Uyghur Tribunal UK: Kicking the Can Down the Road 

 

(A response to the 2021 coverage of the event on Islam21C)

 

I managed to catch the end of the tribunal live, when they were interviewing the Uyghur female nurse. I just want to say that I feel really sad for her as well as embarrassed. With all the years of experience, you would think that Sir Geoffrey Nice QC would understand that they were interviewing a middle-aged woman in the health and care profession, and not someone from the legal profession or the corporate world. I understand that they have to keep things moving but he could have done that without appearing both cold and cocky. He also cast doubt on the competence of the interpreter when he said that it seemed like the interpreter and the nurse were having a dialogue instead of him just interpreting the questions and the answers, when he was in fact guiding her back towards answering the question!

 

Is this what you brothers think we should be getting excited about? Is this where you think our honour lies? If that nurse was the older sister, wife or mother of any of you, you would feel hurt for her to have to sit in front of such people, being humiliated by them.

 

I'm not here to argue for or against using means like tribunals and demonstrations. Like the Uyghur brother said in his interview before the tribunal, they would prefer for it to be in a Muslim country but they don't have that support. The issue is complicated but what I do understand is that although our beloved prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) accepted the intervention of the small group of Quraysh idol worshippers who helped put and end to the devastating 3 year boycott of the Muslims in Makkah (which they did on humanitarian grounds) the Muslims didn't rejoice about their help to such an extent that they lost sight of their goal, which was to stand on their own two feet by establishing their own state so that, in the future, they wouldn't need such help and intervention.

 

However, I have heard Uyghur and non-Uyghur activists talk about how they look at the solution to the injustice and genocide from a humanitarian perspective, putting all their hopes in organisations like the UN, but our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught us through his words and actions that “The Imam is but a shield (protection) behind whom you fight and you protect yourself with...”

 

Not only are these activists putting all their eggs in one basket, by the language that some of them are using, they are also belittling what an Imam or Amir is and failing to understand the tremendous impact having one can have on the security of the Muslim ummah (IF the ummah support him-remember, water can float a boat but also overturn it but our ummah can't see that floating it is in our interests more than overturning it).

 

Imam An-Nawawi said about the interpretation of the above hadeeth:

 

“‘The Imam is a shield’ means like a barricade, because he prevents the enemy from harming the Muslims, and he prevents the people from wronging each other (or being unjust to each other), and he protects the principles and foundations of Islam. The people fear him and fear his might. ‘Behind whom you fight’, means that you fight the disbelievers, the tyrants, the Khawaarij (a deviant sect), and all the corrupt people with him. ‘You protect yourself with’ means against the evil of the enemy, the corrupt people, and the unjust people.”

 

Essentially, all that this ummah is doing is kicking the can down the road but one day we need to face the fact that the Imam is who our beloved prophet encouraged us to put our hopes in and is our only real protection. If this is not our area of expertise or in our ability then, at the very least, we should not hinder those whose area it is. Being the Imam or Amir of the Muslim ummah is not a title to be envied or fought over but a responsibility to be shouldered and feel apprehensive about. Also, who would even eagerly accept it when doing so is like signing your own death warrant as it gets a multi million dollar bounty put on your head and, in our current times, is a thankless task, unlike being a left wing protestor for Palestine or a fasiq celebrity, who many Muslims are falling over themselves to thank.

​

​Wal-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin (April 2023 originally a comment made in 2021)

​

Umm Hafab

​

Home

Muslim News

Answering Disbelievers

Advising Believers

​