Notes On Fitna in France

Seclusion in Times of Confusion

Many look at the scenes in France, a country that few truly understand, and think that represents an opportunity to set out one's stand and cast assertions about their political agendas. They hope that amidst the extrajudicial violence, the burning, and looting one can make a case for x or y political manifesto. Yet, the Prophet of Islam ﷺ advocates the exact opposite in such times and it has everything to do with this notion of fitna. This is not just part of the lexicon of Islamic legal deliberation but a wider, more holistic, almost meta-ethical spiritual notion that Muslims used to study and inculcate internally. For some scholars working within the Islamic tradition, they would dedicate reams of pages, volumes on this issue, trying to find ways to avoid the corrosive effects of fitna, seeking guidance in the Prophetic moral exemplar. In times of crises, one becomes less concerned about the promises of revenge, utopia or triumph but more about the moral impact of the crisis itself. Crisis as the saying goes is not opportunity but in the Islamic moral psychology it is a trial and a test of own's own character.

What is fitna? There are many meanings and connotations associated with the term - it's linguistically rich and in English can be translated as "strife", "sedition", "tribulation", but it can also denote the loose use of one's tongue - "slander" and be associated with other sins of the tongue too: "backbiting", "gossip". But perhaps an overall notion to understand it would be simply to see the term as "corruption". Corruption in the most holistic sense - not just referring to political and economic but also of personal virtue, conduct. Not just in relation to the rights one owes to others, in terms of dealing with others in a manner which is civilized, ethical, and just but also the rights one owes to their own organs. The viewing of pornographic material, even though according to the conventional mainstream commentary, is a "victimless" activity, when viewed through the mode of enquiry of fitna, is a corruption of one's visual, sensual, and aesthetic faculties. Faculties that rather should be deployed towards achieving a closeness to the Divine rather than seeking immediate gratification for our animal instincts. In terms of exploring this idea more fully, I would recommend the work of Shaykh Abd-Al Ghani al Nabulusi which was translated by Suraqah with an insightful introductory essay by Shadee Elmasry. Although it does not tackle head-on explicitly the notion of fitna, it focuses instead on the spiritual antidote some Muslim sages and scholastics laboured deeply on - uzla (seclusion).

Suraqah writes:

The need for seclusion in times of confusion is based on the legal maxim "Averting harms takes precedence over obtaining benefits". In pulling away from the hustle and bustle of the crowd and keeping a low profile and remaining aloof from "society" there are several spiritual benefits - provided one has adequate knowledge of Islamic belief and rudiments of Islamic law".

Yet the Islamic discussion over seclusion is complex and multifaceted - withdrawal should never be done in the spirit of self-righteousness. Rather, as the Prophet ﷺ and his companions would attest, the reason for withdrawal is to protect others. We withdraw not as a triumphalist sign of our own supposed spiritual superiority but as a frank admission of our own frailty. We withdraw because we fear the excesses and the corruption that we may foster if we participate in public life, we withdraw because we fear the harm our own wretched character might exact on innocents. We could also withdraw because we recognise that there are certain tribulations and tests associated with leading a very public life that perhaps could bring about our own ruin and downfall. As I mentioned before, Suraqah and Elmasry have done a stunning job in bringing a prime example of the uzla genre to an English-speaking audience and I would argue it has universal application not just for Muslims but for all like-minded and kind-hearted folk who are troubled when they see scenes of strife, chaos, and corruption. There is also, alongside the uzla tradition, also traditions that emphasize acting in the world, to take it on whether it be to establish Law, give alms, help the poor or comfort those who are lost. There is a type of productive and creative tension in the Prophetic example - his pleas to us to be aware of fitna are also coupled with exhortations to speak plainly the truth about things in a way that inspires people to rally and fundamentally to also act righteously and virtuously. The truth remains that the French ethnostate, hollowed out, empty as it is, has exacted extrajudicial violence multiple times. It also is truthful to say the suburbs and areas where the descendants of North African migrants reside have become silos of iniquity, compounded by feelings of resentment and hopelessness. In many ways, the elders and communities at large in these areas failed to live up to the Islamic promise, they failed to heed the call. Not just in France, but across diaspora Muslim communities we see this trend again and again. There is a brokenness that has enveloped people, that has broken down the souls of good men and women under the burden of being the grinding gears of the technocratic administrative state. The breaking of private businesses and public institutions that one could take benefit from such as libraries serves no one, they merely fan the flames of fitna. It is fitna upon fitna - this senseless extrajudicial execution has created a cycle of debauched iniquity that sooner or later will exhaust itself. This is worrying - it will not stop because good men and women will act with purpose and effort - it will stop because it will exhaust itself.

The Flames of Fitna

When I see the scenes in France, I see only fitna. Immediately one thinks about the terrible tribulation the mother of the poor youth who perished through extrajudicial execution sanctioned by the State. One thinks of the corruption spreading through the land by the attack on public institutions, on the notion of law itself, the wreckage on the streets. One thinks of the mistrust, the slander, the gossip, the many sins of the tongue which are now digitalized and spread at cyber-speed which will only seek to sow discord and strife amongst the Children of Adam. For the Muslim diaspora in the now technocratic Euro-American civilization, there are the same challenges that afflict every other community who inhabits this current landscape and time. One curious thing about Islamophobia and Islamophilia is that both types of discourse ascribe a type of exceptionalism to Muslim communities. However, I hate to break it to everyone but we are not a community poised on Houellebecqian takeover nor are we "based". Most of us are weighed down by the same anxieties, alienation, and brokenness that haunts all those who live within not just the borders of Euro-American civilization but also culture which is essentially the global culture. Memetic chaos is what is unfolding on the streets of Paris - there is no concerted or ideological narrative at play here that seeks Islamic supremacy or a revolution of the underclass. These are long simmering dysfunctionalities that have been plaguing the odd and corrupt experiment of technocratic French laicite-orientated ethnostatehood for the last forty years or so. There is a long history behind this and what else is to be expected from a Republic that was born out of the monstrosity against Man that was the French Revolution?

In any case, France is just the beginning or rather part of a larger trend that has precedents of course in the distant past but also very recently- I suspect these scenes, these tensions, these episodes of extrajudicial violence are part of the larger transitioning pangs as the current administrative and technocratic regimes of the West try to accelerate towards ever greater and pervasive forms of digitalized control. Globalist elites and the pseudo-Right - pretenders to the mantle of dissent but often when given the chance will replicate the exact same policies (and if one wants proof then look at the reign of the "Conservatives" in the UK) are moving in ways that are harmful to the human spirit.

It is about central banking states exacerbating a tremendous crisis of civilization by selling us on the idea of counterfeit money - fiat currency. With all the chaos in France, one would not be surprised to learn that the German central bank is essentially broke. This, of course, is not an isolated example - the whole of Europe is sitting on top of an economic time bomb - the culmination of the failed post-Bretton Woods consensus over the last few decades.

It is about abandoning the common sense of individuals in favor of the soulless bureaucracy of corporations who now act with the Sovereignty of old feudal fiefdoms. As Seyyed Nasr Hossein describes, ours is a civilization based on homo economicus. The wider picture in the background is that the American techno-empire and its outlying vassals like the UK and France seek ever greater cybernetic control. The surveillance state, rapid expansion of supra-legal intelligence agencies, the concessions to corporations, banks, the development of the CBDC which is all but now inevitable, and much more through euphemistic schemes like ESG. This will resemble more like Huxley's Brave New World rather than Orwell's 1984. We will be placated by the robbing of our dignity, freedoms, and Adamic grace by promises of ever greater consumption and autonomy to buy, change, modify, enhance whatever we want.

To move from technocratic statehood to cybernetic statehood is not an easy road, it is a hazardous one. It is no coincidence at all that at the time of the French troubles, Musk has conveniently shut down Twitter running interference about data scraping. These are confusing, uncertain times - these are times of fitna. I leave you with this sobering passage from Elmasry, which I think is characteristic of the unique creative tension found in Islamic political theology through an understanding of fitna:

One of the critical features that guidance offers us is the knowledge of our limits - when to stop. The Prophet ﷺ tells us that rectification of the public sphere has a limit. He said "Enjoin the good and forbid the evil until you see avarice obeyed, caprice followed, worldly gains preferred [over all else], and people's self-admiration of their own opinions. When you see that, then take care of your own soul and leave the masses alone, for indeed there lies ahead of you days of patience in which one holding on to his religion will be like one holding onto a burning coal. In those days the one performs good works will have the reward of fifty men!"

Ibn Maghreb

And truly God knows best.