Part Four
had been enslaved', were released on all sides and 'Ali, the embodiment of
the spirit of this Revolution, was isolated in his house as a sign that
justice is once again separated from religion: as a sign that the masses
once again must leave the scene and religion is once again used exclusively
by the elite clergymen, aristocrats and rulers and it is because of this
that Ali and those in his parameters: Abu Dharr, a man from the wilderness;
Bilal, a stranger without anyone or any work, who was an Ethiopian slave;
Salman, a non-Arab who was a freed slave; Suhayb, a foreigner who had come
from Greece; Ammar, a half-breed from a black-slave mother and southern-Arab
father; Maytham, a poverty-stricken date-seller ... who were the beloved
confidants of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, left the scene, and, the
Elders of the Companions 'Abd al-Rahman 'Awf, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqas, Khalid ibn
Walid, Talha, Zubayr, Abu Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthman, who were all from among
the aristocrats of the Age of Ignorance, took the leadership of the
Governent in hand, came to dominate society and brought a closed political
group into being.
This strong and unexpected inclination of Islam to the right, which began
with a coup d'etat-like election in Thaqifah during the time of Abu Bakr,
only had a political aspect, and during the time of 'Umar, it showed its
economic visage by classifying Muslims according to the receipt of
government wages. It even classified the wives of the Holy Prophet into
two scales, depending upon their class before marriage, free or slave! at
which the wives of the Prophet, who had been free women, objected and they
re-fused to accept the privilege.
But during the regime of 'Uthman, this inclination [to the right] reached
its peak point society became categorized; aristocrats took absolute
control of the rule; the conquests of Islam in the East and the West,
which included economic resources, spoils of war, as well as political and
many administrative positions, from Transoxiana of Iran until North Africa,
were placed at the disposal of the regime in Madinah; the Companions of the
Prophet, mujahids, Emigrants and Helpers were turned from being
revolutionary-ideological partisans into being politicians and figures of
power and wealth; a class of rulers was created from those who were
generally pious, poor, committed, strugglers, a class of new bourgeoisie
was formed from the flood of wealth in the form of war spoils, the poor
rate (zakat) and the jiziyah[the tax of non-Muslims living under Islamic
protection] of millions of Muslims and revolutionary-ideological partisans
into being politicians and leaders of power and wealth; a class of rulers
was created from those who were generally pious, poor, committed,
strugglers; a class of new bourgeoisie was formed from the flood of wealth
in the form of war sDoils. the Door-rate (zakat) of Muslims and the taxes
of non-Muslims and kafirs slide downwards towards 'poor' Madinah, which
not only changed Islamic Madinah, the Muslim ummah and the mujahids of the
Battles of Badr and Uhud, but, the contents and social orientation of
Islam [as well], and, as a result, religious perception. It changed Islam
from the form of a' re-volutionary ideology' into the form of a 'government
religion'. This curve, which at Thaqifah had deviated to the right, in less
than a quarter of a century (that same quarter of a century when 'Ali had
been isolated in his home, the determinations of politics, during these
years when the history of Islam was being formed, obliged him to do
agricultural work in Yanba', or in his home to turn to collect the Quran,
with which he was also concerned that it not be altered), reached the
point that the outstanding political and intellectual visages of Islam
were Mu'awiyah [governor during the time of the first few caliphs] who
was independent, Marwan Hakam, who was an exile of the Prophet, and
Ka'b al-Ahbar, a Jewish rabbi who had recently turned to Islam and become
a clergyman of Islam, 'Uthman, 'the Prophet's caliph', would ask him (Ka'b)
to give commentaries upon the Holy Quran; ['Uthman] considered 'Ali and
Abu Dharr's commentaries incorrect!
'Uthman, in order to justify his new political and economic system, which
was a fake copy of the rule of the King of Iran and the Caesar of Rome, did
not make any efforts to deceive, perhaps for this reason that at that time,
such an act would not be effective because the people had seen what an
Islamic rule is with their own eyes and also because 'Uthman's work was
more shameful than to be able to try to
justify it as being Islamic.
'Uthman is the inventor of a list of innovations (bid'ah) which appear for
the first time' in Islam. For the first time, the leader becomes a palace
resident; for the first time, he arranges for official security guards;
for the first time, special courtiers are found; for the first time, he has
a chamberlain; for the first time, the relation between the common masses
of the people and the caliph finds an intermediator; for the first time,
the public treasury is placed at the disposal of the caliph and the
keeper of the keys goes to the mosque and announces to the people, who are
the owners of the public treasury, that, "As the Caliph is interferring, I
will give the keys back to you. I resign. Do what you want"; for the first
time, a political prison is found; for the first time, a Muslim is under
survelliance because he attacked the method of the caliph or his agents;
for the first time, political exile appears; for the first time, a human
being is tortured by the rule ('Abdallah ibn Mas'ud); for the first time,
the Holy Quran is used as a means to politically deceive the people; for
the first time, the rulers are given a free rein over the fate of the
people and they exonerate themselves from any legal and Islamic
responsibility; for the first time, tribal and kinship ties become a
ladder for political and social progression; for the first time, high
positions are monopolized and are held in exclusiveness for the members
of the political bond which is affiliated to the caliph; and in order to
gain position, the criteria of Islam and piety give way to kinship and
politics; for the first time, exploitation of classes, contradiction,
discriminatlon, capitalism (kinz), aristocracy, ignorant values, tribal
spirit, old age, wealth, race, extraction, personality-worship and tribal
tendencies prevail over Islamic brotherhood and spiritual values and
social equality.
Economic privileges succeed over piety, a background of jihad, nearness to
the Prophet, knowledge of the Quran and individual merit; and the spirit
of rule triumphed over leadership, Imamate, a conservative system over a
revolutionary movement; the seeking of the exclusiveness of religion,
humanity, economics and politics over the mas inclined Islamic equality,
seeking and liberation, in the midst of which is an obscure man, having
even the same responsibility in the political fate of society and the
same right to interfer as the person of the caliph; in the same rank as
the great Companions, but, in general, games of compromise [succeed] over
longing for the truth; politics over struggle; Islamic slogans over Islamic
truths; the Elder Companions over the believers; class over ummah; the
house Of the caliphate over the mosque; tribal aristocracy over human
dignity; the old ignorance over the new revolution; innovation over
Tradition and finally, the family of Abu Sufyan over the family of
Muhammad.
As a result, 'Ali was disarmed! and Abu Dharr, who suffered after sorrow
fully accepting the defeat of 'Ali in the election of Abu Bakr and the
designation of 'Umar, has come again, he can no longer remain silent now
when everything has changed: despotism, gold and deception, this omnious
tatblith or trinity, in the white dress of the Prophet's caliph, behind
the beautiful guise of monotheism, are victorious over the people, who
are the continuing sacrifices to this trinity.
The value of what Abu Dharr did is not just that when confronted by false
hood, he defended truth; wben confronted by kufr, religion; when confronted
by usurpation, rights and the rightful,; and, finally, when confronted by
deviation, the right way; rather, that which gives him an outstanding and
special visage among all of the revolution ary and mujahid visages, was
the exact and clear orientation which he selected in his struggle. It was
because of this that he, with a correct evaluation, discovered the major
causes of all deviations; and the fact that he showed what this kufr, this
right and this deviation is and from what?
In his struggle, he did not lean on unclear phrases, minor slogans,
subjective issues, needs, anguishes and the idealistic, imagination,
worshipping goals of the philosophical, scholarly, ethical, theological,
polemically suprastructural, deviational and subjective, intellectual
sensitivities and feelings of scholars, gnostics, jurisprudents and
theologians which later polarized all conflicts and struggles in Islamic
society to those areas so that the two main slogans of 'imamate' and
'justice' depart from thoughts.
He did not take effects in place of causes. He showed 'from where one must
begin'; he made it clear what the sharp edge of struggle should be made
attentive to; he taught that deviated conflicts and the mistaken takings
of incidentals pulls the struggle with the enemy to those exact scenes
which the enemy wants, so that even if victory be attained, no pain will
be healed and the enemy will not be harmed.
He determined the main line of his struggle to be a struggle with class
discrimination in order to establish justice. As these two slogans are so
extensive that the caliphate can also announce them and by means of the
propagation facilities of the caliphate, that is, pulpits and mihrabs,
and so justify and exigize them through the propagator agents of the
official and ruling Islam, transmitters of the Traditions, propagators,
preachers, commentators, jurisprudents and scholars, that they no longer
have any effects, Abu Dharr, as a lesson to those who like him make
efforts to have their Islam be the Muhammad-like Islam of 'Ali, returned
to the Quran. He took his battle cry from it.
Those who treasure up (kinz) gold and silver and do not
expend (infaq) them in the Way of God, give them the
good tidings of a painful chastisement, the day they
shall be heated in the fire of hell and therewith, their
foreheads and their sides and their backs shall be
branded. 'This is the thing you have treasured up for
yourselves; therefore taste you now what you were
treasuring!'(9:34-35)
Kinz is Arabic for treasure and means the 'storing up of capital'. Gold
and silver are manifestations of capitalism. Infaq, 'the act of spending',
comes from nafaq meaning break and has been derived from the if'al form of
the verb, giving the opposite meaning of the first, that is, eliminating
and negating a break in something. It is clear that what is meant here is
a crack, a break in society which is made by capitalism and economic
exploitation. What is meant is a class break or clevage, uneveness and
the unsymmetrical or disproportionate level of social life.