Reaching freedom and a free heart and mind are not linear paths. They are more of navigation using your best judgement and knowledge rather than a simple, straight walking path. When we look at our colonial past and the hard reality of our present, one truth becomes clear: total dissociation is a fantasy. Instead, we must look to utilising the very structures we inherit to shape a future under the Sovereignty of Allah.
We must utilise these structures. To clarify, the structures will not utilise us. When a troubled historic past shaped us in more ways than we realise, and it is deeply wired into us, going about it this way would guarantee the better and more sustainable outcome at the end.
Had divorcing the past completely and starting from scratch been the divine formula, we would have seen it in the Seerah of the Prophet ﷺ.
But we don’t.
He put in the work—communicating, negotiating, and sealing deals with his blessed name. This was diplomacy at its finest.
As much as it hurts to operate within the very systems that stripped us of our roots, disrupted our identities, and fractured our histories, we must look through the lens of ‘ilm that Allah granted us. The Prophet ﷺ did not start off his mission in a vaccuum, nor did he erase the pre-Islamic societal structures (jahiliyyah) that could be repurposed for good (like the Hilf al-Fudul or existing trade routes).
To be able to negotiate, navigate, and eventually commandeer these very systems to serve our goals of the Hereafter, you do not enter these spaces as subordinates as the current school system dictates to us, but as an equal making a deal. When you take the system by the horns, the ‘magic’ of its supposed supremacy evaporates. You begin to see it for what it is: man-made, fallible, and riddled with loopholes. You also realise that we are not as trapped in their systems as you initially may have felt, but instead, you are just navigating through it with the two guides in your hands. It is just like a puzzle, a hard one, yes, but we have the answers all ready to be applied:
Malik reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “I have left you with two matters which will never lead you astray, as long as you hold to them: the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of his Prophet.”
Al-Muwatta:1661
The niyyah in your heart—your intention, and the knowledge of the foundations of our Deen are the two most important provisions to be able to maintain our compass in this journey. That you don’t want to butter the coloniser or the systems he left behind. Nor do you want to carry his water in order to receive a position in his ledger, but you only want to come to terms with what has passed, the pain carried through generations, the bravery of your forefathers and recognition of the undefeatable nature of our kalimah: la ilaha ill Allah—all to help the Ummah live freedom through Tawheed (belief in the Oneness of Allah), again.
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