The Fatwa that Protest is Haram will Always be a Joke, by Abdulkadir Salaudeen

Out of respect for our dear clerics who say peaceful protest is haram in Islam, let’s just consider their pronouncement as a fatwa. A fatwa is a legal opinion that is arrived upon through juristic reasoning and scholarly interpretation of a text; it could be right or wrong. Thus, a fatwa can be advisory or even obligatory if it has the power of authority.

With this understanding, protest in Islam is not haram (unlawful) in the sense in which killing, adultery, gambling, stealing etc. are.  If you think protest is haram, don’t protest. If you think it is permissible, participate in it especially in a democracy like Nigeria’s. Do not allow any cleric to threaten you with Hell because you protest. It is constitutional.

The Northern youth, for the first time, said NO to the Ulema. The Ulema tried hard to prevent the youth from protesting as they had been doing since the inglorious regime of Buhari. The youth insisted and said NO. Why? The ulema, with the exception of few whose voices are not loud enough to be heard, had refused to speak against injustice, obscene siphoning of common wealth, looting of Nigerians’ future, and crude abuse of power since Buhari became president in 2015.

Prior to 2015, they were very vocal. Protests were led in the Muslim North against former Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan by prominent northern leaders. Then, it wasn’t haram. Or the ‘haramness’ of protest was deliberately hushed down.

Now that the Northern youth are determined to protest against the worst of all governments which the Ulema helped to bring to power in what they termed Muslim-Muslim ticket, protest in Islam suddenly becomes haram.” It will seem as though the position of the Ulama to the effect that protest is not Islamic is a recent innovation [Bid’ah] that was introduced to prevent Muslim citizens of Nigeria from holding their Muslim leaders accountable for their misrule, “Majeed Dahiru wrote in his column titled “Protest against bad governance is Islamic.” I agree with him; also with the title of his article.

When we told the gullible masses that the Muslim-Muslim ticket was a political subterfuge (a lie), the clerics insisted it was a jihad. As usual, they quoted verses of the Qur’an and hadith. One of the most prominent Sheikhs of the Muslim-Muslim ticket in the North just confessed recently that it was the former president, Buhari, who actually contacted him (gave him the contract) to campaign for Tinubu. I think to make Tinubu saleable to the Muslim North, they just clothed the ticket with religious garment. Now that the government is going down as Senator Ndume rightly claimed, Muslim-Muslim clerics maintained a deafening silence as if all is well.

The clerics, Northern youth alleged, seem less concerned about hunger, insecurity, inflation, and bad government because their bread is well buttered. Now that they have decided to confront their problems by themselves, using the only language the government understands, the clerics again are saying it is haram. Is this not injustice?

Islam vehemently abhors injustice. But interpretation of Islam by some of our Ulema makes it look as if Islam encourages injustice against the masses. There seems to be an unholy alliance between our clerics and the ruling class. This is what Ahmet Kuru calls “the Ulema–State Alliance” in his well researched book “Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison.” That alliance, Kuru claims, leads to intellectual and socioeconomic stagnation.

This is exactly what we presently witness in Nigeria. The Ulema-State Alliance in Nigeria has failed to establish shari’a (justice) and has not consolidated democracy, either. It, instead, creates untold hardship and deepens woes of the masses. So the Northern youth, who now understand this unholy alliance, received the fatwa that protest is haram with disdain and distrust. It is a big joke when injustices of rulers push the masses to the wall. They consider the Ulema’s position as hypocritical and vile. This is serious!

I have to say this: I have personally begun to doubt my sanity for thinking many of these clerics deserve any respect. The Northern youth did not hesitate to libel them as enemies of the masses. The invectives being hurled at the erstwhile highly respected Ulema by these impoverished youth is disturbingly worrisome even as I see no reason to blame them.

Hadithsthat talk about holding leaders accountable are legion. One should be sufficient toreference here.Abu Bakr (RA) reported that I heard the Messenger of Allah (SAW) say: “Indeed when people see an oppressor but do not prevent him from (doing evil), it is likely that Allah will punish them all.”[Abu Dawud].The inability, especially of the Ulema,to restrain the tyrants in Nigeria is, frankly speaking, why the Northern youth are hungry and angrytoday.

Those who say it is our sins should read the above hadith again. Yes! It is our sins. Our major sin is our inability to say NO to the the tyranny of our rulers. The youth, having repented from the sin of being silent—i.e. not restraining the hands of our tyrantrulers—are out to restrain the tyrantswho are onlygood at inflicting pains. The clerics are saying NO, it is haram. The youth are saying they cannot be stupid and remain foolish for life in the name of religion. Our clerics insist that salvation lies in being stupid.

Our Ulema gloss over the hadith cited above and many others, but focus on the hadith that asks us, by implication, to turn our left cheek for additional slap after being slapped on the right cheek. To make protest look dread, they will keep citing Syria and Libya as if they were destroyed by protesters, not by the tyrant rulers and their rivals. These clerics do not make reference to the Western world which was built and developed by protests. They do not also cite the oil subsidy removal protest of the January 2012which the President Tinubu was a key protester. That protest helped a lot. It delayed the present grinding hardship for eleven years.

President Tinubu and the Ulema should take note of what the youth are saying. Nigerians are abducted, raped, and killed daily and clerics did not say it is haram, why would protest be haram because it may lead to killings? Our rulers loot our resources on daily basis in gargantuan proportion and that is not haram, why should looting during protest which pales into insignificance compare to the looting of our rulers become haram? Our leaders have destroyed our lives, our economy, our future beyond imagination and that is not haram, why should damage caused as a result of protest against tyranny makes protest haram? If because they participate in protest they will go to Hell, the youth are saying they are already in Hell even before the protest.

That is the logic of the Northern youth because the elastic limit which is the breaking point, has been reached. Rulers should be held accountable by open public debate. All those fatwas that leaders should not be criticized are a joke in democracy. It makes leaders to be more brutal in their wickedness. That is what got us to this point.

Nigerian rulers should know that the protest has become violent. And whatever damage it causes, whatever life that is lost, Allah will hold them responsible for it. It is their wickedness, lack of human feelings, irresponsible leadership, shameless looting, crass materialism, destruction of the masses’ livelihoods that led to this protest. They must account for all this before Allah.

The Muslim-Muslim rulers are supposed to impoverish themselves to satisfy the masses while they seek Allah’s pleasure. This is what Islam teaches. What these fake Muslim-Muslim rulers do is just the opposite. They impoverished the masses to enrich themselves. While the masses were dying of hunger, purchasing multi billion naira presidential jets was their priority and we still find a cleric defending that. Another cleric even said protest against Tinubu is treasonable and punishable by death. Let’s wait for the government to just kill all of us.

We obviously have rulers without feelings. Humanity has died in them completely. Our regular Skit Maker who we call Senate President should, by now, be eating while hungry Nigerians protest and the nation boils.

My appeal to Nigerian thugs and hoodlums. I understand you are products of this failed system created by our failed rulers and probably failed parenthood. Looting and destruction of property are wrong under whatever condition. Please stop this; not because of our heartless rulers butfor the sake of Allah and innocent Nigerians.

May Allah grant us peace.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com