaning when you stand in prayer, even when you are all alone and private, you know the sight of other people is irrelevant. You worship him as if you can see him. And if you can't see him, then you know that he sees you. sees you. So that's excellence in worship. So he said, first you interpret this in regards to the way that you deal with Allah. And then he said, in regards to sin, so again those words get awkwardly translated sometimes, that Allah forbids, which basically means indecency, which is a wrongdoing, and which is tyranny. So how do we understand those things? So he goes on to explain that the first indecency that God forbids you from,
he said that these are the things that are forbidden from Allah, that which you do privately or that which you do publicly. So it's not necessarily private and not necessarily public, which is why Allah says in the Quran, that God has forbidden indecency, that which is public of it and that which is private. So it's any act of sinfulness, indecency, whether it's public or private. Munkar is a greater level of sin, it's when you proudly boast about your sin. When you are shameless to the point that you proudly boast about your sin. So it's like the opposite of the standard of worship in terms of justice and excellence. You are even more aggressive in your disobedience of God or more boastful and proud of it in public. And the last thing, which is tyranny, is in regards to the creation of Allah, that you are unjust to the creation of God or that you wrong the creation of Allah. So al-idwan al-an-nas is the Arabic translation of al-baghi, which is to oppress people. So getting back to the underlying principle here, where do we get no justice, no peace from this? How does that make sense and is this truly an Islamic concept? So there's a saying from Martin Luther King Jr., which is a very powerful saying, he says, peace is not the absence of tension but the presence of justice. Peace is not the absence of tension but the presence of justice. Does that Islamically hold up? Actually it is in the deepest meaning and the most accurate meaning of the text. How do we explain that? Well first and foremost,
what's the word for peace in Arabic and in Islam? Salaam, peace. Salaamu alaykum, peace be on to you. So the word is salaam. What does the word salaam, peace, actually mean in the Arabic language? Does anyone know? No, you're talking about the definition of Islam. I'm talking about salaam. I'm talking about the word peace. It makes it whole. So the word peace actually means freedom from chaos in the Arabic language. Freedom from chaos. Really interesting. Freedom from chaos. I'm not just making that up. The Prophet peace be upon him said, al muslimu man salim al muslimuna min lisanihi wa yadi. A Muslim, a person who practices Islam, which comes from salaam, peace, is the one from whom people feel safe from his tongue and from his hands. People feel safe from his tongue and his hands. So people feel at peace from his tongue and his hands. When you say, as salaamu alaykum, peace be on to you, that means no harm will come to you from my direction. So the word salaam in the Arabic language means freedom from chaos. That's why the word salim means free from sickness. Free from harm, which is the intense version of salaam. Salim, a person who is salim, is free from flaw, free from harm. And that's why paradise is called daarus salaam, the place of peace, because it's free from any imperfection. It's free from anything that would disturb the peace. It's perfect. It's perfect by virtue of its freedom from disruption. La yasma'una feeha laghwan illa salaama. They will not hear any
disturbance. No one's going to bother you in jannah, in paradise. It's all salaam. The only thing you hear is peace, meaning you're good here. You don't have to worry in jannah. You don't have to worry in paradise. And that's why the scholars mention actually that true peace only exists in paradise, because in paradise there will be perpetuity with no end, complete satisfaction with no need, and perfect honor with no humiliation, and perfect health with no disease. So paradise is perfect in that sense. And Allah's name, one of God's names is... as-salaam, okay? The source of peace. And why is He as-salaam? Because He is completely free from any defect or flaw. So Allah is as-salaam. He is the peace, because He's free from any defect or flaw. So in the very nature of the word peace, peace means the absence of harm. In the definition in the Arabic language and in the Islamic epistemology, it means free from harm. So back to the concept. Can there truly be salaam in the presence of zulm? Can there truly be peace in the presence of injustice? From an Islamic perspective, of course not. That's why the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, the Muslim, the one who practices Islam as a religion, as a faith, and of course by extension, the peace of it, the peace that comes with that, are those whom people feel safe from their tongues in their hand. Meaning people know that a Muslim will not harm them. A Muslim does not harm. Okay? A true Muslim does not harm. That's how the Prophet, peace be upon him, described it. So going back to the verse and the hadith, of course, which is the long hadith, which gives the context of the verse, okay?
The lesson is you cannot have ihsan without adl. You cannot have excellence without justice. Okay? As the scholars mention, al-adl qabla al-fadl. Justice before benevolence. Justice must come before benevolence. Justice must come before excellence. Justice is the standard before peace and a society of beauty. Okay? A society of excellence. Why? Because ugliness prevents true beauty from ever entering. Okay? Ugliness prevents true beauty from ever entering. And that's why Allah prioritizes justice before ihsan, before excellence. Because this is the bare minimum. It has to start with a sense of adl. Okay? So when people's rights are being taken away, you don't move to embellishment of privilege. You fulfill the rights. You restore what disturbed the peace. And that's the priority in Islam for society, is how do you restore people's rights and put everyone back in a position where then the embellishment can take place and the beauty can take place. And this is a deep concept in Islam. A very deep concept in Islam. Even at an individual level of spirituality, one of the great scholars named Fudail, Fudail, he said that he prioritizes in his remembrance of Allah, so in his dhikr, his remembrance of God, he said he prioritizes istighfar over tasbih. Istighfar is seeking forgiveness over words of glorification and praise. He prioritizes seeking forgiveness, istighfar, over words of tasbih, praise and glorification. He said because if you have a garment and the garment is dirty, you clean the stain, you don't accessorize the garment.
You start with undoing what's wrong before you embellish what is quote unquote right and accessorize it. So that's true on an individual level of spirituality. It also refers to the society. And Ibn Abbas, the cousin of the Prophet, peace be upon him, the great scholar of Quran, Ibn Abbas, he said how this verse refers to society, he said, adl, which is justice, is to remove ugliness from society. Ihsan, excellence, is to promote virtue. Adl is to remove ugliness, justice is to remove ugliness. Ihsan, excellence, is to promote virtue. So the priority is remove the hindrances, remove the things that do not allow for peace to be realized in its true sense. Theologically, spiritually, in a societal sense. Okay? So this is how we understand the two, or we understand our notion of justice versus peace. This also means that in regards to restorative justice, you do not tell someone who is facing an injustice that you should relinquish your rights and accept your injustice. Okay? i.e. show ihsan, show excellence. You don't tell someone that you should let go of your rights and instead show ihsan, show excellence. I'm going to talk about that in a moment. Instead, you place them in a position to show ihsan, you place them in a position to show excellence. Alright? So this is where we get into some deep theological jargon, by the way.
Islam, of course, we see ourselves as the continuation, that we attribute ourselves to the true Abrahamic way. There's this debate in Abrahamic theology, if you will. Is it an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or is it turned the other cheek? Alright? Is it an eye for an eye, or is it turned the other cheek? It would be inappropriate to suggest, it would be inappropriate to suggest that God sent two prophets with opposing moral messages. It would be inappropriate to suggest that Isa, that Jesus, peace be upon him, was refuting Moses, peace be upon him. Instead, what's the reconciliation between the two? Because Isa, peace be upon him, did not turn the other cheek when he saw injustice in the temple and he flipped tables on the money changers. That was not turning the other cheek. That was a radical Isa, peace be upon him. So that's more of an eye for an eye type thing, and making sure that justice was being served in society. Isa was not passive about everything. So, turn the other cheek can be grossly exploited, as can be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In Islam, we actually say that they both hold truth. They both make sense. How do they both make sense? A person whose eye has been taken has the right to have an eye for an eye. But, you want to place that person in a position to where they choose, after being given the choice to have retribution, to instead choose benevolence. I'm going to say that again. The standard in society is that retribution has to be the choice of the one who's been wronged.
But, what you try to promote is virtue and benevolence, so that that person, after being in that position with no pressure, where they get to make the choice, instead chooses to show benevolence. I'm going to highlight this a little bit more. In Islam, there is qisas, which is retribution, and then there is afu, which is pardon. Qisas is established, retribution is established, when there is any wrongdoing, for the smallest matter of finances all the way to the greatest transgression of murder. The family is empowered, in the sense of when someone's murdered, the family is empowered to make a choice, theologically at least, of course this is the way that it was applied in the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, whether or not they would choose for the person that committed the murder to also have their life taken. But, after they're given that choice, they're encouraged to instead forgive and pardon. So, basically, you're encouraged to quote-unquote turn the other cheek. But, at the very minimum, you have to be given the right of the eye in return for the eye. So, Islam actually does not see a conflict between those two messages, but instead sees them both to actually be in harmony with one another. That adal, which is what Moses, what Musa, peace be upon him, was speaking about, justice, has to be established. Ihsan, which is pardon and excellence and beauty, is what is to be encouraged. But, ihsan is the standard you hold yourself to. Pardon and excellence and forgiveness is a standard that you hold yourself to. It's not something that you force on someone else. I'm going to talk about this from the Quran in a little bit, alright, and if that's not really registering with you yet.
You uphold everyone else's standard, ta'adl, meaning everyone else's standard to justice. You yourself, when you're in a position of power and you make a decision between justice or retribution or forgiveness, you choose, out of seeking that higher forgiveness and that benevolence of God, you choose benevolence because you're engineered in that way to want more from Allah, so you show more to people than what's expected of you. But, you have to be in that position. So, society has to place the one who is wrong in a position where they get to make that choice of whether or not they show ihsan, they show excellence, or whether they show justice. So, it is justice that those who have been wrong get to make the choice whether or not to show benevolence from a position of power, but you cannot shove ihsan down their throat without putting them in that position of power first. So, what does that mean? This has implications in marriages. This has implications in disputes, financial disputes. This has implications in regards to oppressed peoples by a state authority. This has implications in regards to literally life and death in Islam, that the one who is wronged always should be put in a position to where they have the choice of retribution or not. And then they are reminded that should you instead show benevolence, expect more benevolence from Allah. Should you show afu, pardon, and benevolence, expect even greater pardon and benevolence from Allah. Where do we take this from? It's actually in the Quran, in Surah Ash-Shura, which is chapter 42. And I'll just go through very quickly, I'm not going to go through the full tafseer of this, the full explanation. But it starts, chapter 42, from verse 39.
والذين إذا أصابهم البغي هم ينتصرون Those who, when they are oppressed, they defend themselves. So Allah praises self-defense, if you will. Those who, when they are oppressed, they defend themselves. Why? Because if you're oppressed and you don't defend yourself in some capacity, you enable an oppressor to oppress someone else. And that, in fact, is a greater injustice and cruelty to society as a whole. You don't enable oppression. Which is why, even in the case that you show benevolence, the oppressor has to have the tools of oppression removed from them. That's what Malcolm X was talking about. What he found in the deep theology, if you will, of a person having the liberty. If you realize about Malcolm X, by the way, Malcolm never used violence. He never used violence. He never hurt anybody. He never used violence. But Malcolm found it wrong that we should, as the oppressed people, commit to nonviolence out of principle when those who use violence against us are refusing to commit to it. The burden should be placed on those who are showing cruelty from a place of power, not those who are being oppressed. So Malcolm was not calling for violence. He never once, not even in the Nation of Islam days, never actually called for violence. Never said, go hurt people or go attack people in the streets. Not one incident of violence can be attributed to Malcolm X. Not even him secretly pushing people to go do something. And the FBI monitored Malcolm X for over 10 years. But what did Malcolm say? I am all for nonviolence, but it's wrong to ask us to commit to it. If we choose to commit to it as a means of strategy, it's different from committing to it as a principle when those who are oppressing are not committing to that principle. I believe Malcolm was actually right in that regard. Why? Allah says,
والذين إذا أصابهم البغي هم ينتصرون Those who when they are struck with oppression, they defend themselves. And this is what he says. وَجَزَاءُ سَيِّئَةٍ سَيِّئَةٌ مِثْلُهَا فَمَنْ عَثَى وَأَصْلَحَ فَأَجْرُهُ عَلَى اللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الظَّالِمِينَ And Allah then goes on to say, And the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it. But whoever pardons and instead makes reconciliation, then his reward is from Allah. Indeed, Allah does not love the oppressors. I'm going to say that again. Allah says the retribution for evil is an act that is to the exact measure. An eye for an eye. But the one who pardons and chooses reconciliation instead, let him then depend on Allah for the true reward. Allah does not like the wrongdoers. Now what happens sometimes when you set that standard of Ihsan? What happens is that those who choose retribution sometimes are blamed and looked down upon. Which defeats the purpose. So what does Allah go back to? وَلَا يُحِبُّ الَّذِينَ يَوْصَرَ بَعْدَ ظُلْمِهِ فَأُولَٰئِكَ مَا عَلَيْهِمْ مِّن سَبِيلٍ And those who avenge themselves, when they are oppressed, they have upon them no case for blame. You cannot fault the oppressed when they choose retribution. You can set a standard of affu and Ihsan, pardon and reconciliation and beauty. But at the same time, don't fault the person who actually asks for their rights. And then this is what Allah says, إِنَّمَا السَّبِيلُ عَلَىٰ الَّذِينَ يَظْلِمُونَ النَّاسَ وَيَبْغُونَ فِي الْأَرْضِ بِغَيْرِ الْحَقِّ أُولَٰئِكَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ This is so powerful. He says, the blame should be upon those who oppress people and show tyranny upon the earth without rights.
So basically, shift the blame towards those who actually oppress. Not those who ask for their rights to be fulfilled to them. What happens is that a lot of times, a person who is already oppressed is burdened by being told, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go. And if they don't let it go, then they get the blame instead. Okay? There's a saying that I think is very powerful. It's not a hadith, it's not a saying. It was a famous speech by Jesse Williams at some award show where he said, if you don't have an established critique of my oppression, you don't have a right to an opinion on my resistance. If you don't have an established critique of my oppression, you don't have a right to an opinion on my resistance. This is exactly how we should approach oppression. You put the blame on the oppressor, you put the oppressed in a place where they truly have the right to retribution or to show ihsan and excellence, and then when they are truly in that position, you promote virtue by saying, should you show benevolence, expect greater benevolence from Allah. God will show more mercy to you if you choose mercy in that regard. Okay? And so it comes back to this idea, once again, no justice, no peace. You set the standard of adab, and then you move on to peace. We said that's restorative justice, right? Now I want to, and by the way I'm going to attribute this, Imam Zayd Shaker actually in his book Scattered Pictures, I think it's called Scattered Pictures, Imam Zayd Shaker, he has a book, but this is actually a portion of the book where he actually writes about no justice, no peace. And he says how some of the scholars mention this. So he says, the social aspect of justice has been beautifully summarized by Imam al-Qurtubi.
He says, discussing the relationship between two words that are usually translated as al-adl, justice, and al-qist, which is distributive justice. Distributive justice. Al-qist. Al-qist means distributive justice. So when Allah says, aqsitu, Allah commands you with distributive justice. He says justice is the basis of all human relations, and the foundation of Islamic rule, and that's why Allah says in the Quran in chapter 57, verse 25, that verily we have sent our messengers with clear proofs, and we have revealed unto them the scripture and the balance in order that they lead people with justice, with qist. So they lead people with distributive justice. And Imam al-Mawardi, may Allah have mercy on him, he continues, one of the things that reforms worldly affairs is the principle of distributive justice. It facilitates amicable relations between people, engenders obedience to divine law, and brings about the prosperity of nations. It is the basis of a thriving economy, strong families, and stable government. Nothing devastates the land nor corrupts the mind as quickly as tyranny. That is because there are no acceptable limits to regulate tyranny. For this reason, Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, sees the responsibilities of Islamic government emanating from a single verse in the Quran. So Ibn Taymiyyah said that the duty of an Islamic government, or if you will, an Islamic governance structure, is when Allah says in Surah Nisa, verse 58, so that's chapter 4, verse 58, God enjoins you, and tu'addu al-amanat, that you deliver the trusts to their rightful possessors, wa-itha hakamtum bayna an-nas, and if you are called to judge between people,
an tahkumu bil-adl, that you judge with justice. So it starts off with distributive justice before restorative justice. What that means is that the duty of a person that's in authority or in a position of power is to try to make sure that everyone is in a fair place first. And then, restoring justice comes within taking things back to their original framework. This is why, just to frame this in a very practical way or in a very contemporary way, it's unfair to talk about immigrants coming into the United States without talking about what the United States has done to the lands that those immigrants flee from. You've got to start off with what power did to those places and put people in horrible positions. It's unfair to expect the crime rate to be the exact same level with people in poverty and people that are in the top 5%. We, in fact, do it the opposite. We punish heavier people that are poorer and people that find themselves in difficult situations and resort to crime. We punish them with a heavier hand. That's why the war on drugs goes after poor people's drugs. Otherwise, if we were talking about the opioid crisis or narcotics, the police would be busting down doors in North Dallas all the time. But it's poor people's drugs. And it's a heavier hand with poor people and punishing them. It starts off with distributive justice. That's qist. That's what Allah means when he says al-qist, specific type of justice. Then, restorative justice. Then, once you restore justice, you encourage and promote virtue and benevolence. Because if the whole world settled for an eye for an eye, then we'd all be blind.
So you have to have ihsan promoted, virtue promoted. But at the end of the day, without adl, there can be no fadl. Without justice, there can be no benevolence, in the true sense. Without justice, there can be no true peace. The very word means, salam means free from injustice. So we ask Allah to grant us peace in our hearts, that allow us to have qalb salim, a heart that is free from defect, or free from any fatal flaw, and to allow us to be instruments of justice and instruments of ihsan, of peace. We ask Allah to never allow us to be in the camp of those who oppress or who wrong or show injustice, either by our actions or by enabling someone else from the state of justice.
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