THE DJINN SPRING - Politics, the Devil and his small 'd' and the Arab Spring

1. The small 'd'

My Lord is not democratic,

So I do not subscribe to

What is not of My Lord,

My Lord is unique

And He does not account

For rights which He bestows not,

Some say it is the Greek,

From where this story began,

But the tale is old,

Much older than the age of this world

To a time and a tale many have forgotten,

When a Djinn of the highest rank

Felt compelled to reject the Lord's command,

Looking at Adam and replying dismissively,

"I will not bow. I am better than he."

.....................

The Big 'D'. That 'Djinn of the highest rank' is of course, as you may already know, the Devil, or Satan or Bezelbub or by any other name that he is known to mankind. God created our common ancient grandfather, and then commanded the whole of creation to prostrate before Adam. And inevitably, Azazil (as he was then known honourably as the first, mightiest and most loyal Djinn of God) in his pride and hubris gazed into Adam, scoffed at the idea of bowing before a puny, weak creature of water and earth, and uttering in disdain, "Ana khairun minhu (I am better than he)". And verily followed the rest of the Djinn Nation in rebellion against God's Word.

Thus arose the very first democratic protest in all of Creation. The 99 Percent against the One. No doubt, media commentators (if they were in existence way back then) would label it 'The Occupy Creation Movement' or 'The Djinn Spring'.

My personal distaste for democracy comes not just from the scriptural lessons, but from real life events that overtakes my otherwise happy days with examples of Man's folly. And how sad when clerics and religious teachers (who really ought to know better) decide to take part in the electoral process and muddy their scholarly cloaks by dragging them through the mud of human politics. Because this is what would happen - they would call unto the population to their most base common denominators - fear, anger, greed and pride.

Yesterday's headline in a local newspaper: "UMNO (the Muslim party in Federal power) heeds the call of PAS (the Muslim party in opposition) to unite to against the Prophet-insulting movie.".This is religious jingoism and the inevitable end when you mix religion and politics.
Why must we ALWAYS play according to someone else's script?
We are led by the nose and we don't even realise it,
thinking ourselves so pious and learned.
*sigh*

My brother, may God bless his soul, said this to me, "Why must we ALWAYS react in anger, with street protests, the burning of flags and blood-curdling cries for vengeance? Why not say, 'How sad we are by the insults towards our beloved Prophet by those who know nothing of him, but lies and prejudices?' We hope they will be rightly-guided, insyaAllah..." 

I don't always agree with my brother, but he is right, I think. May we all be rightly-guided always.

InsyaAllah.

Have a happy insult-free hate-free Sunday, sunshine. It is a beautiful wet drizzly morning here in Kuala Lumpur.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam.

Love will show the Way