Sudan, the Lamp, and the Jailer

Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah

The Story of the Prisoners, the Lamp, and the Jailer

A group was imprisoned, and each of them had a lamp. They wanted to escape, so they looked with their lamps and found a long road at the end of which was the sunlight, but it was blocked by the guards, the jailer's men. Before the guards, on both sides of the road, there were curtains covering side roads whose ends they did not know. They felt the difficulty of escaping, so they sat in the prison.

The jailer tightened their situation day after day until their anger flared. The jailer sent them a group of men with lamps from his own, until they mixed with the prisoners, then the prisoners differed in the way to escape.

Types of Prisoners in Dealing with the Lamp

• The Traders of the Lamp: Among them was one who waved the lamp and said, "I am for her, I am for her, give me your food and drink, and I will lead your journey, so follow me until I get you out." They gave him, he ate and drank and led them until he reached the guards. Then he extinguished his lamp, then lifted the curtain of a side road and said, "Follow me." They followed him, and behold, the road brought them back to the prison.

• The Poets of the Lamp: Among them was one who said, "There is no solution for you except with the light," meaning the lamp. They said, "We know, so how?" He said, "With the light we are saved, without the light do not trust, return to the light for the light is your salvation." And he began to compose poems for them, poems of love with the light, and they did not increase except in hunger and imprisonment.

• The Aggressors with the Lamp: Among them was one who used the lamp to aggress against some of the prisoners with him, striking their heads claiming that this is the way out for all of them.

• Those Seeking Permission from the Jailer: Among them was one who stood at the beginning of the road calling out to the guards, "Allow us to use the lamps to get out, allow us." The jailer and his guards listened smiling, and the prisoners waited for permission.

• The Rejecters of the Lamp and Those Demanding the Lottery: A fifth group of prisoners said, "Then the fault is in the lamp." So they threw the lamps from their hands and called out to the guards saying, "O guards come with us to draw lots, who will be in prison if convicted, and who will become the jailer, who will eat the food and who will starve." The guards said to them, "Come." And they lifted the curtain for them to a door leading to dark alleys that twist and turn, then its end is the prison they are in. And the prisoners do not know that they have thrown away the lamps.

  Then some of the previous lamp bearers said to them, "Will you leave your lamps?" The newcomers to the alley replied, "We no longer trust you or your lamps, we have tried you and your lamp and we have not benefited from anything, and if we get out of prison we will tighten on you and imprison you. O jailer come and support us against them." And the jailer appeared in the form of the savior hero for both groups, the preventer of the excess of each over the other. And the prisoners remained all behind the bars and did not increase except in hunger and oppression.

Analysis of the Story and Its Symbols

The prison is the international system of enslavement, the prisoners are the Muslims, and the lamp is Islam and the Sharia.

• The Traders of Religion: And those who wave the lamp eating the food of the prisoners in vain, are those who trade in religion and derive from it a false legitimacy, and raise its slogans for gain and falsehood, whether they are parties or groups or individuals or evil scholars.

• The Lovers of Sharia Without Knowledge and Action: And those who compose poems for the lamp, are the lovers of Sharia in fact and callers to its establishment, but without knowledge or real action, nor taking the means, nor explaining to the people what Sharia is in the first place. They love Sharia but do not illuminate the way with it nor lead the people to the exit with it, but they are in need of someone to lead them.

• Those Who Kill in the Name of Sharia: And those who strike their fellow prisoners with the lamp, are those who kill Muslims in the name of Sharia, claiming that this is necessary for the salvation of the nation and the establishment of its state.

• Those Demanding the Application of Sharia with the Jailer's Permission: And those who call out to the guards asking for permission to use the lamp to escape, are those who demand the application of Sharia as if they are saying, "O guards we wait for your permission for us to end your tyranny you and your master."

• Those Calling for Elections and Democracy: And those who abandon the lamp and demand the lottery with the guards coming to the alley, are those who call for elections and the transfer of power to civilians, that the guards hand over the power to the prisoners. And the alley leading to the prison in the end is democracy.

Advice to Those Who Shout

My words to you, honorable ones, are not to explain the detailed way out of the prison, nor to compose poems for the lamp, nor to present my expectations about the endings of the new revolutions. For I have explained in what I see as factors that revolutions do not succeed without in a word entitled "The Role of Scholars in Revolutions," and my conviction is that all Muslim peoples are still in prison.

The main goal of my words is to give advice to those who shout: "We have lost confidence in the bearers of the lamp and in the lamp itself," meaning those who raise the banner of Sharia and Sharia itself. I say to them: We must tighten our grip on the world, for it is a double tragedy that we lose our religion and our hereafter with it.

It is no wonder that Muslims lose confidence in those who waved Sharia and raised its banner falsely and gained from it, like those who compose poems for the lamp and do not enlighten with it. And it is no wonder that Muslims lose confidence in those who fought them and killed them in the name of Sharia and did not increase them except in hardship.

But the strange thing here, O Muslims, is that you lose confidence in the lamp of Sharia itself because of its bad handling by others. It is strange that you talk about the lamp as if it is the merchandise of others and not yours. Are you not also among the bearers of the lamp? Are you not originally Muslims as well?

Sharia is Not an Exclusive Agency

The idea of considering Sharia as an exclusive agency for Islamists is the worst and most corrupt idea that has entered the mind of the Muslim in the present age, and indeed the idea of dividing into Muslims and Islamists is the beginning of this huge rift between Muslims and their religion.

What is happening? The religion of Allah is left to individuals and groups who represent it, who misrepresent it, so it falls into the minds of the people that the Islamic choice has failed, and there must be other choices from outside the Islamic system. If we are Muslims, then Islam is the responsibility of each one of us individually. And the individual represents only himself, and the party represents only itself, and the raiser of Islamic slogans represents only himself. No one represents Islam nor claims its exclusive agency. And the deviation of any of them harms only himself, and does not harm Islam nor cast doubt on its validity.

The Role of Strategic Planning Centers

Strategic planning centers, my brothers, Western strategic planning centers that issue studies to keep Muslims in a state of subjugation, strive to confine the responsibility of Islam to a category and distance the general Muslims from their religion. For example, the American RAND strategic planning center says in its study published in 2007 titled "Building Moderate Islamic Networks" on page 67, it says in the text, of course, what I translated: "The dividing line between moderate Muslims and extremist Islamists in countries with legal systems based on Western systems, which are most of the countries of the Islamic world as they say, is whether Sharia should be applied."

These centers themselves state in their studies how to get rid of these Islamists or contain them and divert their course, as in the study "How Terrorist Groups End." So, Sharia has been made an exclusive agency for Islamists, and these are either eliminated or their course is diverted, the result being the loss of Sharia, the lamp, and the Muslim peoples remaining in the prison of the international system. Just no integrated life system that liberates us from human slavery.

Then we accept making Sharia an exclusive agency for Islamists, then if these people do wrong, we say we do not want Sharia. By this, my brothers, we do not disassociate ourselves from the Islamists but we disassociate ourselves from Islam itself.

Conditions of Faith and Adherence to Sharia

Allah the Almighty says: {They do not believe}, there is no faith, you are neither a Muslim nor an Islamist nor do you have any relation to Islam until you fulfill these conditions. If you fulfill them, then yes, you will fall into sins afterward, but you acknowledge that they are sins, you will never consider them the best nor defend them, and you will thus be in a good state where you are hoped for mercy from Allah the Almighty who says: {And others have acknowledged their sins and mixed a righteous deed with another evil. Perhaps Allah will forgive them. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful}.

You will be in a good state as long as you honor Sharia, believe in its perfection, and strive to establish it. And you will be at that time closer to Allah than those who call themselves Islamists and raise Islamic slogans but are deceivers in that, seeking the world thereby and extinguishing the lamp of Sharia whenever they wish after having derived from it the legitimacy to lead people, or you see them without constants, jumping between principles and every day forming new alliances.

We, as Muslims, have not even lit the lamp of Sharia to blame it for failing to get us out of prison, but I will show in a forthcoming word, God willing, that we have not even understood Sharia to light it. And the ignorant of a thing despises it.

Sharia Remains and Its Abandoners Are the Losers

After all this, my brothers, let him who turns away from Sharia turn away, and Sharia will remain in its sublimity and its abandoners are the losers. For the emergence of the light of Sharia from the prison of human slavery is not a perishable commodity that is offered and rejected by those who reject it, but it is an honor and a distinction that Allah has not chosen for us because we do not deserve it now. Rather, it is deserved by those who are upright on Sharia in their lives and whose motto is: {Say, "Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, Lord of the worlds."}

And if you turn away, He will replace you with a people other than you, and they will not be like you. For the Sharia of Allah does not need you nor does it need me: {O mankind, you are the poor to Allah, and Allah is the Free of need, the Praiseworthy. If He wills, He can take you away and bring forth a new creation. And that is not difficult for Allah.}

We ask Allah to guide us to uphold His Sharia in our lives so that we may deserve to be taken out of our prison by it.

Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.