The Ottawa Shooting and The Story of Musa (as)

The Quran is like a deep and vast ocean of which often we swim only the surface. Then at times we are blessed to be pulled by a powerful and strong undertow towards the depths of this vast Ocean. And suddenly you are swimming in meaning, context and light. Meaning upon meaning. Light upon light, illuminating the dark realities of the life of this world whether its our inner lives or outer. The murky, hazy reality suddenly comes into sharp focus. Like the scattered dots of a puzzle which when connected with lines in the appropriate way turn beautifully and almost magically into a coherent picture with meaning and context. Without the Quran, this is how the reality is. Like a scattered jumble of dots which fail to connect in any meaningful way. One such insight came to me pondering on recent events.

Many of us were blessed to fast the  Day of Ashura, a day which celebrates the deliverance of the children of Israel from the oppressive and brutal servitude to the disbelieving Fir’aun. It’s a story of hope and trust in Allah’s promise. A story of triumph of a weak and enslaved but prolific believing community over a powerful, brutal and disbelieving tyrant. Pondering on this story, I realized that it holds many parallels for our situation today. Its understanding adds the missing lines to the dots of our reality bringing it into sharp focus.

We all know the story of how Fir’aun had enslaved the children of Israel and that Musa (as) while being from the Children of Israel, through the plan of Allah Almighty, came to be raised in the house of Fir’aun. In his youth, Musa (as) fled Egypt after having killed a man unintentionally and settled in the land of Madian. When he decided to return to his homeland, Allah (swt) bestowed Prophethood upon him and entrusted him with a mission to call Fir’aun to the truth, account him for his crimes and free the children of Israel.

“Indeed, Fir’aun had become high-handed in the land, and had divided its people into different groups; he used to persecute a group of them, slaughtering their sons and keeping their women alive. Indeed he was one of the mischief-makers, while We intended to favor those who were held as weak in the land, and to make them leaders and make them inheritors, and give them power in the land, and to show Pharaoh, Hāmān and their armies the very thing they were fearing from them.”

When Musa (as) went to Fir’aun, he had committed the greatest crime by declaring himself God.
فَقَالَ أَنَا رَبُّكُمُ الْأَعْلَىٰ

Saying: “I am your lord, most high”,

It was the greatest and gravest of crimes because it was a crime against truth and reality itself. He had also, with the power of his militaristic regime of terror, enslaved an entire people. He had tortured, beaten, raped, murdered and humiliated. He and his regime had created and benefited from an economic system built on the oppression of an entire segment of humanity.

In this climate Musa (as) went to Fir’aun with the message of truth on Allah’s command:
اذْهَبْ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ إِنَّهُ طَغَىٰ

Go to Fir’aun, verily, he has transgressed all bounds (in crimes, sins, polytheism, disbelief, etc.).
فَقُلْ هَل لَّكَ إِلَىٰ أَن تَزَكَّىٰ

The message which Musa (as), along with his brother, Harun, took to Fir’aun was simple and clear. “We both are messengers of the Lord of all the worlds, (sent with the message) that you must send the children of Isrā‘īl with us.”

And he was asked, “Would you purify yourself (from the sin of disbelief by becoming a believer)”,
(An Nazhiat 18)

Musa (as)’s simple call was a call to the truth about this reality and this life. And it was a call to all that is good and pure. It offered redemption and salvation to Fir’aun and his criminal regime. And it offered the people a life in a society built on truth, justice and peace. Yet Fir’aun had no intention of accepting the truth and repenting for his transgressions. He, being a powerful ruler who understood people, society and power structures, understood that the very existence of this simple but powerful call was a threat to the legitimacy of his rule as such a message was bound to resonate with others. And the nature of power is that it requires the validation of the people for its continued legitimacy. For this reason, the caller and the message of Islam had to be vilified and discredited. So he responded in a way tyrants, those who’s reigns are founded on the exploitation of others and who’s hands are dripping with blood of innocents, always do. Instead of answering the charge head on, he replied with something which was meant to obfuscate and distract attention away from his crimes. He said, “Did we not cherish you as a child among us, and did you not stay in our midst many years of your life? And you did a deed of yours which (you know) you did, and you are an ungrateful (wretch)!”

Let’s take up his second charge against Musa (as) first. Fir’aun who had committed such an outrageous act as declaring himself God, which was an affront to all of existence itself, who had institutionalized racism and the exploitation of human beings for economic benefit, who had instituted a regime of oppression, terror and murder, who had had generations of suckling infants snatched from their mothers’ breasts and killed mercilessly, instead of answering or repenting for his crimes, reminds Musa (as) of his accidental killing of a man in the scenario of a fight which even if it had been intentional, would still have dwarfed in size to the crimes of Fir’aun. It also in no way minimized his crimes. It was like an immature child responding to a charge with a tit for tat response.

This is no different to how the secular-capitalists who lead the world today, America, Britain, Canada and Australia in particular behave. The secular-capitalist system is built on the basis that man has the right to declare what is lawful and unlawful. Like Fir’aun it is an attempt to usurp the attribute of Allah (swt) that He (swt) is Al Haakim, the Judge, the Legislator. These nations, with America at the helm, have also politically, economically and militarily occupied the Muslim world for decades. This occupation has led to the murder of millions upon millions of innocents through the outsourcing of torture and killing to their agent rulers and their well funded security agencies dreaded throughout the Muslim lands for their beastly brutality or directly through their own armies and drones. Their soldiers have terrorized our lands, dishonoured our sisters, gone on killing sprees with impunity. They have economically enslaved not only our lands but the entire planet which has led to people having to make choices such as fathers selling their own children due to poverty and mothers selling their honour to feed their children. They’ve stolen the resources of our lands and other peoples’ the world over through their sham “international” institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. Their corporations have displaced indigenous and traditional businesses and practices with their own Frankensteinish products like GMO seeds which have led to over 250 000 farmer suicides in India since 1997. Their sanctions against Iraq caused the deaths of half a million children which were characterized as an acceptable price by US Secretary of State Madeleine Alright. According to The Lancet, the British medical journal, the invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis. These are but just some of their physical crimes against the Muslim ummah and the rest of the world.

Yet when a Muslim commits a crime like the recent shooting of the soldier in Ottawa, Canada, like Fir’aun, they treat it in isolation as the most terrorizing act on the planet even though it pales in comparison to the brutality and bloodshed unleashed on the Muslims by them, the Capitalist nations. They also sensationalize the incident, slander Islam, vilify Muslims and create a environment of fear just like Fir’aun as means to obfuscate and detract from the real crimes which are being perpetrated by them. Fir’aun had also created an environment of fear surrounding the messengers and their message as evidenced by the fact that his magicians repeated the propaganda they had been hearing. “They said: ‘Verily! These are two magicians. Their objective is to drive you out from your land with magic, and overcome your way of life. So devise your plot, and then assemble in line. And whoever overcomes this day will be indeed successful’ (20:63-64).” Yet these very magicians were ready to give their lives for the truth once they became convinced of it. A reminder to us to carry the truth unadulterated because the people of truth will recognize and follow it when presented clearly even in the midst of propaganda and fear. This is just like the fear pumped out perpetually on every news channel regarding Islam and Muslims who they say want to terrorize the people and destroy their way of life.

The other thing Fir’aun did was to remind Musa (as) of his favours. By doing so Fir’aun was trying to argue that Musa (as) was showing ingratitude by demanding the release of Bani Israel. This was in fact just another tool to dodge and move the discussion away from the truth and from his crimes. After admitting his mistake in killing the man, Musa (as) replied with the following:

“And this is the past favour with which you reproach me, that you have enslaved the Children of Israel.”
[26:22]

Musa (as) refused to get sidelined by Fir’aun’s tactics and to accept Firaun’s premise. He used Fir’aun’s argument against him by bringing the discussion back to Fir’aun’s enslavement of the Children of Israel. Reminding that had Fir’aun not enslaved them and killed their firstborns, then Musa (as) would never have had to grow up in Fir’aun’s household. So the real criminal was Fir’aun for enslaving the Children of Israel!

This is exactly what Western governments tell the Muslim diaspora today. Reminding us of the favours of living in the Western lands and to value and identify ourselves as Canadian or British or Australian only and above all. The argument being that we must forget their crimes and the crimes against our brothers and sisters for the blessing of living in this land. The truth is that just as Musa (as) would not have needed to grow up in the household of Fir’aun if he hadn’t enslaved the children of Israel and instituted the policy of killing their first borns, we, the Muslim Ummah, would not have had to immigrate to the Western lands if the Capitalist colonial nations such as Britain, France and others had not colonized the Muslim lands and had not destroyed the source of their strength, the Khilafah. The Muslim lands were, at one time, a beacon of prosperity, knowledge, justice and security. When the West colonized and pillaged them, the Muslim world lost not only it’s material strength but also fell into an intellectual darkness of not only abhoring it’s own culture and way of life but also of being utterly dazzled by the colonizer’s civilization and way of life. This phenomenon had multiple causes not the least of them being that this was deliberately and consciously promoted by the colonial powers to weaken the Muslim psyche and break down it’s remaining Islamic thinking. All these led to Muslims who could not only not provide well for their families in the Muslim lands due to the economic decline caused by capitalist colonial policies but who also did not have any hope in the Muslim lands and turned naturally to the West as the only place of opportunity and hope.

Allah (swt) told us in the Quran, “And We wished to be Gracious to those who were being depressed in the land, to make them leaders (in Faith) and make them heirs, To establish a firm place for them in the land, and to show Fir’awn, Haman, and their hosts, at their hands, the very things against which they were taking precautions.” (Surat al-Qasas: 3-6)

Isn’t this also like today! The Western nations fear the return of the Islamic state and take every precaution against it. They try to smear Islam, dilute Islam, create a western friendly, apolitical Islam, imprison Muslims who expose their crimes and install puppet rulers with a well compensated regime of capitalist-thinking, hypnotized and mentally colonized slaves. And on and on the list goes from NGOs to educational institutions and all kinds of other programs. Yet none of it will help them hold back Allah’s plan and victory promised to the believers just as Fir’aun’s every precaution such as killing the first borns still did not prevent the emergence of Musa (as) who was to one day destroy him and his corrupt kingdom.

The Muslim ummah today is turning in greater and greater numbers and with greater devotion, sincerity and zeal towards Islam and the capitalist system on the other hand is beginning to show more and more and ever widening cracks in its shiny veneer. Their own populations are becoming disillusioned with their economic system built on exploitation which has been proven to be a failure. Greater and greater numbers of people have become wise to the fabrications behind their foreign policy. A growing movement has now accepted the culpability of the capitalist economic system in being a destructive force to the environment and the planet. Just as Fir’aun understood that Musa (as)’s call represented a threat to his power, the Capitalist nations, especially in this environment of discontent, understand that the only system that has the ability to mount a challenge to their now precarious hegemony is Islam. That this paradigm for life and for society is the only one that can not only unite it’s adherents to seriously threaten the Capitalist global power dynamics but also produce a force so assured of its belief and destiny and so resolute in its purpose that nothing can stand in its way.

So we must respond as Musa did by not allowing ourselves to get distracted from calling to the truth by these false constructs of gratitude and allegiance towards a corrupt and bankrupt Capitalist system. And not allowing ourselves to get diverted from highlighting the crimes of the real terrorists of today which are the Western nations. We must instead understand the Islamic call and the real world solutions and salvation it offers the world. As inheritors of the call of Musa (as), and Muhammad (saw) and all the prophets and the only possessors of this message on the planet today, we owe it to the world and all it’s inhabitants whose future today looks bleak.

How Liberalism Stole The Innocence Of Children

It seems nowadays that not a day passes in the UK when an issue related to child sex abuse or exploitation doesn’t hit the news. Just this past week, three major stories dominated the headlines – firstly, a report by MP Ann Coffey found that the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children has become the social norm in some parts of Greater Manchester, with over 13,000 cases over the last 6 years; secondly, Fiona Wolf, the woman appointed to chair the inquiry into claims of a historical paedophile ring operating amongst former MP’s, government ministers, and others in the higher echelons of British society, was forced to resign due to her political links with the establishment; and thirdly, a young junior doctor working in paediatrics pleaded guilty of sexually abusing boys as young as 12 and was found in possession of more than 1.2 million images of abuse.

In recent years, the UK media has been awash with stories on the same subject – from cases of high profile media personalities such as Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, and Stuart Hall who used their fame to abuse children, to the historical allegations of abuse in specialist music schools and children’s homes in North Wales. Other than that, there are news of paedophile grooming rings operating in towns such as Rochdale, Derby, Oxford and Rotherham to admissions by the head of the National Crime Agency that the number of paedophiles in the UK downloading explicit pictures of children is so high (estimated 50,000) that they will not be able to prosecute them all.

This is a vile crime that turns the stomach and makes the blood boil. Understandably therefore, there has been a public outcry over these stories and condemnatory statements from those in power. Unfortunately however, levels of fury and disgust have not been matched by a comparable level of seriousness amongst media and politicians alike to genuinely examine the root causes of child sex abuse. There has been a paucity of debate on the issue. Attention so far has focussed on the failure of the police, social services, and other public bodies to investigate these crimes, protect victims, and deal effectively with perpetrators. Indeed, these failings need to be put under the spotlight of public scrutiny, for they reflect a deficiency in regard and care for the wellbeing of children. However, examining the shortcomings of public authorities does not address the question of what drives so many men (and sometimes women) to engage in these perverted, grotesque acts. Nor does it explain why the scale of child sex abuse in the country is so shockingly high. Indeed its prevalence is of epidemic proportions. According to the child protection charity, the NSPCC, in 2012/2013 there were 23,663 sexual offences against children recorded by the police in the UK. The charity also states that 1 in 20 children in the country have been sexually abused. Earlier this year, 660 suspected paedophiles were arrested during a 6-month police operation. They included teachers, care workers, doctors and former police officers.

Many view paedophilia as simply acts performed by perverted, evil individuals, some of whom may have been abused themselves as a child. Some academics describe it as possibly a form of mental illness or sociopathic tendencies suffered by those individuals. There is even a growing trend of sociologists who describe such repugnant lusts towards children as perhaps a form of sexual orientation – i.e. that the brains of paedophiles are just ‘wired differently’ to others. Two eminent researchers, for example, testified to this latter view to a Canadian parliamentary commission on the issue last year. The Harvard Mental Health letter of July 2010 also suggested that paedophilia, “is a sexual orientation”. During a high profile UK conference last year, held by the University of Cambridge, one academic disturbingly stated in his presentation that, “Paedophilia interest is natural and normal for human males,” and that a sizable minority of normal males would like to engage in these acts.

Focusing the cause for this heinous crime on the brains and preferences of perverted individuals is the easy route out often used by secular states to wash their hands of the culpability of the values of their society in fuelling this abhorrent behaviour. It’s more politically convenient to claim that most paedophiles are born rather than made, even though the epidemic and growing numbers of those engaging in these acts contradicts this belief. It’s much easier to lay the blame on ‘evil, sick men’, than to hold up a mirror to the liberal principles celebrated by the state and to take a long, hard look at the fall-out of these ideas upon society. This is because these approaches to understanding this crime allows individuals and societies to detach themselves from the uncomfortable idea that just maybe, the liberal way of life they embrace, has a part to play in encouraging these perverted acts. It provides them with justification that it’s OK to continue to enjoy sexual freedom because the abuse of children is all about ‘sick individuals’ and nothing to do with these values. It enables politicians and proponents of liberalism to divert attention from the inherent flaws and dangers of their ideology which they so readily serve to the world as the path to create civilized, modern nations.

However, sincerely addressing this problem of paedophilia requires the converse. It necessitates soul-searching questions about how and why states have reached this point in modern-day life. It requires acknowledgement about what liberal values in reality have licensed people to do, and the detrimental impact of this upon societies. For one, sexual freedom has encouraged individuals to fulfil their sexual desires as they wish and hence has sanctioned the creation of a hyper-sexualized environment. Street billboards, films, books, magazines, TV shows and adverts constantly bombard individuals with provocative and explicit images. Additionally, there is unhindered access to the same material through internet websites and the pornography industry. All this inevitably has had a negative and dangerous affect on the mindset and behaviour of people, fuelling sexual crimes against adults and children alike. This is hardly surprising. When you saturate minds with such explicit ideas and imagery and constantly provoke people’s desires, it is inevitable that many will overstep the limits of the law and social norms to fulfil their instincts. For example, the report on child exploitation in Greater Manchester, covered this week in the media read, “Normalisation of quasi-pornographic images…has given rise to new social norms and changed expectations of sexual entitlement.”

Even children have not been spared from this systematic sexualisation of societies. In 2011, Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of the Mothers’ Union, and author of the “Bailey Review”, commissioned by the government on the commercialisation and sexualisation of children described an increasing “sexualized wallpaper surrounding children”. Everything from children’s clothes, to the songs they listen to, the music videos, films, and teenage dramas they watch, the computer games they play, and the magazines they read are saturated with sexually provocative themes, ideas, or images of scantily clad stars. This is alongside having easy access to pornography which is widely available, whether online or in ‘Lad’s’ magazines which are sold in thousands of shops across the UK. The former Shadow Health Minister, Dianne Abbott stated that the average age of boys accessing pornography has dropped from 11 to 8 years.

Amongst the multiple problems that this ‘wallpaper surrounding children’ has caused is the growing trend of ‘sexting’, thus affecting many Western liberal societies. This involves children sending explicit images of themselves to others, which is then sometimes shared by the recipient amongst their peers at school and used as a means of bullying the child who sent it. It is a problem that has reached epidemic proportions. According to a joint survey published last October by the children’s organisation the NSPCC and Childline, 60% of teens have been asked for such texts, half have received them, and 40% had taken them.

Many have suggested that this sexualisation of children and young girls has also softened and desensitized attitudes within society and its authorities such as the police towards abuse. Baroness Butler-Sloss, who chaired the Cleveland Child Abuse Inquiry stated that the over-exposure to inappropriate images is blunting attitudes towards sex attacks on under-16’s, and that there was a danger that under-age girls were no longer seen as victims because of perceptions over the way some children act and dress. This therefore perhaps goes part of the way in explaining why some police forces in the UK have been slow and at times neglectful in effectively responding to allegations of abuse from victims of paedophile grooming rings.

All this has systematically eroded the innocence of children. In fact, it has even caused some children to practice this same abuse on other children. The findings of a report published by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in the UK last November were as sickening as they were disturbing. The report described “shocking” levels of sexual violence being carried out by children against other children in the country, with some victims being as young as 11, while some perpetrators were aged 12 or 13. It reported that levels of sexual violence in parts of the UK is comparable to that seen in war-zones and that the problem was widespread and prevalent in every area of England and every type of neighbourhood – rural and urban, deprived and non-deprived. Girls were being passed around within gangs like toys or used as commodities to ensnare rival gang members. Entitled, “It’s wrong but you get used to it”, the report stated that rape was seen as “normal” and “inevitable” and happened on a “daily basis” in some areas, with many girls who had been victims of such assaults saying that it was part of the inevitability of growing up in their areas and that “there is no point in telling anybody about it”. One girl summed up the situation in one line, “Welcome to our generation”. John Pitts, a researcher for the report stated that, “There was an acceptance or resignation of the brutality of their lives,” also commenting, “These young people are very difficult to get to, but when we did we found sexual violence appeared to be routine and regarded as unexceptional. For many of them this was the wallpaper of their lives.”

Having understood therefore the appalling consequences of the sexualisation of children and society, the pressing question that surely needs to be asked is – why do Western governments choose to ignore it and allow it to continue? Well for one, there is money to be made in it!

Even after paying lip service against the increasingly sexualized environment surrounding children from inappropriate images and themes contained in advertising and media content that directly target the young, the UK Prime minister left it to the personal conscience of businesses and the entertainment industry to decide whether they would curb this practice rather than enforce strict regulations and censorship. It’s a decision that undoubtedly is shaped upon profit margins rather than the public good. Additionally, in December 2012, the UK government rejected plans to block internet access to pornography on all computers automatically – presumably because the financial loss to this industry of such plans was just too high a cost to pay. Clearly, for capitalist governments such as the UK, preventing harm to the revenues of companies and billion-dollar industries takes precedence over preventing harm to children. This is only to be expected, for under capitalist systems, safeguarding commercial interests will always override protecting social interests.

However, this toxic wallpaper around children is also allowed to continue due to the sacred nature by which liberal freedoms are viewed within Western liberal states that blinds many to the social chaos they sow. They are seen as ‘untouchable’, ‘off-limits’ from close scrutiny, and ring-fenced from examination. In fact, even questioning them often evokes a reaction as if one is a heretic performing a sacrilegious act. It’s far easier, and less controversial to divert attention regarding child-abuse to poor policing, incompetency of social services, or ineffective local authorities. However, if there is a true desire to shield children from exploitation, abuse, and violence – nothing should be beyond question and scrutiny!

Furthermore, a sincere concern towards the wellbeing of children requires an honest look and a sincere debate about the values that shape and dominate societies in which so many of our young have been robbed of their innocence and their right to enjoy safe, protected lives. It necessitates probing questions as to why the prevalence of child abuse has reached such a scale that police and children’s services find it impossible to cope. It also surely merits a genuine study of other ways of life that promote alternative values within a state to protect society and the young.

Islam is often label by the West as backward for being at odds with liberalism and rejecting its ideas of personal and sexual freedom. Its social laws that restrict intimate relations to marriage alone and prohibit the sexualisation of society are often seen as repressive. However, there is nothing modern, progressive, or even liberating about the countless social problems caused by the sexualisation of societies resulting from such freedoms. Islam fully recognizes this as well as the obvious point that for all to enjoy safe and dignified lives, both the triggering and fulfillment of sexual desires must be regulated and directed towards that which brings benefit for society: marriage and maintaining strong family units. They cannot be let loose to create a dangerous environment that wreaks havoc in people’s lives, breaks families and nurtures heinous problems such as pedophilia.

Islam’s approach therefore of organizing societies is not one based on securing individual freedoms but rather ensuring a safe, tranquil and morally upright society to ensure the protection of the community which inevitably will safeguard the wellbeing of individuals, including children. Islam’s strict laws and limits that regulate the expression and fulfillment of the sexual instinct contribute to achieving this goal. This Islamic approach to the protection of society is exemplified in the following hadith of the Prophet (saw) as narrated by Al Bukhari,

“The example of the one who stands for the Hudood of Allah and the one who compromises the Hudood of Allah are like the people in a boat, some of whom occupy the upper deck and some occupy the lower deck. Whenever those in the lower deck need water, they have to go to the upper deck to retrieve it. So some of them said, ‘why don’t we make a hole in our deck so we do not harm the people of the upper deck?’ If the people do not stop them, they will all fall and be failures, but if they stop them they will all be saved.”

Liberalists claim that when there is no freedom, there is oppression. This is a huge deception, for it is clear to see that it is the promotion of liberal freedoms that has been the source of oppression for so many children. It has stolen from them that which is truly sacred and what should have rightfully been theirs – their innocence!

﴿وَلَوِ ٱتَّبَعَ ٱلۡحَقُّ أَهۡوَآءَهُمۡ لَفَسَدَتِ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٲتُ وَٱلۡأَرۡضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ‌ۚ بَلۡ أَتَيۡنَـٰهُم بِذِڪۡرِهِمۡ فَهُمۡ عَن ذِكۡرِهِم مُّعۡرِضُونَ﴾

“If the truth had been in accord with their desires, truly the heavens and the earth and all beings therein would have been in confusion and corruption! Nay we have sent them their Reminder but from their Reminder they now turn away.” [al-Mu’minun: 71]

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz