Islam vs. Communism

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

والصلاة والسلام على رسوله الكريم

وعلى اهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المظلومين

والعاقبة للمتقين

During the mid-20^th century, the poison of communism and socialism spread throughout the Muslim and Arab world. For many decades, the Muslims of Central Asia were brutally subjected to the iron-fisted rule of the Soviets. Sadly, those Muslims (Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Tajiks, Kirghiz, Azeris, Tatars, Chechens, Dagestanis, Bashkirs, etc.) lost touch with their Religion to a great degree, and it is only in recent years there has been somewhat of a revival in their understanding and practice of Islam. Marxism is a materialist political ideology that seeks to create a classless society, and prescribes socialism to achieve that. Socialism is a system in which the state, acting on behalf of the working class, owns and controls the means of production. The Communist Manifesto calls for a violent revolution in which the working class unite to overthrow the capitalists and establish a socialist state. Needless to say, this 20^th century political ideology is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Islam. Apart from being a foreign idea produced by European atheists and materialists, Marxism or communism is naturally contemptuous of religion and the clergy, or religious leadership. This explains why religion, particularly Islam, was brutally supressed by the Soviets, and continues to be supressed by China’s authoritarian, Communist Party regime. Presently, we are witnessing the horrific persecution of Uighur Muslims in western China because of their Faith and its teachings against atheism and worship of the state. China’s Communist Party regime, like the Soviet Union, and like Kim Jong Un the dictator of North Korea, and other communist dictators (Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro) is ataghut, like the tawaghit of the past whom the Believers were commanded to reject, the likes of Nimrod, the Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzer, Antiochus, etc.

One of the fundamental objectives of Islam is to preserve private wealth and property, as the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him & his family) stated:

فَإِنَّ دِمَاءَكُمْ وَأَمْوَالَكُمْ وَأَعْرَاضَكُمْ بَيْنَكُمْ حَرَامٌ كَحُرْمَةِ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا، فِي شَهْرِكُمْ هَذَا، فِي بَلَدِكُمْ هَذَا

“So, verily, your blood, your wealth and your honor, among yourselves, is sacred like the sacredness of this your day, in this your month, on this your land.”

(Sahih al-Bukhari)

While Islam certainly advocates social and economic justice, as manifested in the institution of Zakat and the encouraging of Sadaqa (charity), the idea that the means of production must be seized from their private owners and put in the ownership of the people collectively is entirely a violation of the sacred Islamic law. Likewise, the method of Marxism, i.e., violent revolution, is in contrast to the blessed work of the Prophets of Allah, who sought to establish Tawhid (unitarianism) through their preaching and prophesy. Some so-called “Islamist” groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and others, due to the strong influence of Marxist theory upon them, call for a violent revolution to establish the caliphate or the Islamic state. This is quite evident in the manifesto of Syed Qutb entitled ‘Milestones’, a carbon copy of the Communist Manifesto in both form and substance, and in the programme of Dr. Israr Ahmad’s Tanzimi Islami.

During the 1960s and 1970s, communism and other leftist variants were a grave threat in most of the Muslim world. Due to the ordinary peasant and blue collar worker’s remoteness from Islam in terms of both understanding and practice, the various leftist parties and movements were able to mass recruit from among them, and at times succeeded in establishing leftist governments. For example, they established a communist government in Afghanistan. However, the pious and dedicated Muslims of that country rightfully rose up against the communist regime that had been imposed on them by the secular elite of Kabul. The Soviets made the fateful decision to intervene on behalf of the communist government in Afghanistan when the Islamic uprising against it seemed it was about to succeed. For the next decade, the brave Afghan mujahidin, joined by motivated volunteers from throughout the Muslim world, courageously resisted and eventually forced the Soviets to withdraw. Undoubtedly, that was a true Jihad in the path of Allah which was blessed by Allah and attained His divine aid. The great humiliation of the Soviets in having been defeated by an apparently inferior force in the face of their superior technological and military might, led to the collapse of the USSR. The leftist and communist hypocrites within the Muslim world were extremely distressed and demoralized by the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union at the hands of the Afghan mujahidin. As a result, their enmity for Islam and the forces of Islam grew exponentially. The leftists and communists claim that the forces of Islam had collaborated with the “imperialist” powers like the United States and its CIA, and till this day use that as a point to denigrate the forces of Islam. The truth is that the material support of the United States, the CIA, or the Pentagon was limited, and that the real reason for the victory of the Jihad against the Soviets was the divine help of Allah Most High and the sincerity and bravery of the Mujahidin. Secondly, while the so-called “imperialist” Western powers gave material support to the Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan for their own interests, there can be no question that the capitalist West is far superior in terms of morality to the atheist, authoritarian, communist states of the East, which inflicted far greater harm to the Muslims. A parallel may be drawn with the clash between two ancient powers, the Eastern Roman empire and the Sassanid Persian empire. The Sahaba in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) were sympathetic to the former, while the pagan Arabs favored the latter, though both empires were empires of the disbelievers. So when the Byzantines defeated the Persians in 622 CE, in fulfilment of the prophecy of the Quran, on that day the Believers rejoiced (Sura 30:4). Although the Byzantines were disbelievers, they were at least people of the Scripture, being Christians, while the Persians were fire-worshiping Magians. Likewise, the capitalist West is Christian too, albeit nominally, and is therefore preferable for the Muslims to the godless, communist Soviet Union and China.