Power Doesn't Begin with Politics

Don’t look for power in politics – find it within your own mind

The parable of Muslims fighting over who to vote is that of a house that is robbed in the middle of the night. The denizens of the home awaken in sudden terror, realizing that everything they’d worked hard for has been stolen from them while they slept. They bicker and argue about who left the door unlocked, who failed to install the alarm system, who left the windows open; all the while, the thief slips by unnoticed, taking the last of their belongings with him, and disappears into the night.

While American Muslims hurl insults at one another and accuse one another, the most important truth slips by unnoticed: the failure of American Muslims has to do with far more than mere politics.

Politics does not create power; it only projects it. Muslim failure to influence politics in any way is not a failure of political strategy; it is a failure of our very capacity for power. We are akin to a mason trying to build a wall without bricks. He can engineer the most perfect wall, but it will always remain a fantasy until he has bricks.

The brick of politics is power. And the brick of power is influence. And the brick of influence is capacity. And the brick of capacity is the individual. Build the individual, and you’ll build capacity. Build capacity, and you’ll build influence. Build influence, and you’ll build power. Build power, and you’ll being able to project it in the field of politics.

The root of the crisis of the entire ummah is not found in its political strategy, nor economic production, nor social and communal lives. No, the root of the crisis is found within the deepest recesses of the Muslim mind. To revolutionize Muslim society, to galvanize it for a truly spiritual movement towards emancipation and revivification, there must first be a complete revolution within the Muslim mind.

We are a people twice defeated. We were once defeated on the field of battle; our lands were conquered, our wealth was pillaged, our hands were chained, our backs were broken. We were stripped of our sovereignty, our dignity, our wealth, our autonomy. But that was not the real defeat. The truest defeat came when we lost our very sense of self, belief in our purpose, understanding of what it means to be Muslim – when we voluntarily surrendered our belief in our God-given title of khulafāʾ - Allah’s representatives – on earth.

At some point, we became satisfied with safety in mediocrity, in silent conformity – in a more comfortable slavery. We who were destined to be the spiritual compass, the moral conscience of all humanity; we surrendered that purpose to acceptance of degradation and subjugation. In doing so, we became lazy in our aspiration and modest in our ambitions.

When we did that, we achieved limited economic success, cultural influence, technological advancement, and intellectual development. We limited the horizon of our possibilities by the depression of our energies. We divorced love of Allah from the struggles of our daily lives; we divorced dīn from dunya; we lived in the world to pass our time, not to build our ākhirah.

And so this weak, limited individual built a weak, limited capacity. And that weak, limited capacity built a weak, limited influence. And that weak, limited influence built a weak, limited political strategy.

For American Muslims, the real work begins on November 6^th. That work begins in the mind. Will yourself out of your own slumber. Grasp the responsibility that Allah has given you to be the greatest community brought about for mankind. You must become the most formidable version of yourself that you can be, so that you can powerfully apply yourself to the work you are called to do.

We don’t do this for power. We don’t do this for fortune or fame or pleasures of all kinds. We do this because we are building our ākhirah in this dunya. We do this because our love of Allah compels us to become beacons of His light in every realm of our existence. We do this because when He calls us to be the greatest community for mankind, His representatives on earth, we respond by saying “We hear, and we obey.”