The Qur'an is truly a madrassa (school). Like all schools, however, regardless of how well-organized or well-staffed it is, the quality of students varies significantly. If the student is not willing to apply himself or herself, if the student is unwilling to take in the instruction, then regardless of the quality of the school, the product will be deficient and defective. I am stating the obvious, of course, but it is often the obvious that eludes and escapes us. If you entrust the most brilliant piece of literature to a monkey, the results will be predictable. That monkey cannot differentiate between the most brilliant piece of literature and the worst piece of literature, or between what is or what is not literature at all. It is all the same in the hands of a monkey. To expect that the Qur'an will miraculously transform the students, regardless of what the students themselves put into the Qur'an, is so fundamentally unreasonable that it qualifies as insanity.
I often emphasize, in all the khutbahs I give, that the world in which we live is a constant source of education and reflection. It is intentionally so by God. If we reflect upon the affairs of the Muslim world today, we find so many things that could only be normalized among people who are thoroughly traumatized. There are so many things that are not normal for healthy people. They cannot and should never be normal. And what the Qur'an has to tell us about oxymorons and paradoxes like this is truly breathtaking.
I return to some of the insanity that we are living in throughout the Muslim world that—insanity that has, again, become normalized for the Muslim psyche. Think of the unbelievable accounts of suffering and torture in the prisons of Assad in Syria. In a previous khutbah, I pointed out the paradox that Syria is not the exception. If people were released from the prisons of Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia or the UAE, we would hear very similar, if not identical, narratives. The only reason we do not have these narratives is because of an overwhelming force: the force of injustice and despotism. It is only the denial of justice that silences the testimonies, and it is only the momentary lifting of despotism and injustice that allowed these narratives to flow out of Syria. But then the paradoxes continue.
In the field of international human rights, several countries, in compliance with the indictments passed down by the International Criminal Court (ICC), have started investigating Israeli soldiers for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The list is long, but it includes Cyprus, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. When Israeli soldiers visit these countries, they find themselves being investigated for war crimes, and the Israeli embassy in these countries rushes to help the individuals escape. This recently happened with a soldier in Brazil. An Israeli soldier visited Brazil and found himself under investigation, so the Israeli embassy immediately put him on a plane, helping him escape.
But I then heard something on Israeli television that nearly blew me over. Israeli commentators, when discussing this issue, drew my attention to an amazing paradox. They said that they “did not feel safe,” as Israelis who had served in the military, traveling to many parts of the world for fear of being pursued, persecuted, and prosecuted. They said that they feel safest in the United States, which is a sad reality in itself. The U.S. has truly become a pariah state in international law. But, besides the U.S., the places where they said they felt safest, as former Israeli soldiers, were Arab and Muslim countries. They know, when they go to the UAE, Egypt, or Morocco, that they are completely safe. They know that no one will indict or investigate them.
I paused and thought about the utter bizarreness of that statement. A genocide continues unhampered and uninterrupted, and Israel relies on its Muslim neighbors to continue supplying it with food, fuel, and everything it needs. It also relies on its Muslim neighbors for the entertainment of its soldiers, knowing that of all the people and places of the world, it can count on Muslims to do nothing. In fact, they know Muslims will go out of their way to protect the criminals.
Recently, there has been a story about a man named Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, the son of the late Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Shaykh al-Qaradawi was a highly regarded scholar. He was, in fact, a superstar. I met Shaykh al-Qaradawi in Egypt and Qatar and, at that time, people would be falling over themselves just to be in his vicinity, just to have a photo with him. Even the former Mufti of Egypt, Ali Juma, would brag that he consulted with Shyakh al-Qaradawi about Shari‘a matters. Back then, it was all the prestige to know Shaykh al-Qaradawi, just as it was all the prestige to know Salman al-Ouda. But when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt no longer liked Salman al-Ouda or Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the very same people who once fought for a photo with these figures disappeared.
Was Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, the son of that great scholar, honored and treated with great reverence on account of his father? Absolutely not. In fact, Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, because he is the son of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, found himself persecuted and fighting all types of rumors and crazy accusations, including claims of sexual assault, drug addiction, and drug dealing. But what recently happened with Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi is insane. He went to Syria to celebrate the fall of Assad’s regime, visiting the Grand Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and stopped in transit in Lebanon on his way back. It was at that point that Lebanon arrested him, claiming to have received an order from the Egyptian government demanding his arrest. This man has never been a part of any movement or organization. The only “crime” he has committed is that he is a poet. He writes poetry and posts his poems on his website. His poems are not even published, because he is banned everywhere.
What is unverified, but is most likely true, sadly, is that he was turned over to the UAE. Think of all those Muslims in the U.S. who have sold their souls, their selves, and their Hereafters to the Emiratis. As we speak, you and I know what is happening to Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi in the hands of the Emiratis. You and I know the hell this poor man is experiencing. You then pause and think, "Just for writing poems? For poems, two countries demanded that he be surrendered and turned over?” Though he is from Egyptian parents, he was never an Emirati citizen, and there is not even an extradition treaty between Lebanon and the UAE, so how could it be that the UAE would send a special plane to receive Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi for him to then disappear? By what right? By what law? Think of the craziness, the sheer insanity of it all.
Please also understand that since Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi was detained in Lebanon, an entire army of journalists in Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia has done nothing, every single day, but attack and vilify this poor man. He is being accused of everything one can imagine. I am not talking about one or two journalists. I am talking about 20 journalists in Egypt that, for hours each day, do nothing but talk about the “enemy of the state,” Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, the “terrorist.” It is the same for Emirati and Saudi outlets. To that extent, they fear poetry. To that extent, they fear the word of truth. How do we describe that? How do we conceptually put a framework for this bizarre reality?
The Qur'an is a school, and this school has taught us a word that encapsulates all this insanity. But, sadly, we are not good students of the Qur'an. We are oblivious. The word that the Qur'an taught is taghut. In Surah al-Baqarah, God tells us that taghut is darkness. Taghut is the opposite of Divinity. In fact, in Surah al-Baqarah, God tells us that the very reason of Islam is to take people out of taghut and into the light of God (Q 2:257).
What is taghut? It is everything that is unjust, despotic, and oppressive. God taught us that oppression, by its very nature, cannot be consistent with the light of Divinity, and God gave us examples of the absurdness of oppression and how the mechanisms of oppression work. The earmark of oppression, of taghut, is that it is irrational. There is no way to hold it accountable to rational measures, for it is founded on hubris and arrogance. It is a type of arrogance that says, “I am above and beyond reason and rationality.” Think of the famous story of Nimrod, for example, the purported ruler of Iraq in ancient times, who was a true despot. Through his confrontation with the Prophet Abraham, Nimrod follows a line of reasoning that is exceptional and absurd. Abraham tells Nimrod that Nimrod is not God, for Nimrod does not control life and death (Q 2:258). By way of response, Nimrod invokes a logic that is exceptional and incongruous, saying, “Well, I can bring in some prisoners and I can order one to be executed and pardon another. See, I can do what God does.” If you are not a monkey, if you have any element of reason in you, you cannot but pause and recognize that this is not a good response. But who will tell Nimrod that his response is irrelevant, inapposite, or just poor? Nimrod exemplifies taghut.
Or, in another case, after Abraham destroys the idols the people bring him in for questioning. Abraham tells them to “ask the biggest idol,” which had not been destroyed. The people know these idols cannot respond. They know the evidence for Abraham's conviction was not there. What, then, did they do? They simply sentence Abraham to die in a fire (Q 21:62-69). That is the nature of taghut. “It does not matter if you are making sense, Abraham, it does not matter if you have a point. It does not matter if you are rational or reasonable. It simply does not matter. I am the holder of power and my logic rules. You have no option but to submit to my logic. Either that, or you must suffer.”
God gives us yet another example of taghut in the person of the Pharaoh. When Moses tells the Pharaoh that Moses worships the God who made us all, the Pharaoh responds in the most illogical fashion, commanding his chief minister to build him a tower. Why? So that the Phaorah can ascend the tower and catch a glance of Moses's god (Q 28:38). The Pharaoh knew there was no tower that would extend his sight into the sky. It was an inapposite point. It was entirely irrational. But, because of taghut, regardless of the irrationality of the response, people who are subjugated and dominated have no choice but to listen to the Pharaoh and say, “Yes, you have a point, master, yes, yes, yes.” They have to listen to Nimrod and say, “You have a point, master.” People have no choice even after they see Abraham unharmed when cast into a fire. Even when they see Moses cross the Red Sea. Even though they saw the miracles with their own eyes, was Nimrod overthrown? No. Was the Pharaoh overthrown? No. Why? Because the oppressed will continue to validate the oppressor, regardless of reason or logic. There is no way to hold the oppressor accountable. That is the core of taghut.
It does not matter if one explicitly calls himself God. It does not matter if Sisi of Egypt, Assad of Syria, or the King of Saudi Arabia says, “I am God.” That does not matter. What matters is that they act like they are God. They are beyond questioning, beyond accountability. They embody taghut.
One cannot but reflect upon the Book that came to educate its students about the heart of injustice and the heart of darkness, telling them to beware, for there are human beings who want to hold themselves above accountability, who want to hold themselves supreme, as if they are untouchable, as if they are, in fact, gods. They can commit no error. To say that they have committed an error is to put oneself in great danger. You cannot even write words of poetry telling them they have done wrong. If you do that, you will experience a living hell. They can give respite and relief to war criminals, even the very people who killed your brothers and sisters. While countries like Brazil, Cyprus, Spain, and Portugal pursue war criminals, we, as Muslims, remain such poor students of the Qur’an.
The Qur'an is a school, but it needs good students. Regardless of the quality of the school, if a student is determined to be bad, the net result will always be bad. As I have said, the most brilliant book in the hands of a monkey has predictable results. You cannot expect that the intellect of the monkey will be elevated. We, as Muslims, cannot continue being monkeys. Being the son of that luminary, Shaykh al-Qaradawi, should have earned Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi a thousand immunities. I disagreed very publicly with al-Qaradawi at various points throughout his career, but that is besides the point. Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi is the son of someone who spent his entire life serving God and serving Shari’a. And even if his father was unknown, he should still be entitled to justice. He should still be able to write whatever he wants to write and not fear that he will disappear.
And we, as Muslims, at a very minimum, should be able to demand that our governments go after war criminals, after those who have participated in the genocide against our brothers and sisters. But we are completely helpless before taghut, to the point that we do not even teach our children about taghut. We teach our children about hijab, but not about taghut. We teach our children about the most marginal issues, but not about something at the very heart and core of our theology. Until when will Muslims remain monkeys in that most excellent school, the school of the Qur'an?