POWER, POLITICS, AND SECULARISM: WHAT IS JUSTICE?
Defining the word ‘justice’ linguistically might seem obvious and easy, but its very definition represents a battle: a battle between two worlds, two points of view, and among religions and political ideologies. Everyone holds a definition of justice: people, the Government, warlords, kings, emperors, slaves, and slaveowners.
In the Islamic literature, one of the ways to define something is by stating what it is not or by negating things that confusingly might be associated with it.
While we could argue about the concept of justice and how it looks in practical terms, we must agree that justice cannot be defined by those who hold the political power, for there is a clear conflict of interest between them and the very justice they are trying to impose on us.
Justice cannot be defined by judges or justices or constitutionalists who currently serve in the Government, who are paid two or three hundred thousand of dollars annually, far more than the salary of an average citizen, for clearly there is a conflict of interest between them and the true justice.
Justice cannot be defined by the United States of America, which is an abstract and a communist political entity. We don’t know exactly what America is and who holds the political power of that republic. We don’t know the true identity of America. It operates like mafia and covertly in the global arena. Justice is transparency and clarity.
Justice cannot be defined by the British Empire, the one which has gone undercover and we don’t know exactly how it rules the world.
Justice cannot be defined by modern nation-states, the ones which play a dual game: independent and dependent at the same time. We don’t know exactly what a nation-state is: whether it is independent or it depends on the British Empire, whether the ruling elite of that nation state holds the political power or they are appointed by some other political groups or the Global Government.
Justice cannot be defined by parliaments which have to obey at the same time multiple political agents: the people or the constituents, the international partners, the party line, the strategic partners, this or that convention, this or that international law, the UN, the USA, or the undefined public opinion. Is this justice?
Justice cannot be defined by CEOs, people immersed in the world of greed and materialism. They are not philosophers or intellectuals. They are greedy people even if we assume them as independent businessmen, who are not.
Justice cannot be defined by politicians and propagandists whose political goal is to control people and to hypnotize the masses. They don’t even have time to think about the long-term consequences of injustice.
Justice cannot be defined by governmental paid professors and intellectuals whose main goal is to collect a paycheck. That’s not justice. That’s politics.
Comprehensively, the Qur’an draws a parallel between justice and the natural laws. The same way our Earth, the Sun, and the Moon are subject to precise planetary motion laws: the sun rises and sets at the exact expected time each day, the laws which should govern human life are of the same importance.
Laws cannot be made by fallible human beings who are short in knowledge, whose knowledge about the reality of things is at best partial, who are driven by personal interests and ulterior motives, and who lack the ability to understand or recognize the long-time consequence of such laws.
In fact, a central and indispensable role of prophets sent by God has always been to legislate for people what is right and what is wrong, what is just and what is unjust, and what is moral and what is immoral.
The job of the prophets of God (peace be upon them all) has not be confined to the teaching of rituals only, as if God is in need of such rituals. Their primary role has been to teach justice.
Justice can be defined only and only by God the Creator, Who knows fully the nature of people, how we function, and how a society can be governed.
Only God knows how much freedom we should have, what we should do with our wealth, how much we should contribute to the society, who has more priority in regards to our wealth, what are the duties and responsibilities of each and every one of us, how marriage and its dissolution are established, and how crimes are punished. This is justice.
When people, governments, political charlatans, or intellectual con artists seek to play the role of God only because they enjoy political power or possess weapons, the human society will witness unimaginable corruption, to the extent that politics start to define and alter the most basic truths such as gender and marriage.
In short, laws are made only by God, not humans, not governments, not the USA, not the EU, not parliaments, and not kings. This is Islam. This is justice. This is the division of power.
Sabri Lushi
November 2025
