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There is no worse enslavement of a man, than convincing him that he owns his own chains

By Abdullah al Andalusi on May 7, 2014 • ( 2 )

Imagine, if you will, that your family home was invaded and occupied by armed gangsters. While they were there, they stole your expensive items and sold them off, they told you and your family members what to do, when to eat, when you were allowed to use the bathroom, when to sleep, and when to wake up in the morning.

After a while, some members of your family got angry and fought the gangsters with weapons – but got beaten up by these gangsters. Then you resisted too by refusing the gangsters requests sometimes, and got beaten up too (although not as badly as the armed members of your family).

After a while, the gangsters got tired of the constant resistance, and decide they were going to leave – but only on condition, that each member of your family agrees they are to be confined to their room, and are not allowed to enter each other’s rooms. Each room is fitted with a very small kitchen and toilet area, and a lock is put on the room door, with the gangsters controlling the key. The gangsters then give each separate room its own house number, and each member of your family, a new family name. Any family member found trying to leave their room except for business outside the house, is threatened with the return of the gangsters to punish that member.

Additionally, the gangsters’ conditions state that all the water, electricity, food and telephone lines will be provided to the house now by the gangsters (at a higher price than before) – with any attempts to find your own supplier, to be faced with punishment and/or a cut in those services and supplies.

The gangsters then leave, handing to each of your family members a plaque with their own ‘house’ number printed on it, before locking them each in their rooms.

What would you say, if you saw each of your family members then celebrating the gangsters leaving, but refusing to leave their rooms? What if you saw each of your family members proudly hang up the plaque with their new ‘house’ number, and refer to what was formerly just one room – as their ‘own’ house for their new ‘family’? What if you hear them claim they have achieved independence from the gangsters? What if you heard them sing songs about how proud they are of their room? – Yet all the while adhering to all the terms of the gangster’s conditions.

When you tell them to not to be proud of their situation, they tell you how lucky they were to get that room, and how their room ‘saved them’ from the gangsters.

What would you say of these people? That they have suffered from amnesia? That they are cowards or fools? Hypocrites or ignoramuses?

Now what would you think of the state of the Muslim world, and how some Muslims are so proud of the countries that were cut out for them by colonial powers, with puppet governments, artificial flags, an artificially created ‘people’ (as their ‘national identity’) with a separate ‘national history’- all of which never existed 50-90 years ago. What would you say to those Muslims who celebrate ‘nation states’ that neither the Prophet (saaw) nor their own great-grandfathers knew?

There is no worse enslavement of a man, than convincing him that he owns his own chains.