On the Limits of Justice (and Other Thoughts)

Much has been written on the enervation of American religion in the modern era. Though explanations for dwindling faith differ, the popular narrative runs something like this: as the West has advanced technologically and “enlightened” itself by giving preference to reason over superstition, science over myth, and individual pursuits over communal solidarities, the promise of religion and an otherworldly life have failed to compete in the deliberative arena. One can dispute this general contention, though the sentiment is shared by many in the modern era who increasingly view science and rational thought as having triumphed over faith, even if the victory has not been a total one. It is certainly true that faith has been pitted against myriad -isms, including, but not limited to, scientism, secularism, and liberalism, and that this competition of sorts has been played on a rather uneven field for some time. Where religion reminds people of the hereafter, modernity teaches us to worship the present. Religion seeks to answer the question of meaning, of purpose. Modernity stubbornly refuses to admit that question into its provenance, preferring instead the dopamine rushes of distraction and amusement. The technologies we now employ habituate us to a life of immanence. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Amazon, Google, smartphones, and more have a way of unmooring us from the temporary dissatisfaction of pausing, contemplating, and resting. They distract us in virtual worlds arranged to feed our existing biases, creating a never ending confirmation loop that tells us those who oppose our views and opinions are an odd sort that don’t belong in polite society. They condition us to ignore or find unexceptional the organic occurrences of this world that we are reminded of in the Quran, like the vicissitudes of the seasons, our reliances upon vegetation, rain, and livestock, and the tragedy of death.

This ‘brave new world’, despite its teeming successes for those desiring wealth, pleasure, and autonomy, has nonetheless raised questions from various corners troubled by what a growing disinterest in religion may mean for the future of the West. Richard Dawkins, for his part, worries that a continued decline in Christianity may portend an ascendant Islam. Concerned with what such a transition may pose for a “tolerant” West, Dawkins argues for Christian preservation as a bulwark against this countervailing Muslim threat.

Departing from Dawkins ‘civilizational’ clash, Peter Beinert at The Atlantic views the rancorous conflicts central to our politics as stemming from a decline in religious affiliation. Beinert argues that by eschewing traditional morality, modern progressive and alt-right actors have abandoned notions of redemption, love, reconciliation, and forgiveness. All such ideas are now within the realm of ‘respectability politics,’ having been displaced in favor of revolutionary efforts that frequently border on insurrection. For many, the system is no longer viewed as correctable and must therefore be dismantled.

In militating against the thesis of a decline in public religion, New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat argues in his work Bad Religion that religion has not materially declined so much as it has changed for the worse. For Douthat, what we are witnessing in front of us is a cornucopia of Christian heresy, represented by sundry denominations “subverting, destabilizing, or even destroying the core of the Christian faith.” It is a form of belief that “strokes the egos” and indulges the “worst impulses” of the cosmopolitan westerner for whom difference is intolerable and demand off-putting.

In tracing the development of modern Christian heresy, Douthat draws on the brand of Christian reformism common in the 1960s. Having raised the banner of ecumenicism, 1960s reform movements opposed “dogmatic” religion and pushed “Catholic theology to the limits of its own language.” The late Dean Kelley, a Christian theologian who served as both an executive of the National Council of Churches and board member of the ACLU (a set of affiliations inconceivable in modern times), wrote about the 1960s ecumenical personality as one that became a “balancer, a temporizer, [and] equivocator” who led organizations that were “correspondingly ambivalent.” Douthat notes that the active reformers of the 60s had largely left the Church entirely by the 70s and 80s. In examining the legacy of these apostate reformers, James Hitchcock writes:

“The chief dishonesty of the reformers was their studious concealment, even from themselves, of the problem of belief, until almost the end of [the 1960s]. Theological language, liturgical forms, vigorous social action, the uses of authority…. In retrospect it is possible to see the preoccupation of progressives with changes of various kinds as a way of avoiding the ultimate question of their own faith.”

For Douthat, the contemporary reformers in our midst suffer not only the same irresolution but are headed in fact for the same fate, and for their parishioners, the same perilous disorientation.

Andrew Sullivan builds on Douthat’s work in a recent article entitled “America’s New Religions.” Sullivan takes Douthat’s argument and avers a slightly modified proposition: that what we are witnessing today is not a heretical public square but rather a deracinated one with liberalism attempting to operate without its necessary companion of faith, and, in so doing, becoming a faith itself. That is, that liberalism was always intended as an exclusively political philosophy, a means of negotiating governance and individual engagement that was not — and could not — be encumbered in bitter debates about belief but instead permit ongoing and deliberative compromise for the successful and harmonious functioning of a multifaith society. The corequisite for such an arrangement was an active spiritual life built on faith and Christian teaching (or, so Sullivan’s argument goes). Sullivan goes on to argue that our distempers (politically and otherwise) are rooted in this very challenge — the absence of the corequisite circumstances needed to provide for a thriving liberal society have led to a political tribalism that promises fulfillment and ultimate meaning. It is, in other words, a politics that serves as a religion. The social justice currents of the left and ethnonationalist agitations of the right are mere artifacts of this more fundamental issue — what people are searching for is meaning, and they are increasingly rationalizing their place in this world in the cult of political identities.

For Sullivan, the risks here are twofold. First, there is the pressing challenge of what this means for the future of liberal society. On this, Sullivan asks: “Will the house still stand when its ramparts are taken away? I’m beginning to suspect it can’t. And won’t.” Whether Sullivan is correct in his prognostication is immaterial to the incisive diagnosis that there is something wrong with liberal society at this moment, and that untreated the malady may well metastasize into pestilence. Setting aside the grave social consequences, there is an equally, if not more, important question of individual faith that must be attended to. This means that we can no longer pretend that the political currents engulfing the modern world — of which Muslims are active participants — are anything other than pursuits for ultimate meaning. Here, the memory of John Stuart Mill, a social reformer, father of Utilitarianism, and liberal philosopher, is in order. In his autobiography, Mill reflected in a section entitled “A Crisis in My Mental History” on the following:

“I had what might truly be called an object in life: to be a reformer of the world. … This did very well for several years, during which the general improvement going on in the world and the idea of myself as engaged with others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an interesting and animated existence. But the time came when I awakened from this as from a dream … In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: ‘Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions that you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant; would this be a great joy and happiness to you?’ And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered: ‘No!’”

Mill continues: “At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.”

The observation of Mill shares with Sullivan, Douthat, Beinart, and others a theme of purpose and the fundamental desire for ultimate meaning in the human condition. To put it in our terms, it is a shared recognition of a fitri yearning of the soul that cannot be sated by worldly pleasure alone. People have strived to save the world and pursued for mankind a goodly life only to unearth vacuity after years of toiling and sacrifice. Even a seemingly “higher calling” in the service of men proves mundane without the true transcendence of God and the life to come. Of this, Allah has told us the high price of living without His remembrance — ‘And whoever turns away from My Remembrance will have a life of great hardship. We shall bring him blind to the Assembly on the Day of Resurrection.’ [Taha: 124]

Absent a moral compass that seeks from the heavens that which it cannot obtain on earth, Muslims will suffer — there is simply too much evidence to think otherwise. When man becomes preoccupied with politics and retributive demands to the point that it acquires the purpose of religion, he sees in even the most labyrinthine circumstances a base rendering of good versus evil, black versus white, and right versus wrong. Those having submitted themselves to the ideologies of the political right and left wish nothing more than cultural conquest through bureaucratic politics or, at times, violent imposition. And just as they have become accustomed to immanence in their private lives, they seek instant gratification in their public ones. All wrongs must be righted immediately. To speak of the occasional need for sabr is to aggress untold wrong on such a person who is experiencing some ‘real’ hardship.

When men lack prudence, they grow intemperate, peevish, and contemptuous. Over time, their petitions grow until not only faith, but God Himself becomes the subject of inquisition. During the time of the Prophet (pbuh), a man by the name of Dhu l’Khuwaysirah approached the Prophet (pbuh) and berated him with the words, “Be just!” — a now ubiquitous decrial — to which the Prophet (pbuh) replied, “Woe to you! Who will be fair if I am not fair? You will be doomed and lost if I am not fair.” ‘Umar (ra) sought permission to take the man’s life, to which the Prophet (pbuh) refused, stating that the man had companions of his own whose perceived piety would leave the Prophet’s Companions in awe, but who would ‘pass through the religion as an arrow that pierces clean through its prey such that, on inspecting the head; then the shaft; then the fletching; then the nock, would see no traces of blood or viscera on it whatsoever.’

Hadith commentators have interpreted this report as having portended the appearance of the heterodox Kharijite sect with Dhu l’Khuwaysirah carrying the dubious distinction of being its first member. Though the Kharijite engrossment with justice may be regarded unique in its malevolent content, it is not alone in departing from a place of justice and then interrogating the words of God and practice of the Prophet (pbuh) in that lens. The famous heterodox Mu’tazilite sect initially held the moniker ahl al-tawhid wa l’adl — ‘The Community of Tawhid (upholding God’s unicity) and Justice.’ In seeking a solution to the question of theodicy, Mu’tazilite theologians crafted a theology anchored in five principles (al-usul al-khams), two of which were al-’adl, Divine Justice, and al-amr bi l’ma’ruf wa l’nahy ‘an l’munkar, Exhorting Good and Prohibiting Evil. Much in the tradition was explained away, creatively reinterpreted, or otherwise denied in the service of this effort. God could not guide or misguide according to the Mu’tazila, for humans had to be agents of their deeds (not only as determining agents of their deeds but, controversially, effective causes of the deeds ultimate manifestation, to be precise) in order to make otherworldly adjudication meaningful. Traditions and scripture that ostensibly furnished a contrary account of human agency were, by way of this presupposed metaphysical commitment to justice, rejected (initially at least, though this tendency was largely — though not completely — abandoned over time), glossed over, or interpreted anew. This uncompromising commitment to individual agency vis-a-vis secondary causation was described by Sherman Jackson as the most “distinctive and enduring disagreement” between the Mu’tazila and their Sunni counterparts. Centuries of argument and counterargument ensued, and the multitudinous works on theodicy bear ample witness to the significance of the question.

The Islamic tradition, and Muslims more generally, are not alone in struggling to reconcile God’s justice with human suffering. Dostoyevsky’s ‘Ivan’ in The Brothers Karamazov famously relinquished his ticket to paradise on account of the suffering of children. Unlike Dostoyevsky’s ‘Ivan’, Nietzsche saw suffering as necessary for a fulfilling life. For Nietzsche, suffering and torment were a complement to joy, a conviction described by Alain de Botton as a realization that “most fulfilling human projects appeared inseparable from a degree of torment” and that “the sources of our greatest joys lie awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains.” Like Dostoyevsky’s ‘Ivan’, however, Nietzche did not attach this worldview to God or belief. In fact, Nietzche regarded evil an inherently subjective designation, one most often wielded by the weak to apprehend power from the strong. It was in his Genealogy of Morality that Nietzche described religions as “systems of cruelty” in opposing purveyors of power and aiding the weak whose true motivations were alleged as little more than envy and avarice. Hardly a philosopher or theologian lived except that they offered an account for the vexing question of God’s justice and our responsibility as actors in this world.

In mocking SJWs (as I have on occasion and likely will again in the future), one should not reduce the serious concern that undergirds progressive social justice politics. Nor should one take lightly the concerns of their more easily derided ethnonationalist counterparts. Both believe deeply that there is disorder in this world and see in their activities a solution. The question we have to ask is not whether the cause of law and order is worth fighting for (it is, of course), but rather what we expect to gain from the justice we pursue. Have we convinced ourselves of its ability to fill the fundamentally metaphysical holes in our hearts?

The Islamic tradition makes ample mention of justice. The collection of traditions are so intersubstantiative that they comprise a type of tawatur (i.e., bi l’ma’na), and are themselves a complement to the robust set of verses in the Quran that instruct the same — ‘stand for justice,’ ‘exhort good and prohibit evil,’ and ‘be witnesses for God.’ The Prophet (pbuh) famously stated that one should seek to alter evil with one’s hands if possible, and if not then to use one’s tongue to remedy evil, and if even that is not possible, then to minimally hold hatred for the evil in one’s heart, for that is the weakest faith. Elsewhere, the Prophet (pbuh) said that we would exhort good and prohibit evil lest Allah replace us with those who would succeed where we fail.

And to be sure, the duty to impart justice was not merely one of self-refinement, but of communitarian reform as well. As Ovamir Anjum notes in his Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought, Ibn Taymiyya’s contention was that justice was not only rationally apprehensible, but a rational necessity of legitimate statehood. In this theo-political outlook, it was not — and could not be — the Sharia proper that abdicated its commitment to justice, but a corrupted Sharia (shar’ mubaddal) that ultimately betrayed its namesake and functioned as an oppressive and sinning entity. Muslims were obliged to work to rectify and remediate such ill-begotten programs in favor of the pristine path of God to which justice remained its cornerstone.

But all of this was readily understood within a particular paradigm, one that understood too well that paradise was only for the afterlife, not this world. The very term dunya derives from a triliteral root denoting something both near and lowly or unremarkable. This is in stark contrast to the hereafter which is ‘better and everlasting.’ For the believer this life is a prison, and for the disbeliever, a paradise.

In this unremarkable, lesser world our best efforts may well fail. Humans, endowed with the ability to carry out evil and good, will succumb to their base instincts and oppress, shed blood, and violate the rights of one another. Though at times remediation may be available, in many (nay, most) instances sabr is in order. And it is in living with this resolve — for God, not men — that man sanctifies his soul, discovers the pleasure of God in bearing patiently the trials (ibtila’) of this world, and shepherds most directly those within his (or her) sphere of influence. Ibn Taymiyya exposits this as one of the wisdoms of evil and suffering in this world — the meritorious potential, expiation of sins, and spiritual cleansing acquired through pious resolve during trials are blessings, some of which are in fact more elusive and burdensome in moments of prosperity than adversity (see Hoover’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism for a thorough treatment of the topic). Empirically, this is certainly something we witness with some degree of regularity: it is in the poor and weak that we find some of the most profound examples of piety and saintliness, and in the wealthy that we routinely encounter spiritual vacuity and true impoverishment.

None of this is to suggest that Muslims become indifferent to the cause of justice. The vehement call for social justice need not be diminished, only sublimated a tad. It is a good thing to have a flame burning within oneself. It is quite another to have a conflagration.

What does this mean in concrete terms? For starters, Muslims can begin by evaluating their moral convictions against the book of God and the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh). What possible “justice” is achieved when God’s laws are violated and His explicit commands flagrantly disregarded? Let us not fall for such frivolous rhetorical tricks. Moreover, if Muslims do in fact care for those who suffer, they must realize that none has the power, might, or ability to modify any situation — in a literal instant — other than God. True power is not attained through electoral politics or corporate rank, but in prayer, prostration, sincere invocation, and qunut. Do any of us doubt God’s power and ability? What is it about us that we ascribe unending power to our voices, our wealth, and our prestige, but none to the One who controls the entirety of existence? It is reported that the Successor (tabi’i) Salim ibn Abd ‘Allah was in front of the Ka’bah when the Khalifah approached. Knowing Salim’s erudition and piety, the Khalifah inquired of Salim his needs so that he could fulfill them (i.e., financial needs and the like). Salim remained silent. The Khalifah inquired once more, having assumed that Salim simply did not hear him properly the first time. After a time, Salim responded stating, ‘I am shy in the House of God to ask other than Him (i.e., God) for my needs.’

Although not all demanding justice can be expected to express the piety of Salim, we can nonetheless try to right the scales a bit. When tragedy strikes, those suffering deserve not only our aid but our prayers. From the Sunnah of Allah’s Messenger (pbuh) is the practice of qunut — supplicating in the last rak’ah of the obligatory prayers — during moments of difficulty or heightened suffering. Our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Yemen, Syria, China, Burma, and elsewhere are in need of our qunut and ongoing supplication. We are a people who have been instructed to stand the night when others sleep, to ask of the Most High, and to work righteousness, for Allah will observe it. Protest, boycott, divest, sanction, and lobby, yes, but pray first, during, and after.

Muslims must recognize that activism that is not circumscribed within and subordinate to belief, conviction, and a purpose-driven existence is simply another false religion. Like John Stuart Mill, full-time activists with only a superficial relationship to the Book of Allah and the Prophet’s Sunnah will wear out, finding at the end of the path loneliness, dissatisfaction, and despair. They will feel betrayed by those they lived to serve, malnourished spiritually, and come to the stark realization that they are but confused entities who have yet to discover a life that transcends perfunctory political entanglements.

We must remember that this life is temporary. That Allah has provided us moments to remember Him, responsibilities to tend to, and trials that must be endured. Our purpose is to worship Allah and to discover meaning in that worship. Whether we are able to affect any change as part of that principal conviction should be far less important than sincere witness to God that we lived uniformly with a qibla that was directed to Him, without partner or associate. So yes, let us ‘uphold justice.’ But let us do so while ‘bearing witness to God’ [al-Nisa’:135].

“You are the best nation produced for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are defiantly disobedient. They will not harm you except for [some] annoyance. And if they fight you, they will show you their backs; then they will not be aided.” [al-Nisa’:110]

It is fine to speak in theoretical terms, but I suppose all this talk of justice has left some (many?) wondering how to reconcile circumstances in which conflicts of justice and faith are brought to the fore. And perhaps no incident in recent memory presents this conflict better than the UAE Peace Forum.

I will not spend much time recounting the details here. I suspect most readers are familiar with its particulars, and if not there are many articles that can apprise you of the details (Google it).

Of the best treatments on the subject is Jonathan Brown’s “Keeping Our Eye on the Ball.” It is a generally well-rounded piece, though there are a few points that I believe are in need of refinement:

• The beginning of the paper juxtaposes the pre-modern, minimalist, state with the modern, all-encompassing, state. It is alleged here that the principle of quietism could more easily be upheld in a state that provided no civilian services beyond basic law and order. I do not find this argument altogether convincing. If we are assuming that the effective prohibition of rebellion (by quietist scholars) was rooted in concerns over state stability, civilian strife, bloodshed, and dissension, then would not all of those concerns remain just as operative today (if not more so)?
• A question remains concerning the conditions that make rebellion a legitimate political activity and not an aggression against God (or minimally lacking in wisdom vis-a-vis the welfare of the community). Muslims can (and should) hold lofty political aspirations. However, the cases of Muslim countries experiencing acute famine, civilian displacement, and abject poverty in the aftermath of failed revolutions cannot so easily be written off. We have certainly witnessed enough bloodshed and suffering in our lifetime to warrant some degree of caution and countenance the idea that, no matter how abhorrent it may strike us, oppressions will have to be tolerated in certain circumstances and that ‘resistance’ may simply have to take on lesser forms that do not rise to the level of rebellion or civilian protest. Not all oppressions are equivalent, and there will have to be a level of prudential judgment that wrestles with the question of protest under regimes that treat even the mildest forms of opposition as acts of sedition.
• On the previous note: one can levy the charge that a willingness to accept the existence of some oppression in the name of civic cohesion is an exchange encouraged by those holding power, and that such an arrangement will only delay an inevitable mutiny or, even worse, the crushing of citizens political will to the point of dejection and retreat. Perhaps. However, it is just as ‘easy’ to volunteer others to sacrifice life and limb for revolutions that are unlikely to succeed and may in fact be prompted by nefarious opponents and hostile regional actors.
• Not addressed by Dr. Brown is an important component of Agenda MBZ, which is its aggressive promotion of commercial entertainment. The WWE is now in a 10-year partnership with Saudi Arabia that recently kicked-off with a “Royal Rumble” in Riyadh, an event studiously covered by the Saudi regimes loyal mouthpiece Arab News. Concerts featuring Enrique Iglesias, The Black Eyed Peas and DJ David Guetta have been held, and were eagerly attended by a class of Saudi youth who are being fed shallow liberal reforms to distract from the pressing problems that would otherwise demand political accountability. Muslim scholars who objected to this degenerative cultural agenda have been swiftly imprisoned. It is clear that Agenda MBZ is being led by those who sincerely believe in the superiority of the liberal West while carrying deep disdain for anything resembling the Islamic tradition in its true form. That they have elected to misappropriate Islam in lieu of opposing it is merely ‘the path of least resistance.’
• Just as one should not flatten the world of oppressions, one should also not flatten the world of scholars who act as functionaries of the state. Trump is abhorrent, yes, but he is no Bashar al-Assad, and it would be a category error to conflate the two. Of course one can subjectivise the comparison, understanding that Trump has been constrained more readily by a distributed governance model that has reined in his political determinations while Assad faces no such obstacles. But this relativizing must have limits, and at some point we run into a wall of the reality in front of us. Likewise with scholars. Some have literally called for the slaughter of their brethren (and not by implication or unwitting endorsement), while others have merely provided a ceremonial presence. Though both may be blameworthy, let us at least acknowledge that not all are equally turncoat, and that some may in fact be exercising judgment that can be reasonably understood as more than simply ‘selling out.’

In addition to Jonathan Brown, Ovamir Anjum has offered a number of important reflections on the subject, including the need to oppose the false choice between corrupt monarchies and corrupt democracies. As he notes, cultures of accountability can be enacted in monarchical regimes, and it is in the spirit of bringing about such accountability structures that we should place positive pressure on the cruel garrison states that span the Muslim world. These are states that have been guilty of inflicting suffering on scores of their own people. The repellant treatment of expatriate workers, engendering of existential fear at the slightest mention of dissatisfaction, and draconian directives governing the preaching and teaching of Islam have had an observable impact on the populace and directly contribute to both instability and corruption.

Much of the public ire on social media has been directed toward Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. Dismayed by the Shaykh’s participation in the forum, Muslims politically aligned with progressivism and the social justice left have portrayed the Shaykh a moral criminal. Many seek to disqualify him from participation in any communal space, and nothing short of self-abasing confession will do to atone for this error. Some in the SJW circuit have written the Shaykh off as just another “white man” with power and privilege and resent the communities “fetishization” of people like him.

Muslims should reject such identity driven critiques, and provide for some measure of goodwill in attempting to understand his rationale. Shaykh Hamza is not Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and his political activities cannot be equated with those who have subsidized slaughter. He has already made propitiatory remarks at RIS criticizing the military intervention of Yemen, and the suggestion that he was indifferent to famine in Yemen was always highly infelicitous. We should not forget the decades of service the Shaykh has engaged in, even if we disagree vehemently with his political activities.

In time, I expect that Shaykh Hamza will attempt to justify and explain his efforts. It is possible, and in this case likely, that many will find the justifications unsatisfactory. However, we have to be a community that can discern between those who have spent much of their careers whitewashing atrocities with those who carry none of that history. Shaykh Hamza and others may prove to be the latest iteration of the ‘sultan’s scholars,’ but at this point it is far too early to tell, and is certainly not a conclusion that I think one can draw from the UAE Peace Forum alone.

A few other notes:

It is worth taking 10–15 minutes out of your day to read Helen Andrews “The Shame Storm” at First Things (you will have to ignore the initial bit about Tariq Ramadan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali). Andrews disquisition takes us through a personal journey of cyberbullying and media disparagement which is now characteristic of online life.

The article reminded me of something I came across quite recently. A 19-year old college student who served as the president of his MSA had committed to an allegedly Zionist sponsored trip to Israel. Once word got out, it became an immediate concern of many online to alert this student to his being duped by said Zionist group. By the time I came across discussions of the student, the vitriol had already reached embarrassing levels. Presumably practicing Muslims were boasting that they had been blocked from this students personal Facebook page. Others sought the same ‘honorific’ and summarily posted accusatory remarks on his page as well. It was now a duty for all those who cared about Palestinians to harass this poor kid into humiliation. The success of BDS depended on it. I couldn’t help but think: what Palestinian was served by this? Who the heck would want to be a part of a community that treats its members this way?

These online shame cycles are now tiring. The social media mob is indiscriminate and acts with a viciousness that has long jettisoned anything approaching Islamic ethics and norms. Any attempt to draw attention to “adab” is refuted with the lazy charge of adab policing and sanctimonious quibbling. In any event, I digress. Below are a few quotes from the piece, and the link was provided above. May Allah guide us to embody the akhlaq of our Prophet (pbuh). Ameen.

“The more online shame cycles you observe, the more obvious the pattern becomes: Everyone comes up with a principled-sounding pretext that serves as a barrier against admitting to themselves that, in fact, all they have really done is joined a mob. Once that barrier is erected, all rules of decency go out the window, but the pretext is almost always a lie. ­Matthew Yglesias once claimed that the reason he mocked David Brooks for his divorce was because Brooks had written columns about the social value of marriage, but I do not believe him. He did it because it’s fun to humiliate your political opponents. Moira Donegan claims that she created the S***y Media Men List — a clearinghouse of anonymous accusations optimally parked for maximum dissemination in the Google Spreadsheet cloud — for altruistic reasons and with no thought of its being used to hurt anyone, but I do not believe her. If it was about protecting women in media from harassment, then why no attempt to sort the true accusations from the false? Why the coy protestations that “I thought that the document would not be made public,” when of course she knew that it would be spread far and wide, or she wouldn’t have bothered creating it?”

Elsewhere:

“Any attempt to defend yourself or clarify your original remarks is “the equivalent of a squeaky cry of, ‘Why is everyone making fun of me?!’ on the playground,” Holiday says. “Whether it happens in front of snarky blogs or a real-life bully, the result is the same: Everyone makes fun of you even more.” The idea that online shaming is a form of debate — or in any way oriented toward finding the truth — is a delusion. Dialogue is not the point. The day Brett ­Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the New Yorker — not Gawker, but the New Yorker — ran thirty-two Kavanaugh headlines in twenty-four hours, many of them on the subject of the nominee’s supposed whininess: “The Tears of Brett Kavanaugh”; “An Angry, Tearful Opening”; “Brett Kavanaugh’s ­Damaging, Revealing Partisan Bitterness”; “A Grotesque Display of Patriarchal Resentment.” The man had been accused of being a brutal rapist, and the most prestigious magazine in America ridiculed him for responding to the allegation as any innocent man would have. No, dialogue is not the point.”

Our sister Shaima Swileh was reunited with her 2-year old terminally ill son Abdullah Hassan at the Children’s Hospital in Oakland prior to his passing. After Allah, it was the work of the Sacramento Valley CAIR team that helped her obtain a visa waiver to travel to see her son — may Allah reward them with good, and may He reunite the parents with young Abdullah in jannah just as He reunited them in Abdullah’s final moments in this world. Ameen.

Allah Knows Best.