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.