Whoever (amongst you) sees an abomination should endeavour to change it with his hands; if he is incapable, let him change it with his tongue (by condemning it); and if he is still incapable, let him change it with his mind. That (third option) is the weakest sign of faith”.
Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)
Genesis of heresy
History will never cease to repeat itself that man might learn from its lessons. But man seems to have become so much deaf and dumb that he can hardly finds any lesson to learn from history. The current ongoing heresy by a group of rascals called Boko Haram in Nigeria is not new in history. Shortly after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), two groups of evil elements emerged in Arabia with a sectarian heresy similar to that of Boko Haram. One was led by a man called Musaylimah (the liar) from Yemen. The other was led by a woman called Sajjah from Yamamah.
These two heretics falsely proclaimed themselves as Prophets of God and dished out certain hallucinatory utterances which they called revelations. Both of them had started operating skeletally in the last days of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) when the latter had no time to tackle them. And when Sayyiduna Abu Bakr became the first Caliph, they intensified their evil activities with a view to eradicating the message of Allah and replacing it with their heretic ideologies. Their declaration of Islamic government as illegal and proclamation of heretic government in its place led to an outbreak of war between them and the forces of Islam.
War against heresy
In the melee, many Qur’an memorisers among Muslims were killed as the conflict named ‘RENEGADES WAR’ lasted for quite some time before it was brought to an end. It took a strong will of the Muslim leadership and loyal cooperation of the Muslim Ummah to surmount that obnoxious situation. Before the outbreak of that war, the Caliphate had made overtures to those renegades with a view to making them see reason.
But when all efforts to resolve the crisis failed as the renegades kept killing innocent citizens who refused to renounce Islam and follow their heresy failed, an official fatwah was issued to excommunicate them from Islam and formally declare them as heretics.
(Fatwah is an official declaration of the position of Islam by the topmost echelon of Islamic clergy on a matter affecting the public).
Thus, the fatwah so declared in those early days of the Caliphate became an immediate precipitate of the war of renegades. The rest is history.
Modern day heresy
Today, over 14 centuries after the above narrated episode, a similar situation has come to rear its ugly head in Nigeria in the name of Boko Haram. Disturbingly, the unrepentant rascals who constitute that group continue to perpetrate their dastardly acts under the cloak of Islam while they allegedly demand for the imposition of deeper Shariah in northern Nigeria as a pretext for claiming to be Muslims. The irony in this is that most non-Muslims and even ignorant Muslims now perceive Islam through these vandals and use such wrong perception as a generalised yardstick for measuring the values of Islam. If atrocities of some adherents were to be used as the mirror with which to view any religion, then no religion in the world today would possess the validity of divine message.
Identity of a Muslim
Islam is not to be judged by the outward appearance or activities of its adherents. On the contrary, Islam should serve as the mirror through which Muslims should viewed and assessed. Anybody who does not understand Islam cannot accurately assess genuine Muslims as distinct from fake ones. When Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was asked how piety could be recognised in a person he touched his heart and told his disciples that “Islam resides here”. And when he was asked who a Muslim was he said “A Muslim is a person who ensures the safety of other peaceful people from the evils of violent tongues and deadly hands”.
The atrocities of Boko Haram have abundantly proved that such an evil group could not have had any connection with Islam. And by now, the Nigerian ‘Ulamau (learned scholars) ought to have come together to issue a strong fatwah excommunicating that atrocious group from Islam if only to save the divine religion of Allah from heretic tendencies of some satanic deviants. If the truth must be told, it is the Muslims (and not anyone else) who can and should checkmate the abominable excesses of Boko Haram in Nigeria. This is not only because members of that group live among Muslims but also because the group still claims to be of Islam even when its evil activities are objectionable to the tenets of Islam. Killing and maiming of fellow human beings under any guise are universally acknowledged to be abhorrent to Islam.
Islamic regulations about war
Even in a war situation, Prophet Muhammad strongly warned Muslim soldiers not to kill women, children, armless people and people found in places of worship no matter their religion. He also warned against the cutting down of fruitful trees, poisoning of rivers, destruction of farmlands, killing of domestic animals (except for food) as well as demolition or burning of places of worship. Whoever contravenes these instructions has committed heresy by transgressing against Islam and should be made to face the maximum penal sanctions under Islamic Law.
Personally, I see human killers of fellow human beings extra-judicially as sheer beasts who should not live in a civil society.
Reminder
In an article published in this column on March 12 2010, entitled ‘ISLAM’S CHARTER WITH CHRISTIANITY’, yours sincerely stated as follows: “Each time I hear of killing, maiming or resorting to terrorism in the name of religion I feel scandalised. This is not just because I belong to a religion and I am involved in its propagation but also because I know the value of life and the vice in terminating it extra judicially. Personally, I see those who kill people of other religions for the simple reason of difference in faith as animalistic vandals waging war not just against humanity but also against God.
Anybody who kills or maims or indulges in terrorism may claim to belong to a religion but cannot genuinely claim to be acting for that religion. No divine religion prescribes killing or maiming as an act of worship. Religion may be used as a cover for such heinous acts but the real motive is far from religion”.
Living in Peace
The peace of every individual is in every other individual. Whoever wants peace must give peace a chance. This is without prejudice to the factors of security which every responsible government must provide.
In modern time as in some times past, security in a pluralistic society is beyond the use of weapons against armless people as is usually the case in Nigeria where ordinary commercial drivers are killed by the police for not dropping N20 in the extortion market.
Genuine factors of security must include adequate feeding for all citizens; jobs for able-bodied people as well as reasonable and free education for all children of school age. If all these are provided, the citizenry will take care of the rest and few people will pay attention to the style of governance. As a matter of fact, no sane human being will want to commit suicide (which is now rampant in Nigeria) for whatever reason. And if anybody is pushed to that level he or she will surely have no respect for the lives of others.
A case for state police
By now, one would have expected that since the Federal Government alone cannot afford to bear the cost of security in Nigeria, the issue of state police ought to have been resolved. If it was reasonable in the past to post policemen from Katsina to Anambra State or from Oyo to Plateau State, it is no longer reasonable. Such policemen cannot maintain any security because they are neither familiar with the terrain, nor understand the language spoken by the local people. In a nutshell, people who are alien to a culture cannot watch over such a culture for the purpose of security.
That is why President Jonathan’s public statement in recent time that Nigeria is not ripe for state police is suspicious. When will Nigeria be ripe for state police? When most Nigerians might have been killed in cold blood by the likes of Boko Haram? Sincerely, politics must not be pushed beyond its elasticity limit. If there is any time a state police is most desirous in Nigeria, it is now. This is also the right time for the restoration of the traditional rulers’ authorities which the colonialists usurped for their selfish exploitation motive. It is those traditional rulers who know which boy or girl comes from which house. It is a sheer delusion on the part of the federal government to think that voting as huge amount of money as almost one trillion naira for security will solve the problem of insecurity in Nigeria. If only half of that amount is earmarked for job creation the problem would have been half-solved.
Islam’s charter with Christianity
As for Christian/Muslim relationship which is grossly misconceived in Nigeria, it is necessary to recall an excerpt from the above mentioned article published in this column in 2010 as a reminder of Prophet Muhammad’s attitude to Christianity. In the year 628 CE, a Christian delegation from St. Catherine’s Monastery approached the Prophet and sought his government’s protection against any possible aggression of the then Persian Empire. In response, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) granted them a charter of rights as follows:
“This is a message from Muhammad the son of Abdullah (Please, note the opening of that covenant. The Prophet did not call himself Prophet because he knew such could amount to imposition of self on people of other faiths) serving as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far that we (Muslims) are with them. Verily, I and all the servants of God, as well as the helpers of Islam hereby make promise to defend Christians because they are my citizens and by God! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them (concerning their way of worship). Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one should destroy a house of their religion or damage it or loot it.
Whoever violates this has breached God’s charter and disobeyed His Apostle. Verily, Christians are my allies and have my secure charter against all they hate. No one should force them to fight for a cause in which they have no belief or compel them to migrate against their wish. Neither is the sacredness of their covenant to be violated nor their Churches to be disrespected. And if any damage should happen to their Churches, they must not be prevented from repairing them. No Muslim should disobey this covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)”. For further information on this Charter, please, see www.aljazeera.com and check Aljazeera Magazine under Middle East Online.
Validation of the charter
By this charter, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) asserted that Muslims and Christians were brethren in faith and no one of them should fight against the other on the basis of religion. Thus, by validating the charter till the great Day of Judgment, the Prophet had precluded any future attempt to revoke the privileges therein by any nation, group or individuals. By implication, those privileges were meant to be inalienable and they are supposed to remain so till today.
Remarks
A remarkable aspect of the charter is that it did not stipulate any condition for those Christians to enjoy the privileges.
Believing that being followers of Jesus Christ was enough a condition, the Prophet had assumed that the Christians, as People of Book, would surely reciprocate this unprecedented gesture wherever they coexist with Muslims not only by tolerating the latter’s mode of worship and way of life but also by refraining from any act of provocation against them which could advertently or inadvertently precipitate religious rancour.
Another noticeable aspect of the charter is the Prophet’s silence on any payment by the protectorate Christians which was the practice in those days. Thus, that ‘Charter of Rights’, the first of its type in history, was a free gift.
From this charter, the reason became clear why the Islamic State under the command of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) or any of his rightly guided disciples never crossed swords with any Christian group or nation in their lifetimes. If any fight like the crusades ever broke out subsequently between Muslims and Christians, it was centuries after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW). And that was because either or both sides breached the charter. Thus, the above charter is a confirmation that there is no conflict between Islam and Christianity.
And if there is any seeming conflict between those two religions, today their adherents should be blamed for breaking the historic charter cited above.
Responsibility
Front line Nigerian Muslim Clerics have responsibility to apply a Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to the lives of ordinary Nigerians at this precarious time in Nigeria. The Hadith went thus: “Assist your Muslim brother whether he is oppressed or he oppresses”. Then, the Companions asked the Prophet for clarification by saying: “Dear Prophet, we can understand a situation where we can assist our Muslim brothers when they are oppressed. But how can we assist them when they oppress others?” In response, the Prophet said: You can assist your oppressive Muslim brothers by chiding them for oppressing others and by confronting them over oppression”. Based on these facts, there can be no better reason or better time for declaring a fatwah against Boko Haram in Nigeria.
