University of Toronto alumni https://teapaw.org/t.co/mlF7bg5iyc
Karachi/Toronto
Joined August 2012
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Left: Nietzsche on power
Right: Iqbal in his poem Shikwa
“hum to rukhsat hue auron ne sambhali duniya (we departed and others took charge of this world)”
You would be surprised how little moralizing there is in Iqbal’s poetry. Just as in this poem, in spite of it being one long lament, there is very little complaining about the “others” who have taken charge or scrutiny of their behaviour. The complaint is simply about why they have been allowed to take charge. There is no “preaching of equality” as Nietzsche puts it.
One of my major complaints with Muslims or other groups and individuals who identify as progressives or leftists or anti imperialists or what have you, is the endless critiquing of the wickedness of our adversaries as if they are supposed to behave any differently. Instead of dissecting why we have allowed things to become the way they are and what can be done about it. Evil groups will act evil. What a surprise. My biggest pet peeve is when you see a Zionist do something evil and someone inevitably says “can you imagine if a Muslim did something like that. How would the world react”. To me that reeks of pure pathetic weakness.
I also find it interesting that he uses the word “sambhali” which is so matter of fact. It is almost playful. The Jewish Zionist does what the Jewish Zionist is supposed to do. The lapdog Christian Zionist does what the lapdog Christian Zionist is supposed to do. The hypocritical muslim does what the hypocritical Muslim is supposed to do. The capitalist…and so on. Not to say you can categorize these groups so easily or there isn’t often a disconnect between their beliefs and what group they claim to be a part of. The point is even in the most nihilistic of cases, people and institutions act according to their interests, incentives, beliefs, and the structures in which they operate. Expecting them to abandon those commitments simply because they are morally objectionable is naive.
I recently discovered that Lockheed Martin is listed as a top contributor in Standard Chartered’s shariah compliant investment portfolio.
This is after the recent news that Palantir was a major holding on HSBC’s Islamic fund.
These companies that are directly responsible for fuelling genocide and immeasurable pain & suffering are passing shariah screening. Let that sink in.
We can keep expressing our outrage at these banks and institutions for being evil or we can finally take some ownership and question how we have enabled such equities to pass screening and how compromised some of the Islamic organizations and scholars in the space are for allowing this.
I think it’s also time to look at the actual mechanism behind these Islamic screenings. The current framework prohibits things that are outright haram such as alcohol, porn, etc. But since selling weapons is not inherently prohibited, these evil mass murdering companies manage to get by. Which is a complete joke and contradicts the actual spirit of fiqh.
Finally, and this is part of a larger point, things like this make it clear that we live in an increasingly chaotic post fiqh world because the underlying systems meant to operate within and regulate a holistic Islamic ecosystem have long been broken. So much of Islam is economics and so much of the Islamic system that we talk about is downstream of Islamic economics. So why do we expect anything else to function without it?
And not only is it lost, it has been replaced by a monster. In our weakness we have allowed this beast to be imposed on us and are now too enslaved to do anything about it. Instead we continue to outsource everything to others and feel good about anything that has a halal sticker. When you transplant random pieces of classical fiqh rules into a predatory, globalized capitalist framework, things become warped.
Look I’m not saying that we should ignore shariah screening entirely because shariah compliance is the bare minimum and abandoning that even out of nihilism means willingly becoming a part of the evil. We just need to question things at a deeper level and do our due diligence as individuals. Now more than ever as Muslims we need to be careful about where our money is coming from and where it is going. How much of the destruction are we contributing to?
“The keeper of the city keys
Put shutters on the dreams
I wait outside the pilgrim's door
With insufficient schemes”
The increasing depravity of our world does not mean that us as individuals have a licence to willingly participate in that depravity as much as we want, and be excused because of its pervasiveness. In fact the opposite is true. The burden of the individual only becomes more heavy and sensitive.
If you told me a few years ago that I’d be able to torrent entire HD episodes or movies in 2 minutes I would’ve called you insane. I remember a single torrent used to take me hours back in the day.
Torrenting is one of the greatest inventions of man.
