And Once Again Abu-Dhar
Part 5

Dr. Ali Shariati

This strong and unexpected inclination of Islam to the right, which began with a coup d'etat-like election in Thaqifah during the time of Abu Bakr, only had a political aspect, and during the time of 'Umar, it showed its economic visage by classifying Muslims according to the receipt of government wages. It even classified the wives of the Holy Prophet into two scales, depending upon their class before marriage, free or slave! at which the wives of the Prophet, who had been free women, objected and they re-fused to accept the privilege.

But during the regime of 'Uthman, this inclination [to the right] reached its peak point society became categorized; aristocrats took absolute control of the rule; the conquests of Islam in the East and the West, which included economic resources, spoils of war, as well as political and many administrative positions, from Transoxiana of Iran until North Africa, were placed at the disposal of the regime in Madinah; the Companions of the Prophet, mujahids, Emigrants and Helpers were turned from being revolutionary-ideological partisans into being politicians and figures of power and wealth; a class of rulers was created from those who were generally pious, poor, committed, strugglers, a class of new bourgeoisie was formed from the flood of wealth in the form of war spoils, the poor rate (zakat) and the jiziyah[the tax of non-Muslims living under Islamic protection] of millions of Muslims and revolutionary-ideological partisans into being politicians and leaders of power and wealth; a class of rulers was created from those who were generally pious, poor, committed, strugglers; a class of new bourgeoisie was formed from the flood of wealth in the form of war sDoils. the Door-rate (zakat) of Muslims and the taxes of non-Muslims and kafirs slide downwards towards 'poor' Madinah, which not only changed Islamic Madinah, the Muslim ummah and the mujahids of the Battles of Badr and Uhud, but, the contents and social orientation of Islam [as well], and, as a result, religious perception. It changed Islam from the form of a' re-volutionary ideology' into the form of a 'government religion'. This curve, which at Thaqifah had deviated to the right, in less than a quarter of a century (that same quarter of a century when 'Ali had been isolated in his home, the determinations of politics, during these years when the history of Islam was being formed, obliged him to do agricultural work in Yanba', or in his home to turn to collect the Quran, with which he was also concerned that it not be altered), reached the point that the outstanding political and intellectual visages of Islam were Mu'awiyah [governor during the time of the first few caliphs] who was independent, Marwan Hakam, who was an exile of the Prophet, and Ka'b al-Ahbar, a Jewish rabbi who had recently turned to Islam and become a clergyman of Islam, 'Uthman, 'the Prophet's caliph', would ask him (Ka'b) to give commentaries upon the Holy Quran; ['Uthman] considered 'Ali and Abu Dharr's commentaries incorrect!

'Uthman, in order to justify his new political and economic system, which was a fake copy of the rule of the King of Iran and the Caesar of Rome, did not make any efforts to deceive, perhaps for this reason that at that time, such an act would not be effective because the people had seen what an Islamic rule is with their own eyes and also because 'Uthman's work was more shameful than to be able to try to justify it as being Islamic.

'Uthman is the inventor of a list of innovations (bid'ah) which appear for the first time' in Islam. For the first time, the leader becomes a palace resident; for the first time, he arranges for official security guards; for the first time, special courtiers are found; for the first time, he has a chamberlain; for the first time, the relation between the common masses of the people and the caliph finds an intermediator; for the first time, the public treasury is placed at the disposal of the caliph and the keeper of the keys goes to the mosque and announces to the people, who are the owners of the public treasury, that, "As the Caliph is interferring, I will give the keys back to you. I resign. Do what you want"; for the first time, a political prison is found; for the first time, a Muslim is under survelliance because he attacked the method of the caliph or his agents; for the first time, political exile appears; for the first time, a human being is tortured by the rule ('Abdallah ibn Mas'ud); for the first time, the Holy Quran is used as a means to politically deceive the people; for the first time, the rulers are given a free rein over the fate of the people and they exonerate themselves from any legal and Islamic responsibility; for the first time, tribal and kinship ties become a ladder for political and social progression; for the first time, high positions are monopolized and are held in exclusiveness for the members of the political bond which is affiliated to the caliph; and in order to gain position, the criteria of Islam and piety give way to kinship and politics; for the first time, exploitation of classes, contradiction, discriminatlon, capitalism (kinz), aristocracy, ignorant values, tribal spirit, old age, wealth, race, extraction, personality-worship and tribal tendencies prevail over Islamic brotherhood and spiritual values and social equality.

Economic privileges succeed over piety, a background of jihad, nearness to the Prophet, knowledge of the Quran and individual merit; and the spirit of rule triumphed over leadership, Imamate, a conservative system over a revolutionary movement; the seeking of the exclusiveness of religion, humanity, economics and politics over the mas inclined Islamic equality, seeking and liberation, in the midst of which is an obscure man, having even the same responsibility in the political fate of society and the same right to interfer as the person of the caliph; in the same rank as the great Companions, but, in general, games of compromise [succeed] over longing for the truth; politics over struggle; Islamic slogans over Islamic truths; the Elder Companions over the believers; class over ummah; the house Of the caliphate over the mosque; tribal aristocracy over human dignity; the old ignorance over the new revolution; innovation over Tradition and finally, the family of Abu Sufyan over the family of Muhammad.

As a result, 'Ali was disarmed! and Abu Dharr, who suffered after sorrow fully accepting the defeat of 'Ali in the election of Abu Bakr and the designation of 'Umar, has come again, he can no longer remain silent now when everything has changed: despotism, gold and deception, this omnious tatblith or trinity, in the white dress of the Prophet's caliph, behind the beautiful guise of monotheism, are victorious over the people, who are the continuing sacrifices to this trinity.

The value of what Abu Dharr did is not just that when confronted by false hood, he defended truth; wben confronted by kufr, religion; when confronted by usurpation, rights and the rightful,; and, finally, when confronted by deviation, the right way; rather, that which gives him an outstanding and special visage among all of the revolution ary and mujahid visages, was the exact and clear orientation which he selected in his struggle. It was because of this that he, with a correct evaluation, discovered the major causes of all deviations; and the fact that he showed what this kufr, this right and this deviation is and from what?

In his struggle, he did not lean on unclear phrases, minor slogans, subjective issues, needs, anguishes and the idealistic, imagination, worshipping goals of the philosophical, scholarly, ethical, theological, polemically suprastructural, deviational and subjective, intellectual sensitivities and feelings of scholars, gnostics, jurisprudents and theologians which later polarized all conflicts and struggles in Islamic society to those areas so that the two main slogans of 'imamate' and 'justice' depart from thoughts. He did not take effects in place of causes. He showed 'from where one must begin'; he made it clear what the sharp edge of struggle should be made attentive to; he taught that deviated conflicts and the mistaken takings of incidentals pulls the struggle with the enemy to those exact scenes which the enemy wants, so that even if victory be attained, no pain will be healed and the enemy will not be harmed.

He determined the main line of his struggle to be a struggle with class discrimination in order to establish justice. As these two slogans are so extensive that the caliphate can also announce them and by means of the propagation facilities of the caliphate, that is, pulpits and mihrabs, and so justify and exigize them through the propagator agents of the official and ruling Islam, transmitters of the Traditions, propagators, preachers, commentators, jurisprudents and scholars, that they no longer have any effects, Abu Dharr, as a lesson to those who like him make efforts to have their Islam be the Muhammad-like Islam of 'Ali, returned to the Quran. He took his battle cry from it.

Those who treasure up (kinz) gold and silver and do not expend (infaq) them in the Way of God, give them the good tidings of a painful chastisement, the day they shall be heated in the fire of hell and therewith, their foreheads and their sides and their backs shall be branded. 'This is the thing you have treasured up for yourselves; therefore taste you now what you were treasuring!'(9:34-35)

Kinz is Arabic for treasure and means the 'storing up of capital'. Gold and silver are manifestations of capitalism. Infaq, 'the act of spending', comes from nafaq meaning break and has been derived from the if'al form of the verb, giving the opposite meaning of the first, that is, eliminating and negating a break in something. It is clear that what is meant here is a crack, a break in society which is made by capitalism and economic exploitation. What is meant is a class break or clevage, uneveness and the unsymmetrical or disproportionate level of social life.