:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)
(Peace be upon you)
I complete yet respectfully disagree with your view towards lamentation, and I ask those who are propagating the view that voting is haram (forbidden) to please sensibly read this post in full before doing so. Thank you, all of you, in advance for your consideration and patience.
Yes. For the past hundred years the `Ulamaa of Haqq have been unanimous that voting is Haraam. The view that voting is permissible is a new opinion that cropped up only recently. The old `Ulamaa used to consider it Kufr to vote.
The Ottoman Caliphate itself fell during 1918-1920; the
'ulamaa (scholars) of the past did not envision a time in which we as Muslims would be living in a time wherein Muslim leadership in the globe would be without power and our world's new realities would require voting if we should want to change anything for Muslims in terms of our combined present and future in non-Muslim majority countries. So, as is always the case, new realities required adaptation by the 'ulamaa and
ijtihad (independent juristic reasoning). Please read the article "
Viewpoint: Door of Ijtihaad is Open."
فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا
Fa-alhamaha fujooraha wa taqwaha
And He inspired us to do the good and to avoid the bad. (Surat ash-Shams, 91:8).
Those `Ulamaa left the Dunyaa, and new "Celebrity Shaykhs" have taken their place. Those `Ulamaa would turn in their graves if they saw what these new ones are catching on and what Fatwas they are giving...
It is not only "Celebrity Shaykhs" giving the
fatwa (ruling) of voting; my own mosque has a Sunni Hanafi Imam that is the graduate of a
madrassah (school) in India and he himself encouraged for us to vote in this election. Not only that, many mosques across the U.S. have done the same whether Salafi, Barelwi, Sufi, Deobandi, Shia, whatever are doing the same. This is a matter of difference in
fiqh (juristic) understanding and we should treat it as such instead of lamenting it as an issue of changed world and
kufr (disbelief).
100 years ago, the idea of someone saying that voting is permissible would have been considered insane. The people would have said, "Where in the world will any `Aalim give a Fatwaa like that??" Today they say it is permissible. The modernist "Shaykhs" who base their Deen on pleasing America. House-wives, we call them.
100 years ago, we still had an Islamic Caliphate because the Ottomans were in power and their rule didn't collapse until 1918-1920. So, how could they have given
fatwas (ruling) for our time as they're not soothsayers.
I think frankly a
reality check is in order for all of us here participating in this thread which can only be done when we look to irresponsible
fatwas (rulings) that have been issued in the past.
For example, I note that the '
ulamaa in India in 1900s issued a
fatwa (ruling) that learning English is
haram (forbidden) and
kufr (disbelief) because they didn't want to imitate the non-Muslims in learning the English. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, one of the founders of colleges in India, was one of the first to oppose this
fatwa (ruling). However, to whom did the Muslim landowners listen? To these backwards '
ulemaa (scholars). I learned all this from the Indian Muslim layperson to whom I conversed with said probably was issued from the 'ulamaa of Deoband but he wasn't sure.
Regardless, the Muslims of that time accepted an irresponsible, impractical and unwise
fatwa (ruling) as the truth that they should adopt. Do you know what happened? The Indian government conducted adverse possession usurping the lands from underneath these aristocratic and rich Muslim landowners and paid pittance for that usurpation and overnight their wealth with that edict in terms of land was gone. These Muslim landowners had no formal education and had long eschewed the learning of English on which they might have been able to rely. What's notable also is that the Hindu sycophants that were their servants in the time and houses of these aristocratic Muslim landowners before this edict of abolishing
zamindaari (aristocratic landholding) would suck up to them and say that these Muslims were too good and right and they didn't need to learn English while they themselves would educate their children in English schools. So, what happened? The Muslim landowners not only lost their wealth and became poor but their daughters landed in prostitute houses because these Muslim men couldn't muster even the
ghairaat (self-respect) to try to earn so that their families would not starve and so their daughters took up the world's oldest profession to feed their useless Muslim fathers and brothers. Today, a large segment of the Muslim population in India is quite poor as a result of this history, and these Muslims are now mistreated by their Hindu masters and Hindu neighbors. Illiteracy, as I hope you might have some cause to realize, is a hotbed for superstitions to also thrive and therefore these Muslims have mixed Islamic beliefs with Hindu superstition and then of course I note you'd probably also be quick to lament that they commit
shirk (idolatry) yet you fail to realize that the original failure lay in their forefathers having failed to adapt to new realities that is permissible in Islam as the mercy of
ijtihad (independent juristic reasoning) is available to us as Muslims and we can so doing flourish in our societies in every age.
Therefore, I link you to the article, "
Viewpoint: Door of Ijtihaad is Open."
Finally, I also note that
in Islam actions are by intentions. Therefore,
the fatwa (ruling) such as the one issued by Imam Senad of Chicago saying, "It may be the case that the interests of Islam require Muslims to vote so as to ward off the greater evil and to reduce harmful effects" is correct and should not be demonized.
Umar ibn al-Khattab :ra: relayed the
hadith (prophetic tradition), "Verily actions are by intentions, and for every person is what he intended. So the one whose
hijrah (migration) was to Allah and His Messenger, then his hijrah was to Allah and His Messenger. And the one whose hijrah was for the world to gain from it, or a woman to marry her, then his hijrah was to what he made hijrah for."
Imam Shafi'i said of this
hadith (prophetic tradition) by Umar :ra:, "This hadith constitutes a third of all knowledge."
Imam Ahmad said, "The foundations of Islam are upon three ahadith and that one of them is The hadith of 'Umar, 'Verily actions are by intention.
Abu Dawud said, "I looked into the hadith of the Musnad (i.e. of Ahmad) and it consisted of 40,000 ahadith. Then I looked again and (found that) the 40,000 ahadith revolved around 4 ahadith: and that one of them is The hadith of 'Umar, 'Verily actions are by intention.
And Abu Dawud further said,
"Fiqh revolves around 5 ahadith
(prophetic traditions): and that one of them is The hadith of 'Umar, 'Verily actions are by intention.'"
So, what we learn here is that intentions are "one third of all knowledge" and the "foundations of Islam" and 40,000 ahadith revolved around 'Verily actions are by intention' of Imam Ahmad's Musnad and its 1 of 5 hadiths that does Fiqh also revolves around it too.
Therefore, Muslims who are voting to ward off greater harm off of Muslims anywhere in any non-Muslim majority or Muslim majority country cannot be said to be doing any act that is haram (forbidden) or kufr (disbelief) and this deed does not require the lamentation of any imam, scholar, or layperson.
If somebody doesn't want to vote, that is of a certainty also a choice that they have the right to exercise; however, for those who do vote, they cannot be said to be doing any wrong; and I implore everyone to be sensible and not make a
fiqh (juristic) difference into a cause of lamentation.
Thank you.
:wa: (And peace be upon you)
