Islam, Freedom,
and Justice

By:

Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari

Since all power and authority belongs to God, men in any
office which confers authority must exercise their delegated power as
stewards and ministers of God to men. Thus tyrants, imperialists,
slavedrivers and exploiters of fellowmen are outlawed. Islam enhances each
person's self-respect: it establishes that true and only equality open to
man - the equality in surrender to God for His service amongst mankind.
Such surrender enables each to find his place in the whole without
faction, partisan rule or superiority. Each is his own master.

Islam champions and interprets human rights. It regulates
every detail of personal and community life in equity. It is the trustee
and guardian of freedom before the Lord- Its first and paramount thought
is unity. It excludes no one - though some exclude themselves : it opposes
no one-though some may oppose themselves to it. it makes no differences -
though some may insist on being different. Muslim calls to Jew who calls
to Mage who calls to Nazarene, saying: .-Why stand apart? Let us join in
our common creed that God is One'."

It is written: (Qur'an: Sura III, Al-i-Imran
-"lmran's Family" verse 62): "Say: O Peoples of the Heavenly Books! Resort
to that word which is common to us and you, which is that we worship none
save GOD; that we associate no partners with HIM; that we exalt not from
amongst ourselves any lord or patron other than GOD."

The peoples of today's world yearn for unity, justice and
freedom. They long to be saved from exploitation and war. They wander
lost, like sheep gone astray. Let them turn to the sunshine of Islam's
regulations of life and living. Under that common sun, all - black, white,
red and yellow-are at one in justice, freedom and equality. For Islam,
true excellence lies, not in the intellectual or manual attainments of
people of differing gifts; but in the moral attainments of a pure heart.
These are equally open to all whatever their other gifts. As it is written
(Qur'an: Sura XLIX, Hujurat-"The Inner Apartments" verse 13): "O
Mankind: We created you from a male and a female; and made you into tribes
and nations that you may get to know each other. and verily, most honoured
before God is the most virtuous."

The Prophet (on Whom be Peace!) explicitly affirmed:
"Arab is not more privileged than non-Arab, nor white than black.
Spiritual excellence and true piety is the only distinction amongst humans
recognised by God."

After the Prophet's victory at Mecca, a proud
self-seeking group of Arabs claimed privilege for their tongue and race.
To them he said: "Thanks be to God that by the sublime doctrines of Islam
He has freed you from the times of ignorance, and stripped off pride,
conceit and power-lust. Know now that in the Courts of God only two groups
exist. The group of the righteous who are precious in God's eyes : and the
group of the sinful who hang their heads in shame."

A man said to the 8th Imam: "There exists no man on earth
with an ancestry more noble than yours." To him the saint replied: 'Their
greatness and honour lay in their piety and zeal to do God's will." By
these words the Imam rebuked the man who wished to flatter and aggrandise
the Imam's pedigree; and turned his mind to thoughts of piety. Another
said to the Imam: "By God! You're the best man alive." The Imam replied:
"No oaths, man! There lives a man who is better whose piety is greater and
obedience to God more complete. In God it is true that that verse of the
Qur'an has not yet been abrogated which says: 'Most honoured before God is
the most virtuous'."

God's service is perfect freedom. It is neither
restrictive nor limiting. Restrictions diminish a man's capacities and
happiness. But to serve God clothes the soul in the whole armour of God,
protects when evil attacks, and foils all the fiery darts of the
wicked.

True, serving God means obeying His laws. But this
obedience is the free choice of love. And His laws are those absolute
moral standards which formulate the essence of man's true nature, as his
Creator means him to be at his best.

No man who has bowed his neck beneath the yoke of
money-grubbing or power-seeking can ever enjoy a free life in a free
society. The Imam Ali said: "'Piety is the key to honesty and purity and
to the acquirement of merit in store against judgment-day. It is freedom
from the chains of every bondage; salvation from the blows of every
adversity. Piety puts a man's aim within his reach, wards off evil, his
soul's foe, and assists him to attain his heart's desires."
(Nahj-ul-Balaghe: 227.)

Remember that he gave this message in an epoch when
violence, oppression, wrong, class wars and racial strife raged amongst
men. Distinctions repugnant to reason, to virtue and to freedom were rife.
The weak and the poor were bereft of every human right and social
safeguard. With matchless moral courage the pioneer of Islam outlawed all
those differences and conflicts, so illegitimate, so superstitious and so
mistaken. He replaced them with the command that equality and perfect
equity should be observed for all individuals. He ordained that, under the
auspices of total submission to the will of God, every sort of reasonable
freedom should be put within the possession of men; in such a way that the
underprivileged classes of society which had never before had any sort of
power to express their desires but had merely provoked the reaction of
violence and oppression if they dared to protest against the will of the
powerful ruling classes, should now, under the lifegiving justice of
Islamic laws, find the political and social power they lacked, and
shoulder to shoulder move forward until they had their full and rightful
share in the leadership of their nations.