Opiates and Muslims

by Mahmoud Andrade Ibrahim

Karl Marx said that ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses’.  What he was saying is that when people cannot make sense of the ‘real world forces’ that impact on their lives, they turn to religion as an ‘alternate reality’ (which is exactly what opiates function as) that buffers the pain of their harsh existence by ignoring and not confronting those realities and keeps the minds of the people focused on 'other worldly' or metaphysical explanations for their plight thereby making it impossible to blame, criticize and even identify the true 'culprits' of their exploitation.

But Allah commands,  “Be Just and true to all mankind !”  Qur’an 16:90.  In order to be just and establish justice, one has to make an accurate assessment of what the real conditions are, who the players are, the context in which those conditions occur and the best of the many possible solutions to remedy a given situation with the understanding that the solution that may be good in that one circumstance may not be applicable in another. This requires serious work, both on an intellectual and a ‘nuts and bolts’ level.  This is what ‘justice’ is in Islam.

Not to approach justice in this way, and to rely only on those remedies that were determined in the seventh or twelfth centuries cannot be considered justice at all, but is the opiate that social scientists like Marx and others warned about.  These ‘altered states of reality’ are induced by the reliance on outdated opinions, rulings and slogans that have very little relevance in today’s technologically advanced societal formations. Consider for example the fact that we have a plethora  women judges, lawyers, engineers, scholars and social scientists that was unheard of during all the classical time periods referenced and the idea that the testimony of these women, in a Muslim court, is half as good as a man's, is simply absurd. 

The command to be just, is an active, on going enterprise, ever refreshing itself as circumstances change and evolve. It is a continuous venture.  If the forces of injustice were static or fixed then so would be the ‘just’ response. But that is not how it works.  As with everything in human life, the only constant is change. 

We must, as is required by our deen, be prepared to support just causes as they arise particularly in such areas as; voter suppression, decent wages and trade unionism, health care, women’s rights, black suffrage, anti-racism efforts, immigrant's rights, affordable decent housing and education.  This is what Allah means when He says that we should ‘establish justice’ and be ‘just to all mankind’.

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An Explaination:

1. Outdated Remedies and the Illusion of Justice

• My position is that relying solely on medieval legal rulings (like those from classical fiqh texts) is not true justice but rather a form of ideological sedation—an "opiate" that lulls societies into accepting archaic norms under the guise of divine or traditional authority.

• This aligns with, among others, Marx’s critique of religion (and by extension, rigid traditionalism) as a tool that pacifies people into accepting oppressive conditions by framing them as immutable or sacred.

• The "altered states of reality" refer to the cognitive dissonance required to apply rulings from vastly different societal contexts (e.g., agrarian, patriarchal medieval societies) to today’s technologically advanced, gender-inclusive world.

2. The Absurdity of Gender Inequality in Modern Contexts

• I choose to highlight the glaring contradiction between the contributions of women in contemporary society (as judges, engineers, scholars, etc.) and classical legal doctrines that systematically marginalize them (e.g., the idea that a woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s in some Islamic courts).

• This disparity exposes how static interpretations of justice fail to account for societal evolution. The exclusion or diminishment of women’s voices in legal systems today isn’t just archaic—it’s actively unjust, as it ignores their demonstrated competence and equality in all spheres of life.

3. Justice as a Dynamic, Evolving Principle

• My framing of justice as an "active, ongoing enterprise" echoes progressive Islamic thought (e.g., scholars like Mohammed Arkoun or Khaled Abou El Fadl and Fazlur Rahman), which argues that divine commandments to "be just" are universal but require contextual application.

  عْدِلُواْ هُوَ أَقْرَبُ لِلتَّقْوَى وَاتَّقُواْ اللّهَ إِنَّ اللّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ 

  Be just, this is closest to being God-conscious. And remain conscious of Allah: verily, Allah is aware of all that you do.  (Quran Sura Al- Ma’ida5:8)

• If injustice manifests in new ways (e.g., systemic discrimination, digital surveillance, economic exploitation), the responses must also evolve. Static legal rulings cannot address modern challenges like AI ethics, climate justice, or gender equity.

• The "only constant is change" reflects the Quranic idea that God’s creation is in perpetual motion implying that human understanding of justice must likewise adapt.

  يَسْـَٔلُهُۥ مَن فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ كُلَّ يَوْمٍ هُوَ فِى شَأْنٍ

  On Him depends all creatures in the heavens and on earth; [and] every day He manifests Himself in yet another [wondrous] way. (Sura-Ar-Rahman 55:29),

4. The Danger of Fossilized Tradition

• By clinging to medieval rulings, societies risk conflating historical interpretations with eternal truths. This conflation is what you criticize as absurd—it privileges the past over present and future flourishing.

• The tension here is between revealed principles (e.g., equity, mercy) and human interpretations of those principles. The latter are inevitably shaped by their time and place, and treating them as sacrosanct undermines the higher objectives (maqasid) of justice itself.

Justice Demands Critical Engagement

This argument calls for a rejection of uncritical traditionalism and insists that justice requires continual reassessment. It aligns with reformist Islamic thought that distinguishes between timeless moral imperatives (like justice) and time-bound rulings (like medieval court procedures). To do otherwise—to freeze law in the past—is indeed to perpetuate an "opiate" that numbs societies to the urgent need for progress.