The truly corrupt and manipulative: What does the Quran say?

Ustad Nouman Ali Khan gave the above lecture in response to the Boston bombings I revisit it now in the aftermath of the truly horrific attacks on Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Here we have murderous men claiming to be Muhajideen indiscriminately and cold-bloodedly killing unarmed, innocent, civilians many of them women and children. It has been reported that young children were found stabbed to death stuffed into fridges, women were shot after being questioned and found to be Muslim because they were not wearing hijab.  Very unfortunately some commentators on Facebook/Twitter have tried to justify this attack, or give explanations for it in light of Kenya’s actions in Somalia  and especially in light of what they think the Quran says.

After all the Quran says we have to fight our enemies it says it says “kill them wherever you find them.”

However , this attack is entirely unacceptable, there can be no justification for murdering innocents. These  self-styled ‘Mujahdeen’ have been defended by people (mis)quoting  the Quran just like Islamophobes who to paint us all as homicidal maniacs and justify their support of military action and drone bombings. 

SubhanAllah the Quran itself speaks of such people and their corruption as Ustad Nouman articulates the Quran says something unique about itself:

 

 “.......By it He misleads many, and many He guides thereby. And He misleads thereby only those who are Al-Fasiqun (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah).” Al-Baqarah:26. 

This means that Allah allows many people to be misguided by means of this very revelation, and He guides many by means of this revelation. When we first listen to this we ask: why would Allah send this revelation and then allow it to be used for misguidance? In fact, misguidance is mentioned first, and then the kind of people that will become misguided are mentioned. 

In fact Allah never misguides anybody at all, by means of revelation except those who are inherently corrupt. They have a deeply rooted corruption in themselves. There are psychological forms of corruption, people who don't even realize they're being manipulated, like young people are very gullible. There are people who are emotionally corrupt or traumatized, there are people who are actually outright evil and corrupt. Corruption takes many forms. It could be purposeful or not purposeful, it could be circumstantial. But you know what, when you come to this book with some kind of corruption – maybe you don't have complete information and you're rushing to conclusions – then the Quran has the option for someone to manipulate it. Someone to make the wrong conclusions.  Someone to use things in the Quran and say “oh this is what that means.”  But that can only happen when something is corrupt. If the intention and the approach and the emotions are corrupt. Something corrupt has to be there for the wrong conclusions to come out. So maybe it is the greatest of all of our true character.

And this is what has happened to the wanna-be Muhajideen and their corrupt supporters, these are people who will always justify violence and suffering.  They will insist “oh this is because of Islam”, or “this is a kind of jihad fee sabeelillah” or whatever else. This is nothing like jihad fee sabeelillah! This is nothing sanctioned by the Quran. It's a form of corruption. It's a form of manipulation of the sacred text. And we have to understand this first, that it's a violation of Allah's Word.