Islam Is the Solution: But Who Is Saying It?

OUR SCHOLARS, IMAMS and Islamic influencers play a crucial role in helping us understand the world around us through the lens of Islam. Their role is not just to provide comfort or spiritual nourishment, but to guide us toward Islamic solutions.

Everyone’s talking about Gaza. The brutality, the injustice, the heartbreaking images. But when the conversation shifts to solutions, there’s a strange silence- or at best, a familiar fallback: dua, charity, waiting for al-Mahdi, boycotts, petitioning, protests etc.

Why the silence? Why isn’t the solution of liberation by Muslim armies not talked about?

A Product of the Secularisation of Our Deen

The current state of discourse- or lack thereof- should not surprise us. It’s the legacy of a long-standing colonial project aimed at secularising Islam. Colonisers not only plundered our lands and resources but also aggressively worked to detach us from a holistic understanding of Islam. Islam was reduced to rituals and personal beliefs, while the systems governing life—politics, economics, justice—were handed over to secular ideologies.

Our political institutions were dismantled. In their place, puppet rulers emerged- individuals shaped more by Western ideals than by the values of their people or Islamic heritage.

Even our education was split: secular universities taught arts and sciences, while madrasahs were restricted to the five pillars. Those who dared challenge this order were silenced- discredited, imprisoned, or worse.

What This Means for Today’s Scholars and Imams

Today’s Islamic educational institutions are, in many ways, a product of this secularisation. Students, with the best of intentions, enrol in Islamic universities. But after three or four years, many have only scratched the surface of the five pillars. The broader, systems-level aspects of Islam—economics, politics, governance—are rarely touched.

These students return to become the imams and teachers in our communities. But how can they connect Islam to real-world struggles- whether in Palestine or elsewhere- when their education has taught them to compartmentalise Islam into personal practice and leave the rest to the secular system?

Some go on to study topics like politics or economics at a higher level- but often only in theory, disconnected from the practical application that an Islamic political framework would require. Islam, for them, becomes academic, not transformational.

The Colonised MInd

The Afro-American historian John Henrik Clarke once said: “To control a people, you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.”

This is the colonised mind. Through media, education, and politics, we’ve been made to feel inferior about our own heritage while glorifying Western liberal values as “universal truths.”

The colonised mind is unable to imagine solutions beyond the secular framework. It doesn’t see Islam as a viable political force. Instead of looking to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ for guidance on matters of state, war, and justice, it looks to Western systems and institutions that were built to marginalise Islam in the first place.

When Islam calls for unity, political leadership, and even military action in certain contexts, the colonised mind dismisses these as impractical or outdated. It forgets that the same ummah it sees as weak once led the world in thought, justice, and power- under Islam.

Rather than lifting the ummah, the colonised mind surrenders to despair. It downplays collective responsibility and champions individualism, materialism, and secularism- sometimes unknowingly.

Selling Islam for a Paltry Price

There’s another group- a minority, but influential nonetheless- who remain silent for different reasons. Some do so to protect their status, freedom of movement, income streams, or social media platforms.

Others have aligned themselves with regimes, becoming mouthpieces for rulers who suppress Islamic revival.

To them, Allah gives a stern warning:

وَلَا تَشْتَرُوا۟ بِـَٔايَـٰتِى ثَمَنًۭا قَلِيلًۭا وَإِيَّـٰىَ فَٱتَّقُونِ

And do not exchange My signs for a small price and be mindful of Me. (al-Baqarah 41)

وَلَا تَلْبِسُوا۟ ٱلْحَقَّ بِٱلْبَـٰطِلِ وَتَكْتُمُوا۟ ٱلْحَقَّ وَأَنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ

Do not mix truth with falsehood or hide the truth knowingly. (al-Baqarah 42)

Leaders Must Lead

Our ulema, imams, and Muslim influencers may have different specialisations. Not all are political thinkers or strategists. But each should at least be able to point the ummah in the right direction. The Islamic direction and solution.

Our communities don’t just need motivation and charity drives. We need vision. Leadership. We need to understand the Islamic solution to our problems—not just the Islamic reaction.

May Allah empower our scholars, imams, and callers to rise to this challenge, bear the weight of this responsibility, and speak and act for His sake alone. Ameen.