ʿAshura Articles (4): The Slogan of Peacefulness.. A Husayni Approach
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
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The Slogan of Peacefulness.. A Husayni Approach
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
Theorists of the Islamic movement discuss the principle of peacefulness in movements for demands, or specifically when undertaking processes of civilizational and political change; set against that is the option of force and violence as a basis for action. Each of these approaches has its line of argument, whether this evidence is drawn from the textual, doctrinal heritage of knowledge or through a realistic and logical approach.
They said that the principle of peacefulness and non-violence relies on the words of Allah the Exalted “O you who have faith! Enter into submission, all together, and do not follow in Satan’s steps; he is indeed your manifest enemy” (Qurʾan 2:208), and on the realistic side they say that this approach is less harmful and more conclusive as an argument. Those who advocated action that resorts to force and violence argued that the words of the Exalted “Prepare against them whatever you can of [military] power and war-horses, awing thereby the enemy of Allah, and your enemy, and others besides them, whom you do not know, but Allah knows them. And whatever you spend in the way of Allah will be repaid to you in full, and you will not be wronged” (Qurʾan 8:60), are the evidence for that; moreover, reality compels you to adopt the saying: What is taken by force can only be recovered by force.
It may seem at first glance that the distinction between the two approaches is self-evident and that the difference and distance between them are clear; but the truth is not so. There is overlap between them; there is what is root and what is branch; and there is the question of initiation and the question of defense. One cannot speak of the two approaches with a kind of superficiality and willful disregard. This blessed Husayni course makes clear to us the differences and the dividing lines between the two approaches. Imam al-Husayn (a), together with his brother Imam al-Hasan (a), was engaged in peaceful political and civilizational action; and when the Imam found that the matter required raising the level of confrontation for the sake of the religion, he rose up, mobilized his men for that, and summoned them to stand by his side. Despite all that, he did not initiate fighting against the people; but when he was attacked, he rose and drew his sword, and the swords of those with him, to support the religion and defend the sanctities.
The fallacious discourse that describes popular mobilization as violent when the masses defend themselves, or even when they hold protests that are peaceful by the standards of international political understanding—that discourse comes from sources that want to bury any movement of peoples against injustice and aggression, so that people remain in slumber while the likes of Yazid toy with the resources of the umma and enslave a group of them. You see the depth of the fallacy clearly whenever states and governments need to repel movements with violence, for they justify it to themselves with a thousand justifications.
Hence we can take the balanced map of action between the two approaches from the words of Allah the Exalted: “those who were expelled from their homes unjustly, only because they said, ‘Allah is our Lord.’ Had not Allah repulsed the people from one another, ruin would have befallen the monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques in which Allah’s Name is much invoked. Allah will surely help those who help Him. Indeed Allah is all-strong, all-mighty.” (Qurʾan 22:40)
And in the historical event, we draw from the life of Imam al-Husayn (a), in its comprehensiveness, the escalating indicator of popular mobilization and its type.
