It’s a Religious Duty for American Muslims to Vote to Stop Trump
Donald Trump is not finished. He’s down in the polls now, but we’ve seen this before and he comes right back. Many Muslims are conflicted as to how to react to his campaign, or whether to react at all.
I believe it is a religious, moral and civic obligation for Muslims to vote to stop Trump, based on the threat he demonstrably poses to our communities and our nation. This civic participation is a position supported by a broad consensus of US and overseas scholars, our Islamic legal tradition, and the Quran and Sunnah.
Trump’s constant demonization of Muslims has created a ripple effect that reaches beyond politics: this isn’t just about politics anymore. This is about the safety of our families and communities. We simply cannot afford to stay silent and risk a Trump Presidency.
Déjà vu is an unsettling prospect. In 2000, George W. Bush won Florida with only 537 votes. Many Florida Muslims did not vote and yet several others voted for Ralph Nader, the third-party candidate and the equivalent of today’s Jill Stein. It’s important that Muslims develop political literacy, understand the Electoral College system, and are aware of the potential effects of a third party (i.e. Green or Libertarian) vote. In a state that is almost certainly blue (such as my home state of California), a third party vote for one’s conscience may be seen as a viable option by many voters.
However, in swing states with significant Muslim populations (Florida and Michigan, for example), voters should be aware that a vote for Stein or Johnson may in effect hand the state to Trump.
There is a broad consensus amongst Muslim scholars and leaders — in the US and across the world — that it is, at the very least, recommended for Muslims to vote in elections. Usually, this has stopped short of actively campaigning for a preferred candidate, leaving it up to individual analysis and judgement. In the US, this is often because the electoral rules around non-profit organizations (including mosques) preclude Imams from endorsing candidates. In the case of overseas scholars, their knowledge of the different candidates in a particular US election may be limited.
Several Muslim leaders without these constraints have been actively campaigning for Hillary this year, as a vote for her is seen in many cases as the safest way to stop Trump.
There is a long Islamic tradition of working within imperfect — or even completely unislamic governments, for the greater good. In the Holy Quran, Allah tells us: “Yusuf said, ‘Set me over the store-houses of the land; I will indeed guard them with full knowledge (as a minister of agriculture in Egypt).’…Thus, did We give full authority to Yusuf in the land.” Yusuf didn’t ask to be the Khalifah — he only asked to be minister of agriculture. This does not mean that he endorsed Aziz’s shirk — or his foreign policy.
Even if you can’t wholeheartedly get behind a particular candidate this election, we should vote for the greater good. This is an established principle of Islamic jurisprudence. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf relied on this principle when he advised Muslims to “take the lesser of two evils when voting. It’s not black and white.” Dr Jamal Badawi of the Islamic Society of North America has a similar position.
And Imam Omar Suleiman gave similar advice after the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (as well as the Islamic Fiqh Council) issued a ruling in the same spirit: “It’s OK to endorse a candidate who has views that are different from your views if it’s for a greater good. Many of the scholars who used to be completely against it are now all for it — even if that means voting for a Republican against another Republican in the Republican primary because he’s not saying Islamophobic things.” He was speaking in 2012, but if we had applied his advice earlier in this election cycle, it’s possible the Muslim vote could have kept Trump off the ticket. Our apathy empowers Trump.
Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, a renowned scholar of all four schools of Sunni law, went further: “it is…a greater evil not to be participating at all and to simply be disengaged from the process. So, as Muslims, people should come together as one hand and create blocks where they can try to have some influence.” Even Shaykh Bin Bayyah, a Mauritanian scholar based in Jeddah, can see that it’s beneficial for US Muslims to unite around a single candidate to create a Muslim lobby in Washington. This would eventually mean that we can make divisive anti-Muslim candidates pay an electoral price for their tactics.
Imam Suhaib Webb even drew upon the Sunnah to prove that Muslims must create political alliances when they are a minority community. He mentioned the authentic hadith in Sahih Bukhari, where the Prophet actually gave money to the Quraysh for the release of Muslim prisoners, i.e. to protect the rights of Muslims. This was at a time when they were actively killing Muslims and waging war on his Messenger. We should follow the Prophet’s example and our support should be even stronger for a candidate who is not as bad as the Quraysh and will preserve some fundamental rights of Muslims.
The internationally renowned traditional Saudi scholar Shaykh Muhammad ibn Uthaymeen went as far as to say that participating in elections is obligatory.
I do not believe that the Muslims supporting Hillary Clinton see her as an ideal Islamic leader. I am sure that many American Muslims will be voting, as suggested by the scholars above, purely in the interests of their community and country.
I was a big Bernie supporter, but I’ve had to accept that on November 9th he is not going to be President. It is incumbent on Muslims to accept the reality that our next President will be either Trump or Hillary, and (depending on which state they live in) to vote tactically for what they believe will ultimately be the greater good — for Muslims, and for America.
Imam Jihad Turk is President of Bayan Claremont, a graduate school designed to educate Muslim scholars and religious leaders. He previously served as the Director of Religious Affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California, the oldest and largest mosque in the Los Angeles area.
