Allah destines for events to take place, and He destines the causes of those events. Victories and defeats, successes and disasters; they are Written, as well as everything that leads to them; and if He Willed for us to learn, we will learn. He Wills for there to be available to us all, sound advice, and irrational advice. He has Willed that we be endowed with reason and rational minds, and that defeats and disasters usually are preceded by our failure to utilize these assets.
We are displeased with our governments, and there are ongoing opposition movements across the Muslim world. Sudan is perhaps on the edge of falling into chaos and strife if Civil Disobedience fails to achieve the demands of the population, or if the regime cracks down violently against peaceful protest. Morocco is seeing new waves of demonstrations. Turmoil continues in Egypt, of course, as severe economic and political repression intensifies, and opposition groups scramble to find ways to resist the regime.
And as always, there are angry voices calling for “jihad”, and by “Jihad” they mean armed uprising against the governments. And I pray that Allah has Willed for us to learn from Syria, Libya, and Yemen. I pray that He has Willed that we will utilize the assets of reason and rationality. If not, then we are entering a very dark period in our history, a very dark, and very long period
I am not one who says that Islam should be confined to the masjids. I believe in a society organized in accordance with Islamic rules and principles. But, unfortunately, many of those who say “Islam is not confined only to the masjids” have no idea how to apply Islam outside of the masjids; and they will, therefore, ultimately become an argument in favor of confining Islam to the masjids; because when they collide with the real world, the leave it worse than it was before. And the people will not only turn against them, they will turn against the whole concept of political Islam.
We have to develop strategies of resistance against tyranny that do not involve the collective punishment of the victims of tyranny; strategies that do not devastate the society and increase the suffering of the people. Strategies that work, even if they take a long time, even if they are not dramatic or exciting, and even if they require patience and compromise and slow, gradual progress.
As anyone who follows my writing knows, I firmly believe that the key to such strategies involves commandeering the power of multinational corporations through the disruption of their profitability and operational efficiency; to lobby them in every way possible until they throw their weight behind popular demands (not because they believe in them, but because doing so is the only way they can continue to function).