The very last of the topics I'll post for you today:
ASABIYYAH (NATIONALISM)
Bismillah ar Rahman ar Raheem
Today’s talk will be a short lecture on the disgusting, ignorant disease of Asabiyyah or Nationalism. Asabiyyah is a form of Nationalism in which people group themselves on tribal, racial, ethnic, school of thought and political grounds. Supporting them and giving preference to them over other people because of these reasons. For example if you were in a room with two people, one was from your country and the other wasn’t, and in your heart you’d already favoured the one from your country, then you are infected by the disease of Asabiyyah.
The drive that causes asabiyyah is the feeling of being better than others, and that others are at a lower class. So, the person that has this feeling of asabiyyah thinks so highly of himself and of those to whom he belongs, and thinks that other people are NOT as good as his own people.
This kind of thinking is backward, and it is in fact a kind of arrogance that comes from the mentality of Shaytan, which led him to disobey the command of Allah when He ordered him to prostrate to Adam. Shaytan said,
"I am better than him, You created me out of fire and you created him (Adam) out of clay."
The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) warned us when he said,
"No one enters Paradise if they have in their heart a atom weight of arrogance." The Prophet (pbuh) defined this arrogance in two things:
Rejection of the truth and looking down on people. Many scholars consider Satan to be the first Racist.
Unfortunately this Asabiyyah has infected the Ummah. How often do we enter a new Mosque, and are totally ignored or our Salaams are never returned? Or in a gathering, where everybody is talking their own language and excluding those that don’t understand? Muslims are now grouping and discriminating against each other based on Islamic School of Thought, thinking that Hanafis are superior to Malikis or Wahhabis are extreme etc. Islam, under the unifying call of La illha il Allah was meant extinguish any of this.
Allah says in the Quran:
"And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allah, and be not divided among yourselves, and remember Allah’s Favour on you, for you were enemies one to another, but He joined your hearts together, so that, by His Grace, you became brethren (3:103)
Here he advises his creation against dividing ourselves into different sects and groups. Later on Allah explains why he created us differently:
"O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honourable of you in the sight of Allah is those who has most taqwa…" (49:13)
Allah said that He created the differences amongst people to be a reason for them to get to know each other, and live together in peace and unity and not a reason for them to look down on one another. In reality, the only scale of being better than others is at-taqwa (righteousness) and the good deeds one does.
Allah and the Prophet (pbuh), have spoken out many times against asabiyyah and racism.
In a hadith Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said:
"An Arab is no better than a non-Arab. In return, a non-Arab is no better than an Arab. A red raced man is no better than a black one except in piety. Mankind are all Adam's children and
Adam was created out of clay" [Al-Bukhari and Muslim, on the authority of Abu Musa].
On the Subject of Asabiyyah, . It is narrated by Abu Dawud that the Prophet (pbuh) said:
"He is not one of us who calls for 'Asabiyyah, (nationalism/tribalism) or who fights for 'Asabiyyah or who dies for 'Asabiyyah."And in another Hadith, the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) referring to nationalism, racism and patriotism said:
“Leave it, it is rotten” (Bukhari,Muslim)
This rotten disease wasn’t as common in the Prophet’s (pbuh) time. Remember the first man to call the Muslims to prayer, was a black Ethiopian by the name of Bilal ibn Rabeh, (may Allah be pleased with him).
Islam was sent as a religion for the whole Mankind, not just one particular nation or tribe. As Muslims we need to unite, the reason we are in such a state is because we are divided. United we stand, divided we fall. How true this is for us Muslims.
So let us stop putting Country, race, ethnic origin first, and Place Allah and Islam there in our hearts and deeds. We are Muslim first, everything else pales into insignificance.