A long-time follower commented yesterday on my post about Hamza Yusuf’s remarks. It was a good comment, and deserves a detailed response.
I have divided the comment into quotes, and my replies follow each one…
“First I say that I’m really surprised by your defense for this person and his claim, Mr. Shahid.”
No reason to be surprised by my position, which is not a defense of Hamza Yusuf, but a defense of the Islamic principle that you do not repel an evil with a greater evil, and the logical principle that you do not enter into a confrontation when the predictable result is catastrophic failure.
“Second, the Syrian revolution was never Islamic and it was not based on Islamic principles, but it came in response to the injustice and tyranny that continued for decades when the people had the audacity to do so spontaneously and without any methodology or plans!”
Correct, the protests in 2012 were not religious in nature, neither in motivation nor in objectives. They were undertaken amidst the atmosphere of the Arab Spring; and yes, without methodology or planning…which is never a good idea.
“After that, it was converted to Islamic, without forgetting that the regime undoubtedly had a role in this. Apart from this “Kufr Bawah” issue you mentioned in your post, I assure you that in Syria there are much worse things than that.”
The conversion of the protest movement into an armed revolution and the creation Islamist fighting groups, was not unexpected. When a peaceful protest movement is inevitably confronted with a violent state response, they have a choice; either they will continue in nonviolence, embrace violence, or quit. Proximity to Iraq made the violent option a foregone conclusion, and the prevailing interests of the US and Israel – which had been obvious at least since American Ambassador Robert Stephen Ford was kicked out of Syria for trying to foment violent unrest –also made the likelihood of armed groups all the more predictable.
I brought up the issue of Kufr Bawaah in the context of those who argue that the hadiths that prohibit rebellion only refer to the “Sultans of Allah”; which is inaccurate…
“The mosques are not closed but the imams are with the security services, so as to count the people inside and outside the mosques and if someone tried, in good faith, to pray Fajr and had the guts to make a long sujud, he won’t be left around to pray Ishaa.”
This is a retroactive exaggeration, and again, ignores the fact that the revolution was NOT originally a religious effort. There is no doubt that Syria under Bashar, as under his father, was a police state, and that Muslims suffered discrimination in employment and other material matters. But the government had actually been accommodating religious practices more than ever before, and the primary focus of the Intelligence services was on political opposition activity.
Syria was a gathering place for foreign Muslims to learn Islam, to learn Qur’an, and some of our best scholars are from or trained there. These schools and institutes of learning were not underground, religious study and religious practice were not secret in Syria.
“There’s a lot more than that still! Moreover, the way this provocative person speaks in front of hundreds of simple and homeless people, without any respect to the one he was talking to! Regardless of anything, he is a Muslim and we should stand by him rather than gloat about his troubles. As for the immigrants in Western countries, Ja’far ibn Abu Talib resided with Al-Najashi, and he’s an example for to follow when it comes to that.”
I would suggest that his derisive tone was directed at the proponents of violent rebellion, not at the victims of both the rebels and the state. By and large, the most zealous voices justifying the Syrian revolution are foreigners, or Syrians in the Diaspora. Most of the Syrians I have communicated with who are suffering on the ground regret the rebellion and despise the brutal Islamist militias who govern the “liberated areas”.
As for the issue of Hijrah, yes, it is always an option for whoever is able, and highly preferable to undertaking a catastrophic war; but the reality is that most of the people who are refugees now are not escaping religious persecution, nor did they feel the need to do so prior to the war; they are escaping a war zone – something their country was not, before rebels embarked upon a delusional armed rebellion; and those rebels bear responsibility for this, along with Bashar.