Shabbir Akhtar and Gustavo Gutiérrez: Religion as Liberation from Injustice/Oppression

“Peace without justice cannot endure; peace with justice must necessarily abide”

“Islam’s fight is against injustice”

“God works out His purposes in the real world, not through our daydreams. His constituency is our human, all too human, world. To attenuate the obstinacy of man, to reduce the actual dimensions of human perversity, whether for purposes practical or abstract, is effectively to wish for a constituency that has little in common with our own world. It is, in effect, to ask for illusions. Reality, both natural and political, has no great desire to reflect the wishes and slogans of the pious will…This harsh and indifferent world may not be the only one worth describing — fantasy has its rewards — but it is necessarily the only one worth changing. That is why any realistic scripture must deal with human beings as they actually are, not as we would ideally like them to be. There is no constituency more worthy of wonder than the real world”

—Shabbir Akhtar

“But peace presupposes the establishment of justice”

“The denunciation of social injustices is certainly the prevailing theme in the texts of the Latin American Church. This denunciation is a manner of express­ing the intention of becoming disassociated from the existing unjust order”

“In history and only in history is the gift of the love of God believed, loved, and hoped for. Every attempt to evade the struggle against alienation and the violence of the powerful and for a more just and more human world is the greatest infidelity to God. To know God is to work for justice. There is no other path to reach God”

—Gustavo Gutiérrez

 

I. The Medina-Medellin Alliance

Terms such as ‘globalisation,’ ‘integration,’ ‘internationalism,’ ‘cross-cultural,’ ‘pan-human,’ and ‘universal’ are silently acknowledged to be the vocabulary of a centripetal force that wishes to centre all discussion on (what is colloquially known as) the West. Meaning, relevance, and significance are provided if, and only if, non-Western ideas are made to conform, both epistemically and ethically, to a (de)base(d) position that is acceptable to Western sentiments. These norms, with their gatekeeping functions, effectively exclude opinions, viewpoints, and perspectives that are not congenial to the concerns of a world minority. After all, the non-West (to talk hazily about it), is, and will always be, the majority of mankind. It is unsavoury, if not downright offensive, that instead of a representative universal ‘market place of ideas,’ the smorgasbord on display stints on variety. This bewailing, however, often falls into a vicious cycle of condemnation that perpetuates itself ad infinitum while ignoring the heftier task of remedial action. In 1991, Shabbir Akhtar outlined a way to escape this loop in his pioneering study The Final Imperative: An Islamic Theology of Liberation, upon which this essay elucidates.

Much ink has been spilled by Muslims in an attempt to elicit a rapprochement with, in particular, North America. Ever the dissenter, Akhtar chose instead to turn to South America. In The Final Imperative, Akhtar exhibits how the Ummah (‘global Muslim community’) has greater affinity to Latin America, with its continued struggle against external subjugation and internal corruption, than to the Anglo-American heritage of empire and exploitation.

The very first chapter of Akhtar’s study mentions Gustavo Gutiérrez.^[1] In 1973, this Peruvian theologian, priest, and philosopher published his revolutionary magnum opus, A Theology of Liberation, that took the world by storm. Gutiérrez established liberation theology, a field that emphasises how theology aids in political struggle against societal oppression. Rather than confining religious concern to hopeful eschatology, liberation theology envisions an amalgamation of the spitiritual and practical, wordly affairs against injustice. Thus, Gutiérrez intended such a theology to “not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be a part of the process through which the world is transformed.”[2] In Latin America, this took the form of challenging the political disenfranchisement of the masses. In South Africa, this became the advocacy of black rights in the face of apartheid. In South Asia, this turned into the focus of eradicating debilitating poverty.^[3] In its essence, it is a theology of political action amendable to the dire conditions of the Third World (as opposed to the First World); an attractive constitution to the Third World calling to social action rooted in theology against injustice and legacies of oppressive despotism. While Gutiérrez identified three “levels of meaning” within liberation theology,[4] Akhtar provided a workable definition:

“It could be interpreted to mean a religious programme of liberating the powerless and rightless masses of the Third World by exercising a ‘preferential option for the poor’.”^[5]

The phrase ‘preferential option for the poor’ is central to Gutiérrez’s thought. He writes:

While Gutiérrez grounds his position in the Bible, Akhtar finds the same position in the Qurʾan. The almost identical, foundational ethics of Islam and Christianity make this conclusion both logical and unsurprising and the fact of their similitude is noted by Abu Hāmid al-Ghāzālī:

“But what induced me to change their dress for other names was my knowledge of your weak natural disposition [ability] and your soul’s submissiveness to illusions [awhām: caprices, delusions, wild fancies]…Because of that you do not look at an utterance with reference to its being an utterance, but with reference to the elegance of its formulation or to your good opinion of him who says it. So if its expression is loathed by you or its utterer is in a shameful state in your belief, you reject the utterance, even though in itself it is true. And if someone were to say to you: ‘Say: There is no god other than God, Jesus is the Apostle of God,’ your nature would recoil from that and you would say: ‘This is what Christians say: how, then, can I say it?’ You would not have the brains enough to know that this utterance is in itself true, and that the Christians are odious, not because of this utterance, nor because of the others, but rather because of two assertions only. One of the two is his statement: Muhammad is not an apostle; and the second is his statement: God is a third of three. His other statements, apart from that, are true.”^[6]

Christianity and Islam are aligned in message and spirit separated only by few doctrinal issues. Akhtar recognises liberation theology as closer to the esse of Islam than to Christian orthodoxy.^[7] And while Akhtar does quarrel with many aspects of post-enlightenment Christianity, he clarifies that his critique is towards “certain threads within Christian thought which have lately gained prominence, and not with Christianity of the great ages of faith”.^[8] That Islam and Christianity have kindred values and common ground is explicitly illustrated by, most pertinently for present purposes, the parallel advocacy for, and calling to, political struggle against injustice in both the Qurʾan[9] and Bible.[10] This view, it goes without saying, contradicts thedominant narrative where a post-enlightenment Christianity is posited as apolitical, keeping silent after the separation of Church and State and filtering down into collective political apathy. This view may represent the self-understanding of the First World. But in the Third World, things are different. Gutiérrez writes:

“Frequently in Latin America today certain priests are considered ‘subver­sive.’ Many are under surveillance or are being sought by the police. Others are in prison, have been expelled from their country (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and the Dominican Republic are significant examples), or have been murdered by terrorist anti-communist groups. For the defenders of the status quo ‘priestly subversion’ is surprising. They are not used to it. The political activity of some leftist groups, we might say, is—within certain limits—assimilated and tolerated by the system and is even useful to it to justify some of its repressive measures; the dissidence of priests and religious, however, appears as particularly dangerous, especially if we consider the role which they have traditionally played.”^[11]

The clergy in Latin America stood at the forefront of the fight against state-sponsored repression and CIA-sponsored death squads. This excerpt, penned in 1973, painted the tension between Church and politics and augered its similitude to The New York Times’s 1979 headline: “Blind Cairo Sheik Rallies Poor With Fiery Islamic Creed”—referring to Abdel Hamid Kishk.^[12]

In 1968, the Medellin Conference was held in Columbia.^[13] Priests from across Latin America discussed the dire need for religion to deal with the morass of poverty and mayhem of oppression. The agreements and resolutions of the Medellin Conference (upon which Gutiérrez relies) echoes Muhammad’s migration in 622 from Mecca to Medina (the ‘Hijrah’). The Hijrah is the uncontested starting point of the Islamic calendar, and it signifies how religion can engage fruitfully with politics.^[14] The Medina-Medellin Alliance, to coin a playful neologism, is the recognition that Islam and liberation theology both agree that the separation of religion from the ambit of politics effectively relegates justice to insignificance, extinguishes the struggle against oppression, and nurtures a breeding ground for injustice. Using both Akhtar’s and Gutiérrez’s ideas as a sounding board, the rest of this essay will demonstrate several intersecting points between Islam and liberation theology.

II. Exodus and Fir’awn

The clearest expression of political liberation in the Bible, according to Gutiérrez, is found in the Old Testament narrative of Exodus. The Bible describes the conditions suffered by the Israelites in Egypt: slavery, repression, alienation, humiliation, forced birth control, misery, brutality.^[15] What does God want from the Israelites? Does He want them to continue in this pitiful condition? Does God sanctify this deplorable oppression? Does God command them to continue being slaves? Does God abandon their plight? No. God sends Moses to liberate the Israelites.

Gutiérrez discusses Exodus under the heading “Political Liberation: Human Self-Creation”.^[16] This heading has two parts to it. Because God loved the Israelites, he gave them the “gift of total liberation” from the oppressive rule of pharaonic Egypt.^[17] Yet this liberation was not bestowed without human participation. Faith in God “desacralizes” the social matrix. Oppression is transformed from a divinely-imposed condition into a humanly-created situation. With hard work, the faithful can counter oppression.^[18] The story of Exodus shows the Israelites struggling with “liberation in process”.^[19] This blend of divine aid and human exertion nicely encapsulates the religious-political dimension and proposes that this dual alliance is liberation’s fulcrum. Rejecting servitude is definitely a “political action”.^[20] Yet it is concurrently a “religious event”.^[21]Instead of Exodus being peripheral to the Biblical message, it takes centre-stage. As Gutiérrez writes:

“The memory of the Exodus pervades the pages of the Bible and inspires one to reread often the Old as well as the New Testament.”^[22]

Liberation theology stems from the fact that God did not want the Israelites to kneel over to oppression; rather, God wanted them to struggle for their freedom.

The similarities here with the Qurʾanic narrative are obvious enough. Akhtar alludes to this in his repeated pairing of Muhammad and Moses.^[23] In fact, Muslim scholarship has long recognised the startling affinities between these two prophets. Zarkashi mentions that Moses is referred to in 120 different places in the Qurʾan.^[24] Suyūtī relates: “The Qurʾan is almost completely about Moses” (kāda al-Qurʾān an yakūna kulluhū Mūsā).^[25] Shaʿrāwī points out that the longest narrative (qiṣṣa) in the Qurʾan is that of Moses.^[26] Ibn Qayyim explains the repetition of Moses in the Qurʾan as follows: Muhammad took inspiration from Moses when Muhammad faced repeated hardships in his own life.^[27]

The Qurʾanic depiction of Exodus exudes political emphasis, especially in the figure of Firʿawn (Pharaoh). Firʿawn is portrayed as exemplifying tyranny (ṭughyān). His rule is maintained through brutality (baṭsh) and terror (irhāb). The Qurʾan portrays him as an archetype of tyrannical rule in every time and place.[28] Mindful of this characterisation, discerning readers of the Qurʾan will notice there are thus many Farāʿinah (plural of Firʿawn) in the past, present, and future who fit the same contemptible profile.^[29] In response to Moses’ bid to free the Israelites from enslavement, Firʿawn declared that Moses was trying to trigger a civil war that would destroy Egypt.^[30] This inversion of reality provided Fir’awn with the duplicitous justification for further repression against the Israelites. Yet Moses persisted and, in the end, he freed the Israelites from the grips of Firʿawn.

From early Islam, the name Firʿawn was used as a label for public political outcry against societal injustice. Hasan al-Basrī (d. 110 A.H.) considered Al-Ḥajjāj, the governor of Iraq, to be a form of Firʿawn.^[31] This practice extends up to the 21st century. Nadawi (d. 1999) discusses the struggle of Moses against Firʿawn in the context of Muslim-majority nations buckling under the servitude of Western foreign policies.^[32]

The lesson that Gutiérrez derives from the Biblical tale of Exodus is the lesson that Muslims derive from the Qurʾanic tale of Firʿawn. God does not want you, your community, nor your people to live under the subjugation of injustice; instead, God calls for freeing yourselves from such injustice. The political and religious do not interfere with one another; rather, they mutually reinforce each other.

III. Where Sin and Evil Abide

As unfashionable as they are, the terms ‘sin’ and ‘evil,’ from a bygone nomenclature, do signify experiences and events that everyone regularly faces and undergoes. Jean-Paul Sartre was not far off the mark when he penned: “Hell is—other people!”^[33] Yet a peculiarity of our contemporary plight is that sin and evil, as concepts, have been narrowed down to individual behavioural oddities. We understand when we are told that such-and-such a person is sinful; we do not understand when we are told that so-and-so a building is evil. This constriction of the scope of sin and evil was not always the case.

Two examples illustrate this point. Muhammad, during his lifetime, branded a certain mosque as evil. This is the infamous “Masjid Ḍirār” that is mentioned in Q.9:107-8. Not only can a building be evil, an area of land itself can be sinful. Nawawī reports a scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ) that praying in “stolen land” is prohibited.^[34]In the first case, political manipulation has occurred. In the second case, economic injustice has taken place. Political evil and economic sin can bar prayer, the foundational form of worship in Islam that carries inestimable importance. In modern parlance, these fall under the category of the “social dimension” of sin and evil. While the terminologies used in classical Islamic jurisprudence and contemporary critical theory are dissimilar, the similarity of meanings is not merely coincidental.

Gutiérrez rescues the concepts of sin and evil from the individualistic mould that constrains them. According to Gutiérrez, a situation of injustice, oppression, especially “unjust violence,” is theologically a “sinful situation”. Social, political, economical, and cultural inequalities, including unfair wages, exploitation, and starvation, are “clear indicators of sin and evil”.^[35] The message of Jesus sees misery and social injustice as sinful; his teaching is against such an “unjust order”.^[36] This view of sin is radical, for it equals to a total rejection of the dominant social system. Gutiérrez writes:

“The approach we have been considering opens up for us—and this is of utmost importance—unforeseen vistas on the problem of sin. An unjust situation does not happen by chance; it is not something branded by a fatal destiny: there is human responsibility behind it. The prophets said it clearly and energetically and we are rediscovering their words now. This is the reason why the Medellin Conference refers to the state of things in Latin America as a ‘sinful situation,’ as a ‘rejection of the Lord.’ This characterization, in all its breadth and depth, not only criticizes the individual abuses on the part of those who enjoy great power in this social order; it challenges all their practices, that is to say, it is a repudiation of the whole existing system”.^[37]

Certainly, this is unlike the pastoral message coming from Washington. The Bible attests to Gutiérrez’s view more than to the homilies out of New York. Gutiérrez finds ample references in the Bible to prophetic condemnations against social injustices, including: “Fraudulent commerce and exploitation…hoarding of lands…dishonest courts…violence of the ruling classes…slavery…unjust taxes…unjust functionaries…oppression by the rich”.^[38]

Socio-political situations characterised by injustice are sinful, and to pretend otherwise, by an individualistic interpretation that distorts Jesus’ message, is to demonstrate that one denounces sin in so far as this denunciation leaves one’s privilege unchallenged.

A common rejoinder to Gutiérrez’s view is that the Bible emphasises the virtues of poverty. The poor are closer to God than the rich; so, Gutiérrez is lopsided when he describes poverty as a sinful condition. In response, Gutiérrez need only point out that poverty contradicts Moses’ “mission of liberation” to the Israelites. Having your own land, and the human dignity to live in it, was crucial to Exodus; and this is exactly a “vigorous repudiation of poverty”.^[39]

Akhtar can argue as Gutiérrez does, but more simply and pithily. He refers to Chapter 107 of the Qurʾan, which can be cited fully here:

“Have you considered the person who denies the Judgement? * It is he who pushes aside the orphan * and does not urge others to feed the needy * So woe to those who pray * but are heedless of their prayer; * those who are all show * and forbid common kindnesses.”

Here, we find the Qurʾan “famously and sharply” condemning any attempt to “divorce religious observance from an implied practical concern for the poor and dispossessed”.^[40] Chapter 107 shows that “structural problems of society based on unjust distributions of power and wealth” must be countered by “justice,” which is “the first public (or structural) priority” of faith.^[41] This is not an anachronistic gloss. Orphans in pagan Mecca lacked fathers and brothers to provide tribal protection; they were among the most powerless and most vulnerable groups in society. In a rich and prosperous city as Mecca, that thrived as a lucrative trading emporium; the needy, who were desperate for food, were living impoverished lives in a luxuriant setting. (The opulence of pagan Mecca is testified by Chapter 106 of the Qurʾan titled Quraysh.) Those who “forbid” kindness are those imposing a dehumanising rule that is injustice. Chapter 107 commands the faithful to go against such injustice, which is a call to justice. Significantly, those condemned are identified as both non-Muslims (“denies the Judgement”) and Muslims (“those who pray”). The issue of justice is so pivotal, it straddles across the boundaries of religious identities.

Without “religious restraint,” the political field will be open season for the politically ambitious to wreck havoc. This leads to the “Devil” dominating our day-to-day lives.^[42] Ears habituated to modern sensibilities will find evoking Satan here ponderous. It must be remembered that Akhtar is writing from a tradition where the very last verse of the Qurʾan, and its very last word, identifies the diabolical and demonic with man—Q.114:6. The very first mention of Shaytān (Q.2:14) in the Qurʾan refers to people.^[43] Ibn Jawzī records one of the Salaf narrating that the Devil said: “I used to meet people and teach them (evil) but now I meet them and learn from them (evil).”^[44] In Q.6:112, mention is made of “demonic humans and demonic spirits” (shayāṭīn al-ins wa al-jinn). In explaining this verse, Zamakhsharī relates that Mālik ibn Dīnār (d. 127 A.H.), the ascetic of early Islam, held that demonic humans were worse, and more harmful, than demonic spirits.^[45] There are some people and some situations that are so repulsively evil they can be considered diabolical; Madeleine Albright and Abu Ghraib come to mind. The greatest atrocities often lie not in the private but in the public sphere.

Akhtar recognises that just as hearts can be corrupted and in need of purification, “institutions” can be corrupted and equally in need of purification. Indeed, it is quixotic to think that an uncorrupted heart can stand against the hefty mass of an “unjust order”.^[46] Individual evil cannot be decoupled from societal evil. As Akhtar writes:

“Muhammad, one might argue, interpreted the experience of rejection as necessitating social and political struggle in alliance with the perennial concern with the mischief of the sinful heart.”^[47]

People should be “alert to the structural-public dimension of human wrongdoing.” And alert, they are. Muslim communities across the world help in establishing and running health clinics, schools, and orphanages because they know that Islam urges its adherents to better the social dimension of lived life.^[48] It is only a callous attitude, beguiled by a hyper-fixation on individualism, that pretends sin and evil are matters of private behaviour not public suffering.

IV. The Apolitical Jesus

Post-enlightenment Christianity is marked by its staunch repudiation of the political. To be religious is not the same as to be political. And the political often runs counter to the religious. The separation of Church and State means a vigorous rejection of the religious interfering in the political.

This position is grounded in a reading of the Bible that dominates the contemporary discourse. Akhtar finely focuses on the lynchpin of this view: the third temptation of Jesus.

The very first paragraph of The Final Imperative, mentioned in the preface, cites Matthew 4:8-9. The Devil tempts Jesus by offering him worldly power. Jesus, of course, spurns the offer.^[49] Chapter 3 of The Final Imperative is titled “The Third Temptation”. In addition to Matthew 4:1-11, mention is made of Mark 1:12-13 and Luke 4:2-17, which relate the temptation of Jesus.^[50] The Christian lesson drawn from this is that politics is a temptation from which the religious must keep clear; hence, Christianity is apolitical. It is hard for Muslims to argue with this since each religious tradition has its own modes of interpretation that are, no doubt, sophisticated and subtle. To import Qurʾanic exegesis, for instance, into the Biblical text is as inane as imposing Biblical hermeneutics onto the Qurʾanic text. This is why Akhtar mentions that Christian historians have put to doubt the image of a pacifist Jesus.^[51] In his comment about speculation on the Essene community, Akhtar alludes to Gutiérrez’s seminal re-reading of Jesus in the Bible. As a Roman Catholic priest, Gutiérrez has the authority (which Muslims lack) of interpreting the Biblical narrative in an authentic manner.

In examining the “alleged apolitical attitude of Jesus,” Gutiérrez has recourse to three Biblical aspects that have been “neglected” in discussing this issue.^[52]

First, there is the Zealot Movement during Jesus’ time. This was a radical Jewish group that sought to resist what they saw as the Roman oppression of the Jewish people. They were ardent nationalists who fiercely opposed Roman rule. Historians uncovered that some of the disciples of Jesus actually belonged to the Zealots.^[53]

Second, the New Testament makes clear that Jesus confronted “groups in power”. There is Herod whom the Romans employed; the Publicans who collaborated with the Romans against the Jews; the Sadducees, who formed the majority of the Great Sanhedrin, and who wanted to protect their religious position that Jesus was undermining; the Pharisees whom Jesus exposed as traitors to the Jewish people.^[54] To read the New Testament is to see Jesus challenging the politically powerful.

Third, an undeniable fact is that Jesus is depicted as dying at the hands of “political authorities”. On the cross on which he died, the words “King of the Jews” were written. He was killed for a political crime. “Jewish leaders” (as distinct from the Jewish populace) did not want to lose their political influence over the Jewish people; the leaders, therefore, plotted to have Jesus killed. That is why Jesus’ trial is a “political trial”.^[55]

These three aspects seem to tell a different tale than the post-Enlightenment one. What of the third temptation? What of Jesus refusing the Devil’s offer of worldly power? Gutiérrez understands the temptation as that of “messianism”. Jesus rejected any short-term power grab that is shallow and fails to attack the foundations of injustice and exploitation.^[56] Referencing Matthew 4:1-11, Gutiérrez holds that while Jesus did refuse “political messianism” he still “confronts the political power”.^[57] Jesus’ intention was never to gain power at any expense; rather, Jesus held that power must counter the wrongs besetting society.

The least that can be said is that Gutiérrez’s analysis, while unconventional, does succeed in highlighting Biblical matters that are often ignored by those who wax lyrical about Jesus’ apolitical teachings. At best, Gutiérrez’s re-reading confirms the Qurʾanic condemnation in Q.2:85: “So do you believe in some parts of the Scripture and not in others?” The apolitical position is a result of a pick-and-mix approach to the Bible, and not an authentic representation of the Bible’s own teachings.

The Islamic case, as is often the case, is easier to make here. The Qurʾan openly embraces the Biblical prophets. Famously, Q.6:83-6 mentions eighteen prophets in one breath:

“Such was the argument We gave to Abraham against his people –We raise in rank whoever We will– your Lord is all wise, all knowing. * We gave him Isaac and Jacob, each of whom We guided, as We had guided Noah before, and among his descendants were David, Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron –in this way We reward those who do good– * Zachariah, John, Jesus, and Elijah –every one of them was righteous– * Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah, and Lot. We favoured each one of them over other people”

Some of these prophets were politically active; others less so. Yet all these prophets—irregardless of their politics—are respected and revered. Whether Jesus was as politically engaged as Gutiérrez argues, or politically disinterested as many Christians today claim, he is still seen—in Muslim eyes—as sanctified, just as the other Old Testament prophets, who were undeniably political, are hallowed. As such, the prophets, as a collective, rather than any singular one, such as Jesus or Muhammad, provide ample precedent for the permissibility of fusing religion and politics. This is the gist of Akhtar’s own argument.^[58] To opportunistically restrict politics to one or other messenger is to claim that religion, from its own internal resources, prohibits politics. This smacks as a confession brought about by external considerations alien to religion proper.

V. Against Secularism

Islam and liberation theology coalesce in critiquing secularism. The term ‘secularism’ itself is somewhat imprecise, at least in the mind of many readers. The term means one thing for the Third World and another thing for the First World. The analogy with consumerism can be helpful. In the First World, consumerism fuels hedonism and the search for more intense pleasures. In the Third World, consumerism fuels impoverishment and brings further pains. While consumerism is distinct in the First World and Third World, it is not disconnected. The First World enjoys the top-end of the supply chain; the Third World struggles at the bottom-beginning. Similarly, secularism in the First World and Third World differ, yet are connected.

Akhtar lists how the foreign policies of the secular West are flowing tributaries of tyranny. The US and UK supported the Shah of Iran who was hated by his own people. Saddam Hussein became a dictator by the directorship of Western powers. France maintains many a despot in North Africa. The rationale, of course, is the West’s need to tap into the oil fields of Arabia and Iran. Democracy means nothing for these Western nations who protect the absolute power of autocrats that ensure petrol exports. Yet within Western nations, democracy is upheld, respected, and fairness rules. This situation Akhtar labels as “moral schizophrenia,” where Westerners are pro-democracy at home but pro-dictatorship abroad.^[59] Critiques of secularism have as their background the terrifying reality that violence is regularly used to score political points in “all Third World countries”.^[60] This may not be the secularism one experiences in the comforts of Brighton or Brisbane, but it is the secularism referred to in these critiques. Parochialism is never an excuse for failing to appreciate a syllogism’s premises.

In regions where secularism often goes hand-in-hand with horrific injustices, what role should religion take? The most opted for option is to limit religion to preaching and to distance it from activism. This is, to drop any diplomatic double-talk, a “subtle form of compromise”. It is to shy away from “militant evil” and let it reign without rebuke.^[61]

Akhtar provides a sophisticated put-down to secularist pretensions. Limiting religion to charity does bestow a “moderate role” for the faithful to act in society. That is not the question, though. The tough nut to crack is what to do when a “secular state patronizes oppression and injustice”.^[62] Charity boxes hardly suffice in opposing societal suffering imposed by a political elite that does not care for the cries of its citizens. One has to experience this oneself, perhaps by a sojourn in the Third World, in order to fully comprehend the force of this contention. The day-to-day life of the average person is steeped in miserable conditions that would be regarded as intolerable and inhumane in the First World. Since secularity is monopolised by the same elites that reproduce these woes, religion becomes the single domain, common to people across the societal spectrum, that can muster a countervailing effect.

Secularist screeds are hampered by their “unjustifiably optimistic estimate” of secularism’s transformative power. It is “questionable” whether “secular postures of power” can avert societal collapse. Recent history provides ample examples of secular governments precipitating disaster. The “hubris of secularity” is misplaced and destructive. Totalitarian tendencies do not need a religious source.^[63] The rosy textbook examples of secular triumphs are either too historical, thus dated, or located in the First World, thus irrelevant. Beirut, for instance, was feted as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’. It gave the world such cultural icons as Nancy Ajram, and its government proudly contrasted its secular tolerance to the religious intolerance of Alawite-controlled Damascus and Azhar-dominated Cairo. Yet in 2020, due to seemingly bureaucratic incompetence, Beirut’s port exploded, effectively causing the capital city to implode onto itself. And as these words are being written, in 2024, none among the secular rulership in Beirut has taken responsibility for what could possibly be the biggest own-goal any capital city experienced in recent memory. This is not exactly a great track-record of secular governance, or of any governance. Indeed, in some cases, such triumphs are cruelly built upon the backs of the Third World—the First World’s neo-liberal, free market utopia of economic prosperity has thrown up examples that present a triumph for one side, but oppressive exploitation on the other. The use of sweatshops in production chains to chase preferable profit margins; the 1991 report on Nike’s use of abusive sweatshops in the Third World only further underscores the pitfalls of a self-interest based secular model. While those occupying the higher echelons of the social hierarchy pyramid enjoy their triumphs, they are often formed upon a bedrock of injustice and exploitation suffered by those beneath them.

To criticise secularism, then, is to castigate a failed political program that has not lived up to its avowed promises of a brighter future. Of course, one can always defend failure by pointing fingers at the failings of others. But even this move, as desperate as it sounds, cannot rehabilitate the optimism that initially marked the doomed enterprise. Disillusionment is real, even if is not publicly admitted.

In the Middle East in particular, Islam as a religion contains a vitality that survives, and even confronts, catastrophic social policies that are sanctified by their secular mantle. Readers must attend to this lengthy quote from Akhtar:

“…the Arabs might run out of oil and cash, but they seem unlikely to run out of Islam. In any case, the authentic Muslims’ anti-colonialist radicalism secretly impresses and then depresses Western minds committed to upholding their own interests in Islamic lands under the pretext of peace and philanthropy. Islam, a unified enterprise of faith and power, a sincere militancy that seeks to secure justice, has already thwarted the expansionist ambitions of two superpowers in this century. The religion of Muhammad stands proudly on the blood-stained landscape, the muezzin calling the faithful to peace and prayer in the midst of Israeli bullets. (How decisive a religion!) Islam’s almost miraculous durability as a political variable in every Middle East power calculation has baffled and angered Western orientalist expertise which seeks to understand this strange religion without exercising the least sympathy with its adherents. In any case, orientalism is now recognised to be both irreverent and irrelevant.”^[64]

This was penned in 1991. In 2024, any brief check on social media is enough to bring images of Gaza that reflect accurately Akhtar’s words. If anything, this shows the resilience of Islam’s engagement with politics, and makes hollow the claim that simplistic evocations of the French Revolution suffices to restrain belligerent militarism.

Gutiérrez, writing from a Latin American perspective, argues along similar lines. The basic categories of ‘secular world’ and ‘privatised faith’ cannot be uncritically adopted. To take them for granted is to eschew examining them. Latin America is not Europe, Gutiérrez reminds us, and so the meanings reflected in these categories are different based on the differing contexts. Religion is deeply embedded in Latin American culture, society, and life. Indeed, religion already overtly plays a political role by supporting regressive regimes that mire the continent in crime and corruption. To try to separate ‘privatised faith’ and ‘secular world’ into neat independent domains is to “oversimplify the problem”.^[65]

In discussing this issue, there is need for what Gutiérrez calls “social realism”. Instead of waffling in abstracto, the discussion must factor the “already given situation”. In Latin America, the question is not whether the Church will take a political stance or not. The actual question, from lived experience, is whether the Church will support the oppressive “established order” or will provide a “genuine service to the oppressed”. There is no option here where the Church stays neutral on the politics of the day. Either it kowtows to the unjust clique or it defiantly stands with the protesting masses.^[66] The very notion of separation of Church and State makes no sense in such a context: the Church is either with the State or against the State.

The status-quo, of course, is that “faith and political action have nothing to say to each other.” The consequence of this is that “faith comes to coexist, in an opportunistic manner, with any political option.”^[67]Gutiérrez recognises that such a faith is gutted of any sense of justice. Leaving aside religion for the moment, most people will recoil in disgust at seeing an opportunism that laps up every political miasma no matter how odious. To bring religion down to this state is to be thoroughly irreligious. And to pretend that this is religion is to revere Janus more than the Romans did. Secularism, on this understanding, is code for religious acquiescence to gutter politics.

In The Final Imperative, Akhtar wrote:

“It is this close identification of institutional Christianity with capitalism and exploitative Western power structures that has excited the anger of liberation theologians.”^[68]

In A Theology of Liberation, Gutiérrez wrote:

“The protection which the Church receives from the social class which is the beneficiary and the defender of the prevailing capitalist society in Latin America has made the institutional Church into a part of the system and the Christian message into a part of the dominant ideology. Any claim to noninvolvement (sic) in politics—a banner recently hoisted by conservative sectors—is nothing but a subterfuge to keep things as they are. The mission of the Church cannot be defined in the abstract. Its historical and social coordinates, its here and now, have a bearing not only on the adequacy of its pastoral methods. They also should be at the very heart of theological reflection.”^[69]

Similarly, in the “here and now,” Islam is operative in Muslim-majority lands, and to pretend otherwise is to play at deception. Any critique of social injustice will draw its strength, directly or indirectly, from religious resources. Secularity, like circularity, keeps one’s thinking confined, thus allowing social injustice to go unchallenged, while you are kept dizzy on the merry-go-round of tautology.

VI. A Just Ending

The importance of justice in Islam cannot be overstated. Islam envisions justice as traversing religious boundaries. Ibn Taymiyyah agreed with Aristotle that “man is by nature a political animal” (al-insān madaniyyun bi al-ṭabʿ).^[70] Societal success occurs exclusively by co-operation among humans. Justice builds societies, and conversely, injustice destroys societies. Ibn Taymiyyah recognised that the love of justice, and hatred of injustice, is so essential to humans, that people, no matter their religion, agree to this.^[71] Ibn Taymiyya pens a statement that subsequently was made famous by him:

“God supports a just society even if disbelieving, and will not support an unjust society even if believing”

(Allāhu yanṣuru al-dawlah al-ʿādila wa in kānat kāfirah, wa lā yanṣuru al-dawlah al-ẓālimah wa in kānat muʾminah).^[72]

Imam Malik, in his Muwaṭṭaʾ, opens his ‘Book of Judgements’ (Kitāb al-Aqḍiyah) by narrating this incident. Umar ibnalKhaṭṭāb sat in judgement between two men in a dispute. One of the men was Muslim, while the other was a Jew. Listening to them both, Umar realised the Jew was in the right, and the Muslim was in the wrong; so, Umar judged that the Jew was upon the truth in this dispute. The jew was surprised that Caliph Umar sided with him, so the jew praised judges that follow the truth.^[73]

Justice, even among disbelief, was highly respected, even by the Prophet. The first Hijrah  was from Mecca to Abyssinia. The Prophet said: “Go to Abyssinia, for its king does not allow injustice.”^[74] The lesson here is that it is permissible for Muslims to seek protection from non-Muslims against injustice.^[75]

These vignettes provide the appropriate perspective to approach liberation theology as a Muslim. Akhtar found in Gutiérrez a seminal Christian thinker who placed justice as the central concern of religious activism. Moreover, Gutiérrez succeeded in rehabilitating the respectability of religiously-inspired political action against rampant and rank societal injustice. The Ummah and Latin America both experienced, and continue to experience, calamitous foreign interventions by Western superpowers determined to plunder regardless of the human cost. The oppressed across the world have more in common than the oppressors. Islam, as well as liberation theology, speak to the oppressed.

Islam’s position on religion and politics is often dismissed unthinkingly by portraying it as an enfant terribleamong contemporary religions. We are told that only Islam holds this awkward view, and all other world religions have ‘moved on’. This dismissal fails to take account of liberation theology and its recasting of Christianity as politically revolutionary. Liberation theologians see faith as the courageous rejection of a corrupt establishment. It does not see faith as an excuse for cowardice and subservience. Muslims, too, feel similarly.

Akhtar had the ingenuity to seek an alliance of the oppressed, by showing how Islam and liberation theology overlap. He did this in 1991. This final paragraph that ends this essay is being written in 2024, while the world watches at the appalling massacre of Palestinian children, women, and men in Gaza. Across the globe, people are questioning where justice is to be found in the world, and Akhtar reminds us that in Medina and Medellin justice was found, and can be found, again. It is up to us to counter the disinformation and distortion that allows sophistry on ‘secular values’ to stifle the oppressed from challenging their oppressors.

 

 

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^[1] Akhtar, S. (1991). The Final Imperative: An Islamic Theology of Liberation. London: Bellew Publishing, p. 10.

[2] Gutiérrez. p. 12

^[3] Ibid.

[4] Gutiérrez, p. xxxuiii; p. 24.

^[5] Ibid., p. 11.

^[6] Ghazālī, A. H. Al-. (1980). Al-Qisṭās al-Mustaqīm. In McCarthy, R. J. (Trans.). Freedom and Fulfilment: An Annotated Translation of Al-Ghazālī’s al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl and Other Relevant Works by Al-Ghazālī. Boston: Twayne Publishers, p. 306; Ghazālī, A. H. Al-. (1993). Al-Qisṭās al-Mustaqīm. Damascus: Al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿIlmiyyah, pp. 42-3.

^[7] Akhtar, p. 62.

^[8] Ibid., p. 66.

[9] See, for example: Qurʾan: 5:8; 4:135; 16:90

[10] See, for example: The Holy Bible: Jeremiah. 22:3. Crossway Bibles, 2008. The ESV study Bible: English standard version, Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles; Psalm; 106:3

^[11] Gutiérrez, p. 62.

^[12] Wren, C. S. (1979). Blind Cairo Sheik Rallies Poor With Fiery Islamic Creed. The New York Times. See: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/28/archives/blind-cairo-sheik-rallies-poor-with-fiery-islamic-creed-new-cars.html

^[13] Akhtar, p. 9.

^[14] Ibid., p. 16.

^[15] Gutiérrez, p. 88.

^[16] Ibid., p. 87.

^[17] Ibid., p. 89.

^[18] Ibid., p. 90.

^[19] Ibid., p. 88.

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Ibid., p. 89.

^[22] Ibid. p. 90.

^[23] Akhtar, p. 9, 25, 39, 59, 99.

^[24] Zarkashī, B. (2006). Al-Burhān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadith, p. 637.

^[25] Suyūtī, J. (2008). Al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, p. 126.

^[26] Shaʿrāwī, M. M. (1991). Tafsīr al-Shaʿrāwī. Cairo: Akhbār al-Yawm, vol. 1, p. 237.

^[27] Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. (2004). Jalāʾu al-Afhām fī Faḍl al-Ṣalāt wa al-Salām ʿalā Khayri al-Anām. Mecca: D̄ar ʿĀlim al-Fawāiʾd, p. 221.

[28] See, for example: Qurʾan 10:79; 10:88; 28:6; 50:13

^[29] Ṣābūnī, M. A. (1985). Al-Nubuwwah wa al-Anbiyāʾ. Damascus: Maktabah al-Ghazālī, p. 176.

^[30] Ṣallābī, A. M. (2011). Al-Īmān bi al-Rusul wā al-Risālāt. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿārif, p. 259.

^[31] ʿAbbās, I. (1952). Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Sīratuh, Shakhṣīyatuh, Taʿālīmuh waĀrāʾuh. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, p. 43.

^[32] Nadawi, Abu Hasan. (2004). Maqālāt Islāmiyyah fī al-Fikr wā al-Daʿwah. Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, pp. 48-53.

^[33] Sartre, J-P. (1989). No Exit and Three Other Plays. New York: Vintage International, p. 45.

^[34] Nawawi, M. (n.d.). Kitāb al-Majmūʿ Sharḥ al-Muhadhab. Jeddah: Maktabah al-Irshād, vol. 3, p. 169.

^[35] Gutiérrez, p. 64.

^[36] Ibid., p. 134.

^[37] Ibid., p. 102.

^[38] Ibid., p. 167.

^[39] Ibid.

^[40] Akhtar, p. 72.

^[41] Ibid.

^[42] Ibid., p. 15.

^[43] Ibn Jawzī. (2002). Zād al-Masīr fī ʿIlm al-Tafsīr. Beirut: Al-Maktabah al-Islāmiyyah, p. 43.

^[44] Ibn Jawzī. (1982). Talbīs Iblīs. Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, p. 38.

^[45] Zamakhsharī, J. (2009). Tafsīr al-Kashshāf. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, p. 343.

^[46] Akhtar, p. 61.

^[47] Ibid., pp. 28-9.

^[48] Ibid., p. 114.

^[49] Ibid., p. vii.

^[50] Ibid., p. 23.

^[51] Ibid., pp. 11-12.

^[52] Gutiérrez, pp. 130-1.

^[53] Ibid., p. 131.

^[54] Ibid., p. 132.

^[55] Ibid., pp. 132-3.

^[56] Ibid., p. 132.

^[57] Ibid., p, 238n89.

^[58] Akhtar, p. 25.

^[59] Ibid., p. 3.

^[60] Ibid., p. 6.

^[61] Ibid., p. 85.

^[62] Ibid., p. 76.

^[63] Ibid.

^[64] Ibid., p. 116.

^[65] Gutiérrez, pp. 129-130.

^[66] Ibid., p. 152.

^[67] Ibid., p. 138.

^[68] Akhtar, p. 13.

^[69] Gutiérrez, p. 151.

^[70] Ibn Taymiyyah. (2005). Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā. Mansoura: Dār El-Wafaaʾ, vol. 28, p. 39.

^[71] Ibid.

^[72] Ibid.

^[73] Ibn Anas, M. (1985). Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ (Muhammad Fuʾād ʿAbdel-Bāqī, Ed.). Beirut: Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, p. 719.

^[74] Būtī, S. R. Al-. (1991). Fiqh al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah. Bierut: Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, p. 137.

^[75] Ibid., pp. 142-3.