It is through the wisdom and intelligence with which we have been endowed by Allah that we differentiate between a good and a bad thing and we understand that oppression is a bad thing and justice is a good thing. It is our belief that Allah does not do any harm to us nor does He oppress us.
The Causes of Injustice
(i) Ignorance: Sometimes ignorance becomes the cause of oppression as for example man does not know that there is no difference between a white race and the Negroes and hence a white man under his feeling of superiority oppresses the people belonging to the black race. Thus by his ignorance and defective thinking, a man starts doing things which result in oppression and persecution. But how the Almighty Allah Who is above all defects such as ignorance and Whose Knowledge is infinite, can do an act of oppression?
(ii) Fear: Sometimes it is fear which is the cause of oppression as for example one strong power is scared of another strong power which is its enemy and knowing that if it does attack the other power, the same would attack it and therefore in order to forestall this possible danger it commits oppression by making an attack on the other power. Similarly, a despotic ruler in order to be in a formidable position persecutes the people who want freedom from his oppression. But the Almighty Allah has no one as His rival so as to indulge in an act of oppression.
(iii) Wants: Sometimes the cause of oppression is based on one’s sense of deprivation and thus from the psychological point of view one is obliged to an act of oppression for fulfilling his wants.
(iv) Meanness: Sometimes it is the inner meanness that some people oppress others or when they see the deprived and oppressed people, they derive pleasure in seeing them so.
After knowing the various causes of oppression, you can decide which one of these can be attributed to Allah. In this context, the Holy Qur’an says:
Allah does not wish injustice for any of His creatures. (1)
How could it be that Allah Who commands us for doing justice can Himself be an oppressor? The Holy Qur’an says:
Allah commands people to maintain justice, kindness, and proper relations with their relatives. (2)
How is it possible that Allah Who commands man who is weak and who leads his life under the dictates of his unruly passions, not to become the cause of injustices if he receives injustice at the hands of his nation, may Himself Who possess unlimited power and Who is not under the domination of any instinct, perpetrate injustice?
The Attributes of Allah
The acquiring of knowledge about the Attributes of Allah is closely related to our knowledge of recognition of Allah. For example just as we trace the writer from his writing as well as from his style of writing and identify him by particular words and phrases which he uses as his style and which indicate his mental attitude also, in the same way, every creation performs the following two main functions.
(i) Identifying its creator
(ii) Projecting the attributes of its creator and explaining the objective of its creation.
Advantages of Believing in the Justice of Allah
Self-restraint: From the point of view of self-control and abstaining from sins especially when a man knows that his words and deeds are in the knowledge of Allah and not even a fraction of his deed however small it may be ignored from being taken into account and that he will be paid back for his noble and evil deeds, he will then not consider himself independent in this world (Many Qur’anic verses can be cited in this behalf).
Cheerful Outlook: Anyone who has belief in the Justice of Allah in all worldly affairs possesses a cheerful outlook of life and as such when he considers Allah to be Just, he has a cogent reason and a satisfactory answer to the unpleasant things. He accepts unpleasant things without hesitation. Such a person never suffers from disappointments and despair.
Role in Individual and Collective Life: The faith in the Justice of Allah helps to lay the foundation of justice in individual and collective life. Such a person prepares himself to accept justice in his personal and social life.
The Meaning of Justice
In the discussions on justice, the basic problem is to give a satisfactory answer to its criticism. We would present some explanations in light of the Qur’anic verses and traditions.
(i) The first point is that Allah is Just and Allah never deprives anyone of his rights and according to the rationality of the laws, Allah bestows His Kindness on all His creatures and never does Allah oppress anybody.
Now we can see whether there exists somebody’s right on Allah or whether there is any right of the creatures from the very beginnings so that cruelty has arisen out of the suppression of this right. Were we present beforehand or did we have something beforehand which has been taken away from us? True, there is some differentiation between the creatures. Some are minerals, some are plants, some are animals and some are human beings, but none of these creatures possessed any existence or right before its birth and which is supposed to have been usurped.
Take for example a big carpet which we cut into small pieces. It will then be said that this carpet which originally was big has lost its originality of being big by having been cut into pieces. But in the case of a carpet which was already made small, it cannot be complained as to why it has been made small because before that it had no existence at all and when it was brought into existence it was made small already. Thus, this small carpet from the beginning had no quality of being big so that it was deprived of something which it possessed.
Allah, the All-Wise, has created all his creatures with differences when none of them had existed beforehand or had any claim or right. Allah established a system of life cycles with cause and effect and set a particular line of action for every creature. He never makes any discrimination between His two creatures or two nations as far as His expectations from them are concerned in regard to their obligations and responsibilities. Similarly, His reward or punishment is also based on justice for all. He has taken into consideration the respective capabilities and capacities of each creature in His commands and accordingly He has fixed proportionate punishment for each so that there is no partiality or injustice done to anyone of his creatures.
Again take an example of a factory which manufactures spare parts of a small machine and tyres of big motor cars also. Would you brand the factory owner tyrant because he manufactures small parts and big tyres? Or can the small machine parts themselves complain of the differentiation? The answer to this is certainly negative. It is so because in this Machine Age we need machine parts as well as tyres. However, there was a time when none of them existed before and the factory owner made them or brought them into existence according to the need of the time for two different functions. Here the kind of cruelty exists only when the machine parts would bear the burden of tyres. Now that when each one of them was brought into existence for its specific purpose and functions and no extra burden was put on it beyond its capacity the question of cruelty does not arise at all.
At this stage when the meaning of justice and cruelty has been abundantly clarified, it is necessary to ponder over the following important point:
(i) At every place and on every occasion, the concept of justice is not equality. For example, if a teacher without taking into consideration the abilities and the hard work of each student gives equal marks to all of them, he actually commits cruelty. Similarly, if a physician gives the same medicine to all of his patients without considering the nature of their diseases and conditions he does the same cruelty. In both these examples, the demand for justice is that the teacher and the physician should treat his pupils and the patients differently according to their merits and ailments respectively. It should not admit any consideration, recommendation, favouritism etc, but this different attitude of treatment in different cases is according to the demand of the occasion. It does not come under the definition of cruelty.
(ii) The second point is that the objections to the Justice of Allah are only motivated by hasty decisions. Some of the examples are given below:
Suppose an Islamic Government out of necessity and in consideration of public welfare takes a decision to build a forty-five-kilometre long road as every road has its utility for providing a means of communication for the smooth flow of traffic and for the convenience of pedestrians, but by laying down each and every road people have to undergo some sort of hardship until the time compensation for the demolition of houses and the construction of new houses at alternate places is affected. Thus, for the sake of avoiding hardship of a handful of people the overall interest of the people and the program for public welfare cannot be ignored. In Islam despite the importance of individual rights and ownership of the people, the overall rights of the society have been greatly emphasized.
The Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (PBUH) said to Malik Ashtar. “Call those people who have hoarded the things of public utility and remind them of doing good and abstaining from evil and if they still do not pay heed to your advice, bring them to task”. He further said: “Hoarding is useful to a hoarder only, but it is harmful to the good of the society”.
In yet another place, the Holy Imam said: “In the matter of administration your attention should be towards the comforts and benefit of the common people irrespective of the annoyance and displeasure of a selected few” (3).
An Incident: A man had a pet dog. He went out to fetch something from the market leaving his infant child in the care of his dog. When he returned to his house, his dog welcomed him outside the house with a blood-stained mouth. He thought for a moment that the dog had devoured his child and under the heat of passion, he fired his gun and killed the dog there and he then went inside hurriedly. There he found his child hale and hearty. In fact, a wolf used to visit the town and since the door of his house was wide open, it went inside and wanted to devour the child. The dog jumped upon the wolf and in a grim battle, he overpowered it and tore it into pieces and thereby saved the child from the wolf’s clutches. However, the man in his extreme haste fired at his faithful dog which had saved the life of his child.
The man repented of his action and came to rescue his dog but it had already died. The man said that he looked into the eyes of his dog that were lamenting over his wisdom and saying: “O man! How hasty you happen to be? You make a hasty decision. You should have first entered the house and seen for yourself the true situation. Why have you killed me? ‘ After this tragic event, the man wrote an article captioned “O man! How hasty you are in taking a decision!”
There may be some people who may have prayed for something and it was not granted, but afterwards, they thought that it was better that their prayers were not granted.
To be continued!
NOTES:
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1. Qur’an 3:108.
2. Qur’an 16:90.
3. Nahj Al- Balaghah, Letter 53
