Allah uses the word ‘hizb’ حزب in the Quran when Allah (SWT) describes the prophet and the shahaba’s as: أُوْلَئِكَ حِزْبُ اللَّهِ أَلَا إِنَّ حِزْبَ اللَّهِ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ “They are Allah’s party. Lo! Is it not Allah’s party who are the successful?” (TMQ 58:22) The word hizb, Allah (SWT) has not forbidden us from using it. The word hizb has two meanings. The linguistic meaning means the group of the man, so an army or a tribe can also be called a hizb. Then there is a more political meaning which means that these people they are in one group, convinced by the same ideas and concepts and they want to practise this and implement this in society. So this group must now: يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ They must call to Islam. So before Allah addressed the members saying be Muslim and now Allah (SWT) is saying call to its concepts. Thus their members must be Muslims and their call has to be Islamic. We understand from this that it is haram for this party to have non Muslims or be built on a un- Islamic call, such as Socialist Party, Communist Party, Democratic Party, Capitalist Party they are all haram. وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ But more specifically they must enjoin the good and forbid the evil. Now we know that Allah (SWT) has said that the party must call to Islam and here more specifically to enjoin the good and forbid the evil. Yet, we know that Islam contains enjoining the good and forbidding the evil and it is part of Islam so why is it specifically mentioned? Here ‘al Khair’ الخير is general (aam), and enjoining the good and forbidding the evil is specific (khaas). So why has Allah (swt) mentioned a specific order after a general order? The scholars say that “if something ‘khaas’ is mentioned after something ‘aam’ and it is connected to it, it means the ‘khaas’ has an additional meaning. Such as when Allah says: مَن كَانَ عَدُوًّا لِّلّهِ وَمَلآئِكَتِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَجِبْرِيلَ وَمِيكَالَ فَإِنَّ اللّهَ عَدُوٌّ لِّلْكَافِرِينَ “Who is an enemy to Allah, and His angels and His messengers, and Gabriel and Michael! Then, lo! Allah (Himself) is an enemy to the disbelievers”. (TMQ 2:98) Here Allah (SWT) is saying that whosoever takes Allah’s messengers and angels and Jibreel and Mikael as enemies Allah (SWT) will be an enemy to them. But Jibreel and Mikael are from the angels so why are they specifically mentioned. Here Allah (SWT) is specifically addressing the Jews who used to claim that they are the saved people but they used to vehemently hate the angels Jibreel and Mikael specifically. Here there are 2 meanings the scholars mentioned that Allah (SWT) is specifically mentioning them to give them honour (i.e. the two angels) or because the Jews specifically hated Jibreel as they believed he betrayed Allah (SWT) and made a mistake by giving the messenger ship to the Prophet Muhammad SAW and not to a Jew (may Allah curse them). We see that if something specific is mentioned after something general it has an additional meaning. So going back to the ayah, enjoining the good and forbidding the evil, what is the additional meaning here. First meaning to be added here is that enjoining the good and forbidding the evil is one of the most important acts of Islam, because Allah (SWT) mentioned straight after Islam (al Khair) and is like the previous example giving it honour. The second meaning here is what is the meaning of ‘enjoining’ and ‘forbidding’ within the context of the ‘Lisan al-Arab’ (Dictionary of the Arabic Language) and the classical Arabic dictionaries (Al-Fayrooz Abadi in al -Qamoos al-Muhit and in Lisan al-Arab ofibni Manzoor), they refer to ‘ordering’ people and ‘enjoining’ and ‘forbidding’ as سياسة ‘siyasah’ (politics). Telling people what to do and making them abstain from certain actions is politics. So when Allah (SWT) says: يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ He is telling us to call to Islam in a political way and this is the additional meaning conveyed to us by the use of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil. This is a way in which we can call towards Islam. So what is the meaning of the political way? We can either carry Islam in a political way or a non political way. We can forbid the evil when we find the people not practising salah, we can order them ‘dear brother you have to practise salah and salah is fard etc’. If you find someone lying you will say ‘you must not lie this is haram’. As the Prophet SAW said: “When a man lies, the angel moves a mile from him because of the bad odour of what he has produced”, (Narrated by Abdullah ibn ‘Umar). If you find the people doing something haram you forbid them, if you see the people not fulfilling the fara’id you order them, but what about the society, the government, and the ruler? If we find the King of Saudi Arabia is doing something haram we stay quiet and remain silent. But when you find the Ummah and the ordinary people doing something haram you forbid the evil. In this case you are still calling to Islam no one can deny that, but you are not doing it in a political way. This means that you are speaking about the people and leaving out the rulers, and this will not change the society. This will not solve the problem. Al-Imam Ahmed Ibn Hanbal said: “If I know that Allah (SWT) will accept one dawah from me, I will make this dawah not for the mujahideen, who are fighting and carrying Islam to the Kafireen and defending the Ummah, neither for the poor people, or for the mothers, or the children, or for the ill people but for the rulers”. If the rulers are good Allah willing the people will be good, like at the time of Umar ibn al Khattab. A man came up to Ali Ibn Ali Talib(RA) and said why is it that at the time of Abu Bakr(RA) and Umar(RA) the Khilafah was so good and peaceful. Ali (RA) replied “because at their time they had people like me who obeyed them and I have people like you who obey me”. Ali (RA) still carried his people and implemented Islam on them and punished those people who rebelled against the state. This is what we mean by a political way and this is the additional meaning. Source: The Ahkam pertaining to political parties in Islam
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 13:09:48 +0000
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