Actually, is there really still a debate? Haven’t we dealt with all this before?

The answer: yes. Emphatically so. (please read all the articles in the link carefully because 99% of all queries have been dealt with therein)

I’m not one to waste my time re-hashing old arguments and arguing just for the sake of arguing with mostly young and new Muslims who perhaps weren’t around 4-5 years ago, and for them now the “voting is shirk” slogan fits their age and experience in Islam. Read: little.

But, after canvassing some of these young voices over the last few weeks and receiving statements like the following:

  • Surely this is verging on shirk where man does not recognise Allah swt as ruler and makes up rules for his own… i.e. he is “playing God”!
  • It’s as if we’re saying Allah swt’s rules aren’t good enough for us
  • come out of your holes munafiqeen and refute what he says.
  • But of course, mushriks will be mushriks, no matter how much aqidah talk they spur out, their nature is still shirk.

Of course it would be lazy of me and perhaps disrespectful to dismiss the opinion that “voting is shirk and renders you non-Muslim” as something to be ignored, because it comes mostly from youngsters.

Or that it comes from bored internet warriors.

Or that it comes from failed Muslim groups such as Hizb al-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun or the Anjem Choudhry Group or whatever they’re called these days.

Or that it is from people who are normally associated – whether by word or action – with the excommunication and murder of their fellow Muslim brothers and sisters around the world.

Or because they are going up against an almost scholarly consensus of our time that “to vote with an intention to improve one’s conditions is permissible.”

But then again, I am a rather lazy person. So consider their argument null and void.

Let me state very clearly for all those who wish to know: to vote for any candidate in any election – affirming of course that the true hukm is for Allah alone – based upon the premise that you wish to improve as best as possible the circumstances that you live in, or the circumstances of other Muslims elsewhere, is a permissible act. Indeed I hope that you will be rewarded for taking out the time to research how best you can make a difference.

When you vote for a man, you don’t invalidate the Divine Law of God. Rather you have declared your inability to implement fully that Divine Law, something which you are in a state of every single day that you live here anyway.

The idea that abstaining from voting so that you don’t fall into shirk therefore is a mockery. Abstaining because you feel that your vote won’t make any difference on the other hand, is something else: a respectable position and thus deserves consideration.

The articles above have discussed the fact that we are not held to account for what happens at the end, rather we are judged based upon our efforts. And these efforts I guess, are based on two areas: local interests and national interests.

Usually, political experts tell Muslims not to expect too much with respect to national policies and interests simply because the key playing factors are normally well outside the hands of the ruling party in government. We don’t wish to be conspiratorial but political history and indeed the way that the “War on Terror” seems to be panning out suggest very much that whoever runs any country in the world today is being dictated to by unseen powers and forces behind the scenes.

It is ironic then that despite the fact that the experts suggest concentrating on local issues, the very real possibility in May 2010 of a hung parliament has thrown the national agenda right back into the mix. The small benefit of a hung parliament for Muslims is just that one single party will not be able to arrogantly move against the will of the people; rather the more varied the voices and players in the decision making process, the perhaps more beneficial for all people who are looking for more considered and thoughtful policies as opposed to those that we’ve seen in the last ten years. Perhaps. Wallahu a’lam.

And nothing more is upon us brothers and sisters. The claim that you are held responsible personally because you voted in a party that went to war afterwards, is incorrect. Did you want the war to happen? If yes, then get ready for a roasting in the Akhirah. Did you try your best to avoid that war by taking all possible means legally allowed to you in said country, and then even still failed? Get ready for reward insha’Allah in the Akhirah.

As for the local scene, then it is very difficult for even the most apathetic of us to argue that block voting can’t ensure better candidates for our local communities. For those that actually do engage with their local MP, they’ll know that this is simply a person who represents their needs and causes when the situation arises. Sometimes they are very good and support all your causes, some are not so bad, and some don’t give you the time of day, and worse work actively against the Muslim community.

For the ignorant Muslims who proudly shout out, “Well you should vote BNP then because at least they wouldn’t go to war and they’d pay for your hijrah too, hahaha!” we’ll say, please accept the hijrah money and leave us alone because you clearly have no idea of politics if you think that just because someone might not want to go to war now, they won’t do so in the future. And in any case, the BNP could pay these Muslims a hundred thousand pounds each to leave and they’d come running back home after a few weeks of realising that their Islamic utopias haven’t turned out to be how they dreamt it.

Yes, let’s all not vote and allow the BNP and UKIP to rule our local schools and Masajid with the proud manifesto of their poster boy Wilders, “Close all Islamic Schools, ban burkahs and the Quran, stop Islamification. Enough is enough.”

Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.

A final word on the issue of apathy other than the fact that we probably can have a national influence and most certainly a local influence, leads to the most important reason for me personally that we should vote: it proves to these elected officials that we cannot be ignored.

You see, we’re not Jews. We’ll be ignored because of our lack of wealth and high positions in the banks and other organisations.

We’re not White Christians. We’ll be ignored because we cannot lay claim to some emotional connection to the land itself and the psyche of the masses of olde who have made this Christian country what it still clings on to today.

We’re Muslims. We don’t have much going for us except that we can be loyal, hardworking and good citizens. Oh, and we have some silly high numbers in a few places which means that if you as elected representatives don’t support our needs here and there, we’re going to kick you out and cost you your dream job mate.  Sure, we’ll be ignored most of the time as all the people of democracies generally are, but accountable you will be held.

If nothing comes of this exercise except that we are taken half-seriously by the authorities, then that’s enough of a reason to get out and vote. It really is.

Let me say at the end that I guess I’m bored with this subject as one would be expected to be having bashed it to death so many times. If you don’t want to vote because you really can’t see the benefit in doing so then ok, fair enough. If you don’t want to vote because it’s haram, khalas, leave us alone. And if you don’t want to vote because it’s shirk and you insist we’re all kuffar and mushrikeen for voting, then khalas even better, leave us alone now and let us pick some ajr from you on the Final Day insha’Allah.

Wallahu a‘lam.