The constant, ongoing challenge for every Muslim is that we are a people of the Book, with all that this statement connotes. Like all of God's creation, whether knowingly or unknowingly, we submit to God. God's will and God's power is something that the mountains, the stars, the planets, and the earth partakes in. By the very laws of creation, all is in a state of submission to the Lord. Yet human beings have been given the choice and the ability to either recognize this submission and to augment it, develop it, and invest in it, or to deny this submission and be in a state of rebellion.
The very legacy of Muslims, something which God repeatedly reminds us of in the Qur'an, is that we are bearers of the Book. What this translates into, as God reminds us in Surah al-Hajj (Q 22), is that there are those who speak about the Lord. There are those who represent the Lord's will. There are Muslims, and there are those who pontificate about their higher power, about their Maker, and about God without guidance and without a book. The very definition of a Muslim is someone cognitively aware of the fact that their submission is to be developed and engineered in full compliance with their Lord, as if an instruction manual came with the Book they inherit.
A human being in this modern world is often forced to live in a state of cognitive dissonance, a state of dissociation, a paradoxical state. Each and every day, a Muslim could consult the news. They could consult websites. They could consult whatever is broadcasted across various mediums. And in so doing, they subject their consciousness to exposure, to influence, and to being directed and engineered in a variety of ways. As a human being in this modern world, the exposure is constant and ongoing, from the minute you wake up, from the minute you turn on your phone, from the minute you interact with anything in the world that we live in. In all of that, the question that begs itself is: where is the Book in our lives? Where is that momentous legacy that we are the people of the Book? Day after day, how much of our living day do we actually expose and allow our consciousness to be shaped, influenced, and engineered by that specific charge that we are the people of the Book? Of course, the Book here is God's speech, the way by which God chose to speak to us as Muslims.
The lessons of this Book are constant and endless. The modern world is constantly bombarding us with everything that attracts our attention, and it does not present an easy reconciliation between our existence in this modern world and our role as bearers of the Book. In part, the challenge is psychological. In part, it is philosophical. In part, it is sociological. And in a very big part, it is political. How do we interact with our world, be fully present in our world, and not be in a state of dissociation or a state of unreality in the modern world? How can we be fully present in the moment but, at the same time, not be like those whom God describes in Surah al-Hajj as having a relationship with God as if “on an edge,” on a thin line (Q 22:11)? The verse states that if circumstances are conducive to what they like, if things are going in a way they find pleasing, then they are at peace with God. They speak and think well about their Lord. They may even feel that they are close to God. But if challenges and hardships arise, or if paradoxical states exist that pose a hurdle, they fall into despair. But what “despair” here really means is they fall into alienation. They become alienated from their Lord. The days will pass, day after day, week after week, month after month, and even perhaps year after year, and in all this time, they are likely consistently exposed to everything but the Book.
In other words, they exist in a relationship that is as if on the edge of a cliff. It is literally on thin ice. If things are going the way they find tranquil and peaceful, they are at peace with God—or that is at least what they tell themselves. But if things are challenging, they become easily confused, easily alienated, and easily turned off. They become turned off by the Book and what it says.
The modern world, especially because of the sorry state that Muslims are in, presents us each and every day with this predicament. Last week was yet another example of this. The International Criminal Court (ICC) finally passed an indictment against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. The case says so many things about our modern world. First and foremost, the ICC case against Netanyahu, Gallant, and the Israeli army in general was not brought by a Muslim country, and no Muslim countries initially joined the case against Israel. At a later stage, two Muslim countries joined, Bangladesh and Djibouti, but one cannot help but notice that all the countries that one would think should be at the forefront of the issue—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt—are all missing from the lawsuit.
The case reveals a whole host of things about our modern world. Under international law, we have a very clear dynamic—an occupier and an occupied—that raises questions about self-defense, the right to self-determination, and the right to liberation. But although the charges were of crimes against humanity, war crimes, violations of the Geneva Conventions, violations of all humanitarian treaties, and violations of treaties on human rights; and although there are very good grounds to believe that the crimes being committed are so universally egregious that a country need not be a signatory to the Rome Convention to be charged; Israel and the United States responded to the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant by taking the path of a very technical argument. They said that although 124 countries are signatories to the Rome Convention, Israel is not one of them, and Israel claimed that because it is not a signatory to the Rome Convention, then the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel, and so has no power to pass indictments or to even look at whether or not Israel is committing war crimes. The U.S. fully supported Israel in this argument, saying that the ICC has no jurisdiction here.
The problem, however, goes deeper than this. One, even if Israel is not a signatory, Palestine is a signatory to the Rome Convention, and Israel is an occupying force of Palestine. Under international law, Israel is the occupier of Palestine. Even more importantly, the United States and other Western countries have often spoken about war crimes and crimes against humanity in a manner different from what the U.S. and Israel are claiming now. When war crimes are committed by nations and forces like Iran, Hezbollah, the Taliban, or Russia, the West often speaks as if whether a country is a signatory to the Rome Convention or not does not matter. In law, if the crime is so egregious, then we say there is “universal jurisdiction,” which means that you do not have to be a signatory to the Rome Convention to be held accountable for your crimes, for your crimes are so bad that they are crimes against humanity.
When it came to this case and to Israel, however, the U.S. did a complete turnaround. Gone are the arguments about crimes against humanity. Gone are the arguments about universal jurisdiction. Gone are the arguments that human rights are so sacred that someone who egregiously violates human rights is an enemy of humankind. Israel and the U.S. now adhere to the hyper-technical point of whether those charged have signed the Rome Convention or not.
But the ironies do not even stop there. For clear political reasons, in my opinion, the ICC issued a very narrow ruling. It avoided the issue of universal jurisdiction. It avoided saying that the crimes committed were so egregious that, in fact, one does not need to be a signatory to the Rome Convention to be charged. The ICC said, "We have jurisdiction because Palestine is a signatory and Israel is an occupying power, so jurisdiction exists.” The ICC also went to great pains to say that they are not just indicting Netanyahu and Gallant but have also indicted a dead person, Mohammed Deif from Hamas, along with other Hamas figures.
In moments like these, you pause and think of several things. One, you notice the amazing absence of Muslim countries, particularly Arabic-speaking countries. Two, some countries like Egypt did what they regularly do vis-a-vis their own people. Egypt went as far as lying to the Egyptian people. Sisi of Egypt tried to give the Egyptian people the impression that Egypt was, in fact, playing an important role in bringing charges against Israel at the ICC, but the truth is that Egypt has played no role. They did not join the lawsuit, and they are nowhere in the picture whatsoever. If you listen to Egyptian media, you see how the Egyptian government has no qualms about doing what it always does with its own citizenry: lying to them, claiming false victories, and taking their citizenry for granted. So much so, in fact, that the government does not even bother with the fact that these are easily discoverable lies that do not take much effort to expose. Three, you then become aware of American legislation that is extremely curious. During his term, George W. Bush passed a law that has become known as “The Hague Invasion Act,” which essentially states that if the ICC ever arrests an American for war crimes committed in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, the U.S. is authorized to invade the Netherlands to liberate the American facing charges. A greater denouncement of the ICC and the very idea of human rights is not possible. It is not China or Russia that has passed such a law. It is the United States. But you then discover that this law did not even stop there. It went further by executive directive. In other words, the executive branch said, "The way I am going to interpret this law is that I am also authorized to invade and go to war against the ICC if they touch any major ally of the United States." A major ally like Israel and even Egypt.
This is the first time the ICC has indicted anyone pro-Western. All the indictments of the ICC, to date, have been from the camp the U.S. does not like. This is the first time that the ICC has shown the guts to go after some favored by the West, and I believe it is simply because of how egregious what is going on in Palestine is. The ICC fully knew that turning away from this genocide would be a death sentence to its own legitimacy. No one would take the ICC seriously if it failed to call the spade a spade and say that what is going on in Gaza at the hands of Israel is criminal. Or, at least in the language of the ICC, that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed.
During the Trump presidency, when the ICC dared to contemplate an investigation into war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump promptly enforced sanctions against the ICC and threatened both the ICC and the entire United Nations system if these investigations were not dropped. So, indeed, the charges were promptly dropped. Fast forward to today and, yet again, a bill has already been introduced in Congress that calls for sanctioning and punishing the ICC for daring to indict two people who are on record as calling for the extermination of an entire people. As the ICC itself pointed out, neither Netanyahu nor Gallant has made a secret of the fact that they are intentionally starving and displacing the Palestinian people. They made no secret of the fact that they are intentionally obstructing aid to the Palestinian people. At least ten Palestinian children undergo amputations every single day in Gaza without anesthesia. Israel is fully aware of this fact, and this is because Israel will not allow for even something like anesthesia to enter into Gaza. Israel is fully aware of the famine conditions they have caused. So, when the ICC says there are “reasonable grounds” to believe, that is legalese for “everyone knows” and “it is obvious.” War crimes are being committed, and a genocide is being perpetuated.
We are in a truly dissonant state where principles are being flung around. Our own country is in a remarkably hypocritical position, fully in support of the ICC when it comes to indicting Putin and his actions in Ukraine and fully dismissive of the same institution when it comes to Israel. But it does not even stop there. For the sake of Israel, the U.S. is threatening to invade its ally, the Netherlands. For the sake of Israel, the U.S. is threatening to undermine the entire institutional structure and jurisprudence of the United Nations. This is not realpolitik. This is not political pragmatism or realism. This is an ideological war. We can make many rational arguments as to why it is entirely self-defeating for the U.S. to undermine the institutions of international law and the entire system of human rights that the U.S. itself often leverages against its opponents. But we then hit a wall of ideology where the United States, for purely ideological reasons, thinks Israel is worth all of that and more.
But the real issue is that standing side by side with the United States in its ideological outlook are so-called Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan, countries that post-Arab Spring no longer see the enemy as anything external to itself. These countries no longer have even a passing thought about colonial powers being a threat. They like colonial powers. They befriend colonial powers. These are countries that in no way, shape, or form see Israel as alien or a threat. They do not even see U.S. imperialism as such. In fact, if they worry about Chinese or Russian imperialism at all, they rely fully on the U.S. and Israel to protect them from that vague, remote threat.
These governments perceive a very different threat. A never-ending threat. An endless enemy, so to speak. And what they are constantly guarding against is their own people. More specifically, it is the Islamic heritage, and what the Islamic heritage can do to their own people. Islam once turned people against Quraysh and put Muslims in a state of rebellion against the materialism, hedonism, irrationalities, paradoxes, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies of Quraysh, and these governments fully recognize that potential threat from Islam. When I say “Islam,” I mean the Islamic tradition as found in the corpus of books that represent the Islamic civilization. I mean the Islamic legacy and the Islamic narrative in all its history, its law, its philosophy, its poetry, its literature, its everything. They understand that to be the real threat, and this is why we read things that truly blow the mind.
Consider the following tidbit. With the full cooperation and approval of Egypt, Israel carried out more than 100 airstrikes against Egyptian citizens. Not against Palestinians, but Egyptian citizens in Sinai. Sisi's government told Israel, "Go ahead, kill my citizens for me. Use your airforce, Israel. You have my full cooperation and blessing." Even more, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt has had and continues to have a close relationship with Zionist lobbying groups. So much so that from February 2017, Sisi met representatives of the most influential pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, the FIDF, and the Zionist Organization of America, five times in twenty months. Sisi has not visited the U.S. in a while, but researchers agree that like Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Mohamed bin Zayed of the Emirates, Sisi regularly calls upon Zionist organizations to advocate for his government in the U.S. so that every time human rights organizations complain about Egypt's horrible human rights record and try to block U.S. aid to Egypt, these pro-Israel Zionist lobby organizations will block the attempts and protect the aid.
The real enemy for all these governments is their own people. And because Islam is the only truly indigenous ideology that is natural to the soil and land over which they rule, they constantly see Islam itself as a threat.
So I return to the point with which I started. The challenge is that you, as a Muslim, are a man or a woman of the Book. But the world that you read around you makes this Book, the Qur'an, feel so far away. Amid all the hubris, this mess, the contradictions of this world, it seems as if the Qur'an is far away, distant and removed. So you are not sure in what way you are a person of the Book. That is the real challenge for every Muslim, man and woman, living today.
In Surah al-Hajj, God reminds us that a true witness for God is someone for whom the home in which they live, the family they have, their relationships and careers, anything they purchase— they make these things co-existent or co-extensive with the act of worshipping God. As the end of Surah al-Hajj underscores, they also become a constant force for espousing what is good and resisting what is evil, immoral, and unethical. Then, at the very end of Surah al-Hajj, God tells us: "Indeed, your role is to discharge the obligation of Shahada, to witness on behalf of God by being a force for good and a constant force against what is evil, immoral, and unethical” (Q 22:78). The same closing verse then tells us that the Prophet will bear witness to his Ummah on the Final Day to see how his Ummah has performed.
Our role, as an Ummah, day after day, is the role of Shahada. It is, quite simply, to bear witness. In the same chapter, God tells us that there are people who make claims, argue, and contend all things about God, but they do so without guidance and without a Book. God constantly reminds us to run to this revelation and to constantly use God’s word to remind ourselves that we are here on this earth not to satisfy our urges, not to enjoy ourselves, not to just look after ourselves, not to indulge, but to bear witness for God.
But bearing witness necessitates awareness and seriousness. Can you imagine a witness who understands nothing and comprehends little? In fact, what they perceive is always superficial, because they have no basis in knowledge or awareness? Witnessing is a heavy responsibility, and here is all the rub: the more this world presents you with challenges in coherence—in other words, the more you look at this world and see it as messed up; the more you see injustices and things that simply do not make sense because of how unfair they are— your only salvation, your only repose, your only source of comfort, and your only choice is to hold on ever more tightly to your role as a witness. For that is what you are. And when you witness for God, your only audience is God. Does it matter that few people, if any, applaud your testimony? Does it matter that people approve or disapprove of your testimony? No, it does not.
The only thing that matters is what God reminds us of at the beginning of Surah al-Hajj. Whatever you may think of this life, be mindful that the Hereafter is truly a momentous, overwhelming occasion. What you will confront after your death and resurrection will be the real life. So your investment is in your act of Shahada, your act of witnessing.
Like everything else—like there are good doctors and bad doctors, good engineers and bad engineers, good lawyers and bad lawyers—there are good witnesses and bad witnesses. If you invest in your act of witnessing, then your witnessing becomes more truthful, more substantive, more real, and more objective. It becomes not simply a reflection of your own insecurities and subjectivities. It becomes an actual testimony for what is truthful, right, and just. Is this enough? Yes, absolutely. For God made the role of a witness the most honored and most revered of all tasks. God has made it, in fact, the very purpose of your existence as a human being on this earth.