When will Sheikh Darian utter the word of truth? | Ali Sarraf | AW – The Arab Weekly

Muslim clerics do not usually stand with their people. They rarely do. They usually stand with tyrants, out of fear or greed. They find excuses and justifications for tyranny. They claim that an unjust ruler is better than a lasting sedition." But both the ruler and the sedition usually continue. Such a theory has no roots in the Holy Quran, nor in the Sunnah nor any interpretation of the faith.

The Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, SheikhAbdellatif Darian is not one of these clerics. It is still hoped that he will play his role in standing by the Lebanese, not only in the face of the unjust ruler but also in the face of the lasting sedition.

Sheikh Darian does not meddle in politics. This is to his credit. But supporting the Lebanese against a system of corruption, injustice, oppression, discrimination and foreign allegiance is not politics. It is the essence of religion.

I do not want to compare Sheikh Darian to Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, for this noble patriot leads his own battle within his own house. And he is fighting his battle not simply for the sake of the Christians who have fallen into the grip of the corrupt, the arrogant, the tyrannical, the hypocritical and the greedy. He is fighting it for the sake of all Lebanese.

Nothing is louder than the moaning of the Lebanese. They are not just starving. They are shedding tears over a country that has ended up in the hands of criminals who killed the motherland and danced on its corpse.

A cleric who does not hear the sound of moaning has no religion. Whoever hesitates to say the word of truth in the face of the oppressors has nothing to do with religion.

The crisis in Lebanon is not just economic. Nor is it a political crisis. It is a crisis of a system that is no longer suitable in any aspect of life or religion. It must crumble and fall on the heads of those who drove the country into the precipice.

This system needs to be overhauled, from its foundations, constitutional rules, electoral regulations, government type, institutional roles and the work of its political parties.

This system will fall if Muslims stop providing support for its survival and renewal through parliamentary elections. If they call a halt, they will find in Christians real brothers and partners.

This system will fall if one of its main columns is pulled from underneath its structure.

Chaos will erupt, but it will be the kind of chaos that opens the way for hope, including the hope that the country's resources would not go to the corrupt.

Is it, in any case, going to be a form of chaos worse than that which the Lebanese endure today? Is there a more violent crime than that of a country without services, electricity, medicine or wages that are sufficient to buy bread?

I do not know how Sheikh Darian eats, under which light he reads his books nor how he sleeps. But I dare surmise he is probably in pain. But he has not yet uttered the cry of truth that all the Lebanese have been waiting to hear from him.

It is quite noble of him not to meddle in politics, but it would be more noble of him to meddle in religion. Because the state of Lebanon today is one of utter blasphemy.

It would be sufficient for him to say he has nothing to do with those who stand for elections in the name of the Sunnis. It would be sufficient for him to say that nothing in the Sunnah will justify partnering with an oppressive regime or being an accomplice to corruption. It would be enough for him to tell the Shia drug dealers: your religion is not mine. And to the corrupt Christian: your religion is not mine. It would be enough for him to tell them: the system you endorse is not mine.

The issue is not about disrupting elections. The issue is to utter the word of truth about the regime, its nature and its institutions.

This regime, which has been able to renew itself, with or without elections, must fall. The members of the Sunni sect's participation in the elections must be made conditional upon change.

Change has been necessary since the civil war stopped in 1990.

The regime itself should have fallen by now so the Lebanese could build a new constitutional, moral, social and political edifice.

More than thirty years have passed since then. And Lebanon has continued to revolve around the same vicious cycle of corruption. Eventually, the Lebanese paid ten times the cost of building electrical generating stations that would have been enough to light ten countries the size of Lebanon.

Preventing this system from regeneration and ending its cycle of corruption needs the word of truth to be uttered by Sheikh Darian, even if he is already thirty years late.

Continued here:

When will Sheikh Darian utter the word of truth? | Ali Sarraf | AW - The Arab Weekly