By Abdul-Rehman Malik
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) 
brought a message of profound social change and social transformation. When we go back to what the essence of being a radical is, it is not the so-called “radicals” who blow up buildings and undermine human rights. To be a real radical in the best and positive sense of the word is to go to the root of things. Anyone who has been trained in community organizing, including the current president of the United States, will tell you that it was standard for them as community workers in inner-city Chicago (or anywhere else in the United States or beyond) to understand what radical action really meant. It means to go back to the root of things, to the essence of things, to re-connect communities to things that are genuinely, truly important.
When I look to the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and that early community, I see it as a project of radical transformation, of theological transformation, of social transformation, and the fact that the Prophet’s mission was a mission of mercy. He was “a mercy to all the worlds.” His behaviour was merciful, even in combat, even when he was confronting obstacles. He was truly committed to returning people back to the most important and essential roots of faith.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who is the Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community in the United Kingdom recently wrote a book called Radical Then, Radical Now and he was talking about the Torah. He was saying that the Torah is a radical book because what the Torah says is that we are all equal before God. What the Torah says is that we need to take care of the most poor and disadvantaged amongst us. I see the Quran and the Prophet’s message as a continuation of that divine revelation, especially when we see the way the Prophet dealt with the neighbour who was abusive to him, the way he dealt with the poorest in his community, the way he encouraged us in neighbourliness, saying, “If your neighbour remains hungry while your own stomach is full, there is something wrong with your faith. There is a weakness.”
The Prophet said, “I came to do nothing but perfect good character.” The Prophet said, “I’ll tell you something that’s even better than prayer and fasting. It’s to be of service to other people.” I mean, this is a man whose mission, and we believe divinely-directed mission, was to re-connect people to what is essential: the relationship with their Creator and amelioration of the difficult conditions of their fellow creatures.
So, I think, actually, that as Muslims, and this is something that we have been talking about in the work that we’re doing in the United Kingdom, is to talk about redefining what it means to be radical. Redefine what it means to have a radical agenda. Because I, as a Muslim, believe that my faith, if I were to follow it the way I believe it deserves and demands of me to follow it, would give me no choice but to dedicate my life and my soul to the amelioration of injustice, poverty, oppression, to raise the condition of people, to give and not to receive. This is the high moral conduct of the Prophet and his community. These are the emblematic principles of Islam.
In Islamic history we have something called futuwwa. Futuwwa is chivalry. It is service with disregard to yourself. It means that your pocket is open, that you have strength and discipline. Your discipline means you do service. It means that you are always on guard to serve other people. This is futuwwa. To know that even nature, even the animals have rights over you in terms of service. It is what is exemplified by the army of Solomon and the ants [in the Qur’an], the idea that there is even caring for the smallest creature in the natural kingdom. That’s a pretty radical idea. So those Muslims who, in my mind, go around calling themselves or calling others to their “radical” interpretations of Islam are doing a disservice both to Islam and to the term “radical”.
I think each and every one of us needs to see ourselves as individuals who are, if we are truly the people we say we are, committed to radical [i.e. essential, genuine, actual] social transformation. So we need to become the Transformers, not Decepticons of course but Autobots, and we need to then think of Islam and the advocation of Islam. Our advocation of Islam, our civic engagement, then, is about transformation. We are engaging, yes, as a measure of assistance to raise civic values, but the fact is that we must be committed to some kind of transformative social change.
Now, to the ears of some people that sounds dangerous. That sounds dangerous to some who see us as all “those Muslims”. “We knew it all along,” they say. “They listen to music. Some of them don’t wear the hijab, some of them don’t have beards, but they’re into that ‘social transformation’. What does that mean?” Call Glen Beck or Jonathan Kay from National Post and they’ll tell you something different from what we mean. The truth of the matter, I think, is that if our faith does call us to a higher world purpose, then social transformation must go along with that. And the social transformation isn’t for one community or for one group of people, it must be engaged with at a very public level. And that means there’s going to be differences. There’s going to be disagreements. But that’s the nature of transformation. Transformation requires broad dialogue and it involves engagement.
Engagement isn’t easy because you’re going to break the plates. If we think civic engagement is like you go and vote, you do a little bit of charity work, “it’s all good,” no one’s going to get angry at you, then we’re not engaging.
Real civic engagement means that at some level there’s going to be some kind of social conflict. Even with respect to what you would call prosaic, the day-today engagement, the day-to-day school, work, neighbourhood, street-level engagement. If you are committed to changing injustice around you, then you’re going to break some plates. There’s going to be some heat. There’s going to be some tension. When we talk of civic engagement, maybe some of that tension is going to be within our own communities. Maybe it means when you take on the leaders at the mosque, when you take on your local MSA, when you begin to challenge and ask questions and say, “Does this perspective jive with what Islam is saying? Let’s look at it, let’s talk about it.” Well, dialogue is not easy, dialogue is difficult. And dialogue means that there’s going to be some measure of conflict. If we want to civically engage, I think one of the things you have to keep in mind is that civic engagement is not a neutral exercise. Civic engagement means that you are going to come up against powerful opponents, obstacles, other opinions, and other perspectives. Being civically engaged means that the process of engagement has to be based on our understanding of why we are becoming engaged. Some of the questions we need to ask ourselves include:
- Why are you becoming engaged?
- To what end is this engagement?
- What’s the vision of our engagement?
- What do we want to achieve out of it?
- How are we going to achieve it?
- Who are we going to engage?
- How are we going to raise the civic value of our communities, our neighbourhoods, and our societies by the work that we’re doing?
That’s hard work and you’re going to break some plates. You’re going to step on some egos, you’re going to get angry, and there’s going to be some tears. But that is the hard work of social transformation and social engagement. And any anti-racist activist, any gender activist, anyone who’s worked on social justice issues knows that. This is where Canada is a remarkable resource. It is a remarkable resource because in our communities there are men and women, mostly who aren’t Muslim, that are dedicated, committed, activated, and mobilized to make change.
How can we find our place alongside them? How can we become brothers and sisters “in arms” with them in the work that they are doing for our common good?
That’s why I think place is so important, the idea of where you are. Ultimately, your work is going to be in a place. It’s going to be at the level of real people, real egos, real hurts, real emotions, real loves, and real desires. That’s the place where you’re going to work. Understand the power of the place you’re in. How do you mobilize the assets that are there? How do you create the solidarities necessary to achieve what you want to achieve. How do you make the case for achieving what you want to achieve? How do you come to a vision of what you want to achieve? How does your Muslim Canadian global political Godcentred identity inform the kind of change that you want to make?
In the end, I come to three key questions:
- Rahma, mercy, the emblematic principle of Islam. How are we guided by mercy and how do we enact mercy?
- Khidma, service. Giving without expecting to receive, giving for a goal rather than for personal gain. How do we make our work serviceoriented?
- Action. How do we transform these high principles and this vision into actual actions? How do we make it happen?
I want to finish with a quote. I think in terms of a model of a radical, a good radical, I’m going to go back to Malcolm X. I think his life was so transformative. He was changing and evolving from where he came, from living with racist violence as a young man, from becoming a gangster, 
from going to prison, to becoming a member of Nation of Islam, to becoming a national Black figure, particularly interested in Black nationalism, from going to the height of transforming his religious beliefs into something more embracing, and then dying just as he was beginning to embark on a great project of bringing people together for the sake of civil rights and the human rights of African-Americans. In Malcolm X, you have an arc of a true radical, someone who is committed to social change. I just want to quote something from the Autobiography of Malcolm X which will explain, I think, this final point. From the last few pages of the autobiography:
“Only such real, meaningful actions as those which are sincerely motivated from a deep sense of humanism and moral responsibility can get at the basic causes that produce the racial explosions in America today. Otherwise, the racial explosions are only going to grow worse. Certainly nothing is ever going to be solved by throwing upon me and other so-called black “extremists” and “demagogues” the blame for the racism that is in America.
…
Yes, I have cherished my “demagogue” role. I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America—then all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.”
