Another Muslim in Secular Positions Is Not Power It’s Partisanship

News:

The Washington Post reported that an Indian Muslim woman, Ghazala Hashmi, has launched her first political campaign in the U.S. state of Virginia. The article boasts that if elected lieutenant governor of Virginia, she would be the country’s first Muslim woman in statewide office.

Images are posted alongside the article of her taking a selfie in a Hindu Gurdwara temple as part of her campaign trail.

She was praised by the Hindu delegate, JJ Singh (D-Loudoun), saying; “She’d be the first Indian to hold statewide office in the entire state. We’re really showing the rest of the country that Virginia is in a position where we embrace diversity. We’re not divided on those lines of bigotry”

Ghazala expresses that openly her “faith” and ethnicity are not the driving forces behind her campaign. She’s seeking the part-time lieutenant governor role to act as an ideological barrier from what she called “the chaos” of President Donald Trump’s administration — not to be the first of anything. Historically, she had launched a campaign with the slogan “Ghazala Hashmi is an American name,” seeking to appeal to immigrant voters and embrace the country’s changing demographics.

She currently has support from South Asians and Muslims who want to see her make history, as well as attacks from Republicans weaponising her religion.

Those attacks often tie her to polarising New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is also a Muslim immigrant of Indian descent.

Since 2018, when Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) became the first two Muslim women in Congress, a small but growing list of others have won elected office.

By 2023, there were 95 elected Muslim women, according the most recent data from the Jetpac Resource Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The South Asian diaspora, too, has increasingly asserted its political power in recent years, with at least six Indian American members of Congress in the “samosa caucus,” as they have called themselves — including its most recent addition, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D), from Northern Virginia.

Sahar Aziz, a law professor at Rutgers University and the author of “The Racial Muslim,” comments; “But these are not normal circumstances,” Aziz added. “Each time a Muslim is running for office, they face punishment through the campaigns and fear campaigns and threats to their physical safety.”

Prominent Muslim politicians like Tlaib and Omar, the congresswomen, have been labeled “terrorists” or anti-democratic. And in 2021, moderators for a Virginia Democratic lieutenant governor debate apologised after asking the only Muslim candidate in that primary if he could guarantee that his religion wouldn’t get in the way of his elected office, a question not asked of any other candidate.

Comment:

The layers of Islamic contradiction are so numerous in this article that they deserve to be treated one by one.

1- Being the first Muslim women to represent a system that seeks to murder Muslims and erase Islam in its internal and foreign policy is not accolade that is recognised by Islamic mentalities. It is a matter clearly forbidden and hated by Allah (swt), not only because of the rules related to how women have political power but from supporting the enemies of Islam and compromising Islam.

[لاَّ يَتَّخِذِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاء مِن دُوْنِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ اللّهِ فِي شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ أَن تَتَّقُواْ مِنْهُمْ تُقَاةً وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ اللّهُ نَفْسَهُ وَإِلَى اللّهِ الْمَصِيرُ]

“Believers should not take disbelievers as guardians (awliya) instead of the believers, and whoever does so will have nothing to hope for from Allah—unless it is a precaution against their tyranny. And Allah warns you about Himself. And to Allah is the final return.” [Surah Aal-i Imran: 28].

2- The agenda of integration of Muslims in fake positions of power in reality is an agenda of compromising with Islam so that the dominant ideas of secularism and Capitalism. In this way, Muslims are used to undermine what Islam really is by becoming role models for taking part of the book (Quran and Sunnah) and leaving the rest. That way, the false “wolf” leadership is misguided with Islamic “sheep” clothing.

3- The true version of Islam is hidden behind the American version of Islam to create disunity with other Muslims globally and hatred for being loyal to Allah (swt) fully. Anyone who does not accept to “modernising” is an extremist and should be exposed as a non-patriot. Nationalism replaces authentic Aqeeda (Islamic doctrine).

4- Mockery of Muslims who compromise is not even hidden as Allah (swt) humiliates the ones who exchange pure ideas for mixing with Kufr. The “Samosa” referencing to those Indian Muslims is a reflection of this.

5- Muslim women face real danger in these so-called “Free” democratic nations. There is only safety and dignity with the Khilafah (Caliphate) State and the uncompromising allegiance and implementation of the correct political structures as inherited by the noble Khulafaa’ (caliphs) after the Prophet (saw).

These explanations should be enough to reject the theatre and drama of actors in a script written by those who only have hatred for the truth, and we as Muslims have only one vote of the matter, zero support for false political distractions.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir