The purpose of this article is to bring to light nine principles and insights, taken from divine guidance, to address the contemporary crisis of ethnonationalism rising at home in the UK and abroad, including Europe and the US.
The current climate has created an opportunity to seek a God-centred approach to the critical juncture we are now facing. These principles and insights will help us become actively engaged righteous believers and be beacons of light for our neighbours and communities.
This article does not attempt an in-depth socio-political analysis, nor does it attempt to focus on the false narratives or evils of those who attack the Muslim and minority communities. Rather, it brings to light ethical fundamentals and reflections that will inform what we can do as a community of believers, irrespective of the words and actions of those who attack us.
By outlining these principles and insights, it invites Muslims to apply them sincerely to witness their reforming power:
- Change begins within
- They are your people
- Call to God & have love for people
- Neighbourliness as a moral duty
- Righteous belonging, not blind support
- God-consciousness is your core identity
- Enjoin the good, forbid the wrong
- Repel with beauty and virtue
- Defend but do not transgress.
God-centred justice over reactionary rhetoric
Divine guidance is always necessary; today is no different.
Candidly, many in our community have been disempowered by ungodly narratives that teach us to blame only others: the colonisers, the far right, racists, Islamophobes, and the media. They bear real responsibility, but it is a grave error, and an injustice, to stop there.
The Qur’ānic model begins with the self: we must also look inward and take responsibility. Refusing to do so is unjust, spiritually unsound, and ideologically convenient — and, frankly, un-Prophetic.
One of the factors behind our failed solutions is that we remain trapped in reactionary patterns through ethno-religious sloganeering or the ideological rigidity of secular liberationist rhetoric. Essentially, their failure is due to not being comprehensively rooted in God-centredness.
In fact, they are based on false framings that perpetuate resentment without accountability. Islam – submission to God – teaches otherwise. It demands otherwise.
We must be just, even if justice is against ourselves.
O believers! Stand firm for justice as witnesses for God, even if it be against yourselves, your parents, or close relatives. Whether they are rich or poor, God is best to ensure their interests. So do not let your desires cause you to deviate from justice. If you distort testimony or refuse to give it, then God is certainly All-Aware of what you do.” [1]
Internal malaise, external projections
Our tradition’s philosophy of change (to be expanded upon below) explains why the problems we face from others can be a projection of our own internal malaise.
Take racism as an example. It is antithetical to Islam and echoes Iblīs (Satan’s) first argument when he refused to honour Adam, claiming a false superiority based on his substance and form. Although it was rooted in arrogance (kibr), racism is one of its ugliest fruits. [2] [3]
And, unfortunately, we are not immune: prejudices can fester in our own spaces. The Prophetic path calls us to expose and uproot them with repentance (tawbah), inner purification (tazkiyah), and good conduct — remembering that no person is superior to another except through God-consciousness (taqwa). Considering this, we cannot expect to not be victims of racism or ethnocentricity when this disease still exists within our own ranks.
We often celebrate the “united colours of Islam,” and — alhamdulillāh — there are luminous examples in the UK of interracial marriage, harmony, and collaboration; at our best, God-centred righteousness shines, and I’ve felt its beauty personally.
Yet alongside this light are shadows we must face with honesty and ihsān. According to research conducted by Muslim Census:
- 98 per cent of people believe that racism exists within the UK Muslim community.
- 97 per cent of people say that the UK Muslim community is not doing enough to tackle the issue of racism.
- 82 per cent of people have witnessed anti-black racism from their own family and friends.
- 31 per cent of people admitted themselves to holding anti-black prejudice either past or present.
- 77 per cent of people who admitted having a racial bias in the past said that Islam and education was the way they have removed this from their thinking. [4]
Notwithstanding the limitations of their study, the research based on a survey of 250 non-black Muslims is worrying to say the least. And, unfortunately, many of you reading this will know family, friends and people from within our community who have become victims of Iblīs’ narrative.
Yes, positive examples exist — and we should celebrate them. But denying our own internal malaise is not a virtue. The Prophetic path calls us to acknowledge, repair, and improve: with truthful conversations, fair policies and practices, and a commitment to the dignity that God has bestowed on us all.
In summary, we cannot effectively deal with racism and ethnocentrism from external forces when it festers within.
Empathy with victims in our community
I deeply empathise with members of our community who have endured psychological or physical harm at the hands of racists and Islamophobes. I also recognise that some may find it difficult to accept what I have written thus far.
I do not dismiss this hesitation, for I know that many of our elders, and indeed many in our generation, have been direct victims of racial abuse. Their wounds weigh heavily on us all; their pain is my pain. I also acknowledge that countless individuals in our community have suffered from justice withheld, both historically and in the present day, and this reality cannot be ignored.
Many of our conversations in post-colonial homes, such as in the UK, often collapse into the weary refrain,
We’re not accepted, so why bother?”
And media rhetoric as well as anti-Islam and anti-Muslim narratives only deepens the fatigue. Notwithstanding, we must reject this form of victimhood.
I take seriously the lingering resentment many of us feel toward former colonial powers. Often, this is not scapegoating; it grows from a lack of acknowledgement and repair — few clear apologies, little restitution, thin public education, and too little empathy.
When a society avoids looking honestly at its colonial harms, a vacuum opens that defensive myths quickly fill. Old hierarchies then echo in the present: stereotypes seep into institutions, media language, and everyday interactions. Resentment endures not because people want to be victims, but because they want to be seen and treated justly.
Is it not likely, then, that without an open reckoning, subtle and blatant racist narratives continue to circulate across the UK and through all classes, and that a colonial mindset, often unconscious, still shapes assumptions about who belongs, who leads, and whose pain counts.
Facing this does not mean blaming today’s Britons; it means building a shared moral memory. This will be facilitated by a better education, public remembrance, practical forms of restitution, and everyday empathy. That is how resentment is transformed into repair.
This isn’t the place for a full analysis, but consider one question: how many Britons, and the millions of tourists who marvel at Victorian façades, realise that this grandeur was financed not only by domestic industry but also by imperial extraction, including profits siphoned from India? The “drain of wealth” is well documented; economists such as Utsa Patnaik (with figures popularised by Oxfam) estimate that — converted into today’s dollars — the transfer runs into the tens of trillions. [5]
Whatever the precise sum, the moral arithmetic is hard to ignore. And this is one example of many colonial evils that have taken place across the globe.
I empathise and understand that historical injustices continue to affect us today, and that they remain largely unaddressed; socially, structurally, and politically. It is likely they never will be fully remedied. Nonetheless, as submitters to God (i.e. Muslims), we may be victims of oppression, but we are never condemned to a mindset of victimhood.
We have been granted by God the power to change our condition. Power is not binary: it is not the case that oppressors dictate our destiny while the oppressed are helpless. As will be seen in the first principle and insight, Islam rejects such fatalism. Instead, it locates the potential for transformation in the hands of believers, affirming their God-given agency and responsibility to bring about change.
Change begins within
Divine guidance makes it abundantly clear: if we change, our condition changes.
Whether our problems, such as racism, were inherited from colonial hierarchies or not is irrelevant. If polytheism were handed to us by outsiders, would that excuse us from adopting monotheism? To use such excuses is nonsense, and worse, it strips away agency and the transformative power of Islamic guidance.
Did Āsiya, the wife of Pharaoh, adopt such excuses? She was the wife of the archetypal oppressor, yet she rejected his evil and stood with God. [6]
Her moral courage shames our excuses. We must do better by submitting to God and not submitting to the victimhood narratives borrowed from secular worldviews with false assumptions about human beings and their role in the world.
In fact, if we want to truly change our condition, we must refer to the Creator of change. Relying on secular stratagems for change, will not change our situation. We can theorise. We can plan. But what use is all of that if we do not turn to the Creator of change? We must remember: God has the full picture, we only have a pixel.
God has made clear:
Indeed, God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” [7]
Scholars such as Ibn Ashūr explained that this verse rejects fatalism. The emphasis is on us. If we change, our situation changes. Ibn al-Jawzī makes it clear that we are not bystanders to our fate, we play a part in our transformation from victims to victors, from being oppressed to liberators. Many classical scholars such as al-Rāzi said this verse can be framed as a clear divine principle: when we change ourselves, our condition changes.
Beyond the old narratives of victimising the victim
Notice that the Messenger of God ﷺ, in the well-known narration on wahn, linked our civilisational decline to the state of our hearts:
Soon the nations will be summoned to you just like one is invited to a feast.”
It was asked,
Will we be few in that day?”
The Prophet ﷺ said,
No, rather you will be many in that day, but you will be scum like such flowing down a torrent. Allah will remove your esteem from the chests of your enemies, and Allah will insert feebleness in your own hearts.”
It was asked,
O Messenger of Allah, what is this feebleness?”
The Prophet ﷺ said,
Love for the worldly life and hatred of death.” [8]
Many of us have fallen in love with the lowly aspects of this world and hate death so much that we have forgotten our true purpose: to free ourselves from slavery to the world by lovingly submitting to the One who created the cosmos.
Remember, changing our hearts changes our way of being. An improved way of being leads to better actions. So, how do we change our condition?
Many of our scholars, past and present, affirmed that this is about inner and outer change. They argue that this relates to the state of our hearts and the actions that emerge from them: seeking forgiveness, sincere repentance, enjoining good, forbidding wrong, sacrifice, inviting others to God, and becoming people of beauty and forbearance.
In committing ourselves to this divine truth, we must not — like some narratives of the past — victimise the victim. In other words, we must not form an irrational type of self-hatred that disempowers the community and renders them incapable of change due to their sins.
We have to realise that the community does not need to be perfect. Nor does it mean we just blame ourselves. And it must not lead to a sense of hopelessness. We must strike a balance. The old narratives of solely blaming the community and accusing the victim for its own oppression is ungodly.
Success begins when many of us start turning back to Him:
Believers, all of you, turn to God so that you may prosper.” [9]
The real question is: who among us is willing to do the hard work?
Optimism and the politics of victimhood
We must remember that the Prophetic approach to framing our responsibility for our condition is to be positive.
The language of the Prophet ﷺ was optimistic and empowering:
I am delighted by optimism, the good word, the kind word.” [10]
However, optimism is also not ignoring our reality and falsely assuming angelic perfection. In fact, as the Prophet ﷺ taught us, it is righteousness.
And righteousness is real. It is impactful. It solves problems.
There are no omens, but best of all is optimism.”
They said,
O Messenger of God, what is optimism?”
The Prophet ﷺ said,
A righteous word one of you hears.” [11]
This unhealthy mindset of “we are victims and our oppressors are to blame” has led to the deification of our enemies for too long. Yes, we must command the good and forbid the evil, but we must not fall into a politics of victimhood. In fact, it is a pathology. It forgets God.
To constantly chant “It is the fault of X, Y, or Z… -ionism” is to adopt a diseased mindset — one that assumes power is binary: the oppressor has all power, we have none. This is gibberish. God is in control of all power and might:
If anyone desires power, all power belongs to God; good words rise up to Him and He lifts up the righteous deed, but a severe torment awaits those who plot evil and their plotting will come to nothing.” [12]
Everything happens because of His will and power. Our enemies have no intrinsic power. Behind all of the power we see is God. So we must refer to Him and seek His help.
Being victimised is not the same as adopting victimhood. Victimhood paralyses. Submission to God empowers. This, and what follows, are key principles that God has given us to change our condition, wherever we are.
They are your people
Whatever your background, if you reside in a nation as a citizen or a legal migrant — and especially if you were born there — you must treat your fellow citizens and your neighbours as your people. This is the Prophetic model.
The Qur’ān repeatedly tells us that the prophets addressed their communities with merciful intimate language: “Ya qawmi (O my people)”. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
Even Prophet Lūt (AS) pleaded with his sinful people as “my people” and appealed to their moral conscience. In fact, he offered his own female family members to his people. Who does that?
I surely do not have that level of compassion and concern to even offer such a thing. This is righteousness beyond my capacity. However, it is an ideal we should try and emulate.
And [the men of] his people — who were used to shameful deeds — came to him rushing. He pleaded, ‘O my people! Here are my daughters [for marriage] — they are pure for you. So fear God, and do not humiliate me by disrespecting my guests. Is there not [even] a single right-minded man among you?” [23]
This communal ethic is underpinned by the Prophetic teaching of loving for others what we love for ourselves — most profoundly expressed in the desire that all people come to know God and affirm His unicity.
Ownership of their problems
Part of treating people as our people is taking ownership of their struggles. That means not only recognising their problems, but also working — sincerely and constructively — to help address them. And as submitters to God, we have a duty to share divine guidance in ways that are contextually relevant and compassionate.
Many of the grievances expressed by the UK far right and sections of the white working class revolve around immigration and what they perceive as neglect by the state. They feel that rising immigration places pressure on housing, the NHS, schools, and welfare, while local councils lack the resources to cope. They resent decisions, such as housing asylum seekers in local hotels, that appear to be imposed without consultation.
Economically, they worry that immigration drives down wages and reduces opportunities for local workers — especially in towns scarred by deindustrialisation and long-term decline. These economic anxieties are intertwined with cultural concerns: a sense that rapid demographic change undermines social cohesion and traditional notions of “British” identity.
Alongside this, they see the asylum system as chaotic or unfair, with illegal crossings and perceived exploitation of benefits fuelling mistrust. Underpinning all of this is a sense of political disenchantment: the conviction that mainstream parties and media dismiss or stigmatise their concerns, leaving them unheard and deepening the feeling of being left behind.
It is precisely here that we must respond, not with slogans or dismissal, but by calling our people to God in a sensitive and intelligent manner. Islam has something unique to offer: solutions that can improve their worldly condition and, more importantly, guidance that leads to eternal bliss in the Hereafter.
Of course, we must also recognise that some do not genuinely care about these grievances, but simply exploit the political climate to mask their racism and Islamophobia. Even so, we must own that challenge as well. For it is Islam and Islam alone, that has the power to remove the disease of racism and prejudice from hearts. The only way to help such people is to invite them, with wisdom and patience, back to God.
Call to God & have love for people
The greatest manifestation of love for people is to love goodness and guidance for them.
The Prophet ﷺ said in an authentic narration:
None of you has faith until he loves for the people what he loves for himself…” [24]
Scholars such as al-Munāwī clarified that “people” includes all people, regardless of their faith. To love for them submission to God and its virtues is part of our God-centric world-view.
The way to share submission to God is with wisdom and goodness, as God says:
Invite [all] to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and kind advice, and only dialogue with them in the best manner. Surely your Lord ˹alone˺ knows best who has strayed from His Way and who is [rightly] guided.” [25]
The default state of righteous believers is to be compassionate and kind.
Consider what God advised Moses when addressing the greatest oppressor, Pharaoh:
And speak to him mildly; perhaps he might accept admonition.” [26]
The exegete al-Qurtubi explains that this verse implies that if Moses were commanded to speak softly and mildly to Pharaoh, who was a great tyrant, then imagine how we must speak to others:
If Musa was commanded to speak mildly to Pharaoh then it is even more appropriate for others to follow this command when speaking to others and when commanding the good and forbidding the evil.” [27]
However, there are times — contingent on moral context — to be assertive.
Read the verses that continue, for example:
Moses said to them, ‘Beware, do not invent lies against God or He will destroy you with His punishment. Whoever invents lies will fail.’” [28]
And I have to be clear, we must defend ourselves and families when attacked. Adopting a righteous approach includes protecting the innocent, even if that means fighting back.
Calling people to God is the greatest form of activism. If we really believe submission to God, Islam, is the solution to heal people from the disease of racism and has the transformative power to elevate nations, then we must pursue this Prophetic path:
We sent a messenger to every community, saying, ‘Worship God and shun false gods.’ Among them were some God guided; misguidance took hold of others. So travel through the earth and see what was the fate of those who denied the truth.” [29]
Before I move on to the next section, Islam makes a distinction between loving for and loving of. It is a sign of righteousness that you do not have “love of” someone that is unrighteous. Yet it is also a sign of righteousness that you have “love for” all people.
Take the following illustration to help explain this distinction. The Prophet ﷺ did not love Khālid bin Walīd when he was a polytheist and butchering the believers. This dislike was not loving his way of being, there was no love of Khalid.
However, the Prophet ﷺ did have love for him, meaning that he wanted him to have goodness and guidance.
Neighbourliness as moral duty
Being submitters to God is inseparable from how we treat our neighbours.
The Prophet ﷺ made this very clear to us:
Be kind to your neighbour and you will be a believer. Love for the people what you love for yourself and you will be a Muslim.” [30]
In fact, our neighbours include the entire local community. Again, this is regardless of faith. Classical scholars such as al-Shāfi’ī said that neighbours are forty houses on each side. [31]
Neighbourliness is such a noble virtue that they are considered like close family.
This is based on the following powerful statement of the Prophet ﷺ:
Jibrīl kept urging me that neighbours should be treated well until I thought he would make them heirs.” [32]
The sad reality is that many of our community members, including the activists and callers to Islam, have never engaged positively with their neighbours and local communities.
By virtue of my role in our community, this is not guesswork. The reality of many of our online defenders of the faith is rather a sub-optimal one. Lots of noise, hardly any substantial grassroots engagement. A virtual soldier wins no real wars. And the battle for hearts and minds is one that we must not lose.
I want you all to imagine that if our entire community was focused just on the virtue of neighbourliness, what would be the state of the UK? It may still have hate, but it would be more difficult to hate. At best, we would have more supporters.
I am aware a lot of good is happening, but it is not enough, we have not yet reached the threshold. Travel up and down the UK and you will see what I am saying firsthand.
Righteous belonging, not blind support
We can have an affinity for our tribe, ethnicity, and nation — but never in falsehood or oppression. Loyalty to God and His Messenger transcends all other ties.
The Prophet ﷺ taught us:
Whoever supports his own people in their oppression is like a camel that falls dead into a well and is pulled out by its tail.” [33]
Jubayr ibn Mut’im reported that the Messenger ﷺ said,
He is not one of us who calls to tribalism. He is not one of us who fights for the sake of tribalism. He is not one of us who dies following the way of tribalism.” [34]
The key lesson here is that loving one’s nation, ethnicity, or tribe is not inherently blameworthy. Affection for one’s people becomes righteous only when it does not blind us to truth or compel us to support falsehood and oppression. True love is principled: it stands with one’s people in goodness, but never in injustice.
Above all, this love must be subordinate to the love of God and His Messenger ﷺ: God before the tribe. If attachment to tribe diminishes your devotion, compromises your righteousness, or distracts you from obedience to God, then such love is not noble but corrupt; it is, in truth, a destructive love.
The great Poet of the East, Muhammad Iqbal, eloquently summarised this in his Wataniyat:
Among these new idols, the greatest is the nation;
the garment it wears is the shroud of religion.
This idol, carved by modern civilisation,
destroys the house of the Prophet’s dīn.
Your arm is made strong by the power of Divine Oneness;
Islam is your homeland — you belong to the way of the Prophet. [35]
God-consciousness is your core identity
Our primary identity is not tribal or ethnic. It is taqwa — God-consciousness.
O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most God-conscious among you.” [36]
It is this quality that should drive us to follow these principles and not to follow our resentment, false secular ideological narratives, or an ethnocentric understanding of religion in dealing with those who seek to harm us.
Being a Muslim is not an ethnic identity marker. It is a way of being. It means someone who submits to God. What we say, what is in our hearts, and how we relate to ourselves, others, and God, must be in accordance to wholesome submission to God facilitated by a consciousness of Him.
Enjoin the good, forbid the wrong
The Qur’ān describes the Muslim community as the best of peoples because of key defining qualities:
You are the best community ever raised for humanity — you encourage good, forbid evil, and believe in God.” [37]
Our excellence as a community is conditional upon enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong. Remaining silent in the face of racism, tribalism, or injustice — whether within our families or wider society — is a betrayal of this divine mandate. To embody this principle is to be custodians of justice, even when it is uncomfortable.
Commanding what is right and forbidding what is wrong is manifested in different ways. We must remember the greatest command of good is commanding God’s Oneness and worship, the greatest forbidding of evil is associationism (shirk).
In the context of countering the far right and ethnocentrism, we must call people to God, engage in ethical activism, and elevate our own community through self-accountability and neighbourliness.
Repel with beauty and virtue
God teaches us not merely to resist evil with evil, but to elevate ourselves above it.
As the Qur’ān instructs:
Good and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is better, and your enemy will become as close as an intimate friend.” [38]
This is not naïve pacifism, it is profound spiritual realism. By responding with virtue, mercy, and moral beauty, we transform hostility into potential friendship, hatred into respect, and enmity into understanding. It is a call to rise above reactionary anger, and to reflect the divine attribute of mercy in our interactions. In fact, this was the Prophetic way.
Reflect on this story:
“Once, God’s Messenger ﷺ borrowed some money from me. I was not yet a Muslim then. I went to him to collect my debt before its due time, and insulted him, saying; ‘You the children of ‘Abd al-Muttalib, are very reluctant to pay your debts!’
‘Umar (radiy Allahu ‘anhu) became very angry with this insult of mine and shouted; ‘O enemy of God! Were it not for the treaty between us and the Jewish community, I would cut off your head! Speak to God’s Messenger politely!’
However, God’s Messenger ﷺ smiled at me and, turning to ‘Umar (radiy Allahu ‘anhu), said, ”Umar, pay the man his debt! And add to it the amount of twenty gallons because you have frightened him!”
‘Umar (radiy Allahu ‘anhu) relates the rest of the story:
We went together. On the way, Zayd (radiy Allahu ‘anhu) spoke to me unexpectedly;
‘O ‘Umar! You got angry with me. But I have found in him all the features of the Last Prophet recorded in the Torah, the Old Testament. However, there is this verse in it: ‘His mildness surpasses his anger. The severity of impudence to him increases him only in mildness and forbearance.’ In order to test his forbearance, I uttered what I uttered. Now I am convinced that he is the Prophet whose coming the Torah predicted, so, I believe and bear witness that he is the Last Prophet.”
The forbearance of the Prophet ﷺ sufficed for the conversion of Zayd ibn San’an (radiy Allahu ‘anhu), who was one of the Jewish scholars of the time. [39]
In fact, the Arabic word “repel” is not followed by a direct object. God is not saying repel evil, He is saying repel with what is better — that can mean repel anything with what is better. And the scholars teach that what is better is what is most virtuous and most beautiful.
This reminds me of a story I was once told. In London, there was a brother who would call his community to God outside a shopping centre. One day, a lady came up to him and spat on his face. He did not react by calling the police or getting into an argument. Rather, he smiled, took tissues from his picket, and wiped his face. He then offered tissues to the lady so she could wipe her own face, as some spittle remained. She left the area.
After some time, probably days or weeks, she came back. And she embraced Islam! Then, after some time, they got married. This is the above verse manifested in real life.
Defend but do not transgress
No believer should seek to fight their enemy. However, if people attack, then we must be steadfast.
The Prophet ﷺ said:
Don’t wish to meet the enemy but if you meet them, be patient.” [40]
Our default position is one of peace and non-confrontation. One of the key principles of Islam is to not harm nor reciprocate any harm.
God’s Messenger ﷺ taught us:
Do not cause harm or return harm.”[14]
In fact, if people address us with ignorance, our way of being must be peaceful:
And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily, and when the ignorant address them [harshly], they say [words of] peace.” (Qur’an 25:63)
However, Godliness does not include allowing people to use force or violence on the community, or any community for that matter. As believers we must use any moral and legal means necessary to defend those who are unjustly attacked. If that means defending ourselves by any legal means necessary — which can include self-defence with reasonable force — then that is what we must do.
Even if, God forbid, physical aggression begins, it must be Prophetically guided. During the battle of Uhud, when the Prophet’s face (ﷺ) was slashed, many of his Companions died, and his beloved uncle was killed and mutilated, he (ﷺ) prayed:
O Allah, forgive my people for they do not know.”
Abu Hatim (radiy Allahu ‘anhu) said,
The Prophet said this supplication during the battle of Uhud when they slashed his face.”[15]
Imam al-Nawawi commented on this tradition by concisely summarising that the Prophet ﷺ:
…practised of forbearance, patience, forgiveness, and compassion for his people, his supplication for them to receive guidance and to be forgiven, and for them to be excused for their sins as they did not know.”[16]
Victimhood to victory
The above can be read as a manifesto for our community. These principles and insights are timeless, rooted in Divine guidance.
I acknowledge that I have not yet shown how they can be practically applied; this may be explored in a second part. But what must be clear from the outset is that the beginning of our transformation, and our response to the present crisis, lies in learning and internalising God’s guidance.
These principles are not human inventions; they are drawn from revelation. Holding fast to them is the key that unlocks success and blessing. We must never seek power or victory at the expense of principle. If we were to choose worldly triumph while abandoning our values, that triumph would become our weakness and ultimately our defeat. But if we choose principle over power, that very commitment becomes the source of our strength and the pathway to lasting success.
The Godly vision is clear: our dignity does not depend on the narratives of colonisers or the prejudices of racists. It depends on aligning ourselves with divine guidance, self-accountability, and Prophetic principles.
We must reject the false binary of oppressor and victim, and instead reclaim our agency under the ultimate sovereignty of God. We must confront the ugliness of racism within our own ranks, just as fiercely as we oppose it outside. We must seek change from the Creator of change. We must follow the principles of His guidance that worked for His messengers. And if we persevere, they will work for us too.
When we do so, we will no longer be tossed between self-pity and resentment. Instead, we will be an empowered community rooted in justice, mercy, and God-consciousness — a community capable of healing itself, and through that healing, offering light to our communities and changing our condition into one of Divine favour.
Do not falter or grieve, for you will have the upper hand, if you are ˹true˺ believers.” (Qur’an 3:139)
Source: Islam21c
Author’s note: I am grateful to Dilly Hussain, Dr. Salman Butt, Iqbal Nasim, and my wife for their review of and input into this article.
Notes
[1] al-Qur’ān, 4:135
[2] al-Qur’ān, 2:34
[3] al-Qur’ān, 7:11-12
[4] https://muslimcensus.co.uk/anti-blackness-amongst-young-muslims/
[5] https://www.oxfamfrance.org/app/uploads/2025/01/Oxfam-Davos-2025-Methodology-Note.pdf
[6] al-Qur’ān, 66:11
[7] al-Qur’ān, 13:11
[8] Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 4,297; https://sunnah.com/abudawud:4297
[9] al-Qur’ān, 24:31
[10] Sahīh Muslim, 2,224a; https://sunnah.com/muslim:2224a
[11] Sahīh al-Bukhārī, 5,574; https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5754
[12] al-Qur’ān, 35:10
[13] al-Qur’ān, 2:54
[14] al-Qur’ān, 7:61
[15] al-Qur’ān, 7:65
[16] al-Qur’ān, 7:67
[17] al-Qur’ān, 7:73
[18] al-Qur’ān, 7:142
[19] al-Qur’ān, 11:28
[20] al-Qur’ān, 11:30
[21] al-Qur’ān, 11:51
[22] al-Qur’ān, 11:61
[23] al-Qur’ān, 11:78
[24] Sahīh al-Bukhārī, 13; https://sunnah.com/bukhari/2/6
[25] al-Qur’ān, 16:125
[26] al-Qur’ān, 20:44
[27] al-Jāmi’ al-Ahkām al-Qur’ān, p. 65.
[28] al-Qur’ān, 20:61
[29] al-Qur’ān, 16:36
[30] Tirmidhi, 2,305; https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2305
[31] Mughni al-Muhtāj (4/95)
[32] Sunan Ibn Mājah, 3,674; https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:3674
[33] Musnad Ahmad, 4,292
[34] Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 5,121; https://sunnah.com/abudawud:5121
[35] Iqbal, Muhammad. “Wataniyat (وطنیت).” Bang-e-Dara, poem no. 102.
[36] al-Qur’ān, 49:13
[37] al-Qur’ān, 3:110
[38] al-Qur’ān, 41:34
[39] al-Khasa’is, 1/26; al-Isabah, 1/566
[40] Sahīh al-Bukhārī, 3,026; https://sunnah.com/bukhari:3026
[41]
[42]
[43]
[44]
[45]
[46]
[13] Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim
[14] Sunan Ibn Mājah
[15] Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān
[16] Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 12/150
