There is an understanding in Islam that a people will be ruled according to the nature of the people. It’s a very interesting understanding and it gives a very clear view of how world politics actually work. Throughout history, at least recent history, we have had rulers who have come into situations who have tried to mold societies and come up with schemes that they considered Utopian in their nature. The idea being that the top could influence the bottom and create a new scheme of things. In other words, by one loud voice commanding every small voice would adhere and then there would be a consensus to move in that direction.
The Quran also says there is no compulsion in religion. Since politics also often become religions there is also no compulsion in politics either, and what that means is not so much that you can’t try to push people in that direction, which it does mean, but it means it doesn’t work. People have to become whatever they are going to become from the inside-out, not from the outside-in.
So, in the world we are constantly dealing with people who are trying to create a scheme for world domination, or world adherence, or world Utopia. They haven’t worked yet and they’re not going to work. What is going to work is, the individual changing of hearts one at a time to become appropriate, and in that individual change there is the future of existence.
Allah created the world so that he could be known and the world exists because of the ones who know him, and the ones who pay appropriate obedience to him, and the ones who are in communion with him.
Can you imagine a utopian concept that says, “This world will be heaven when everyone communes with God”. Now, the point being; they never say that. They say, “Everything will be ok when you listen to me, everything will be ok when you do things the way I tell you to do them”. But to tell the world that the world will be Utopian when everyone is able to commune with God changes the complex of the power structure, in other words, you are in communion with God nobody puts you there, nobody makes you be there. Nobody can, only you can do that.
Which brings us right back to the point that things change from the bottom up, and they change by individuals becoming different. So if governments are going to change, people have to change because governments reflect the nature of the people. So what we need as individuals to do is not to worry about the changes above us. We need to worry about the change inside of us, and what is that change, and what is it that occurs, and what gets you to the place where you can be in a place of communion with Allah, of communion with the truth? What brings you to that place?
Well, Allah has sent Prophets to explain that to us and he sent Walis, and he sent Qutbs. And we, in this community, were fortunate enough to be in the presence of a Qutb, and a Qutb has work to do in this world, that’s why he’s here. And what is that work?
