I am Not a Patriot

Coming from India, I lack the Indianess that most of the people from India expect; denounce Pakistan as an enemy state or support the Indian team in a match against Pakistan or support India on the Kashmir issue. For reasons beyond description, I could do none of that.

Patriotism, the new sensation that’s sweeping the nation, has always struck me as a very strange emotion. On the face of it, it contains more than a bit of absurdity: being proud of your country because it’s where you happened to be born is a bit like being proud of being tall, or having red hair, or being ambidextrous. Sure, it might be nice, but it’s not something you really had anything to do with. On the other hand, there’s nothing really wrong with loving your country just because you lucked into being born there; after all, you don’t get to pick who your mother is, but everyone loves their mother, right?

Nationalism is a concept alien to Islam because it calls for unity based on land, family and tribalistic ties, whereas Islam binds people together on the ’Aqeedah, that is belief in Allah (swt) and His Messenger (saaw). Islam calls for the ideological bond. An Arab is no better than a non-Arab (A misconception that people have, as the Prophet was an Arab). In return, a non-Arab is no better than an Arab. A red raced man is not better than a black one except in piety. Mankind are all Adam’s children and Adam was created out of clay.

Nationalism is incompatible with Islam, both schools having two opposite ideologies. The Quran has explicitly rejected the basis of nationalism and states that language, color and race are no criteria for unity and privilege. The only criteria are belief and virtue. The goal of nationalism is to create national units, whereas the goal of Islam is universal unity. To nationalism what matters the most is loyalty and attachment to the homeland, whereas in Islam it is God and religion.

Nationalism is closely linked with secularism in view of the necessity of separation between government and religion, and politics from creed. Nationalism leads indirectly to secularism and it changes the meaning of minorities. In a government founded on religion, the followers of other creeds and schools are regarded as minorities, but with nationalism and secularism there are only racial, political and regional minorities.

Religion is the true boundary of nationality. A co-religionist becomes a compatriot, and an unbeliever becomes an alien. In the school of nationalism, all are brothers and equals, whether they are believers or infidels, pious or evil-doers. But in Islam, a person who does not hold the same belief, has no bond with the Muslims, is not considered an equal, even if he is a ’compatriot’.

Islam rejects the idea that citizenship depends on birthplace. Islam asserts that it depends of belief. Unlike nationalism, Islam teaches man not to attach himself to land but to belief, and if necessary, he should leave his homeland and country for the sake of it. Emigration is a fundamental principle in Islam. In Islam, unlike nationalism, one leaves his homeland for the sake of belief and thus emigration is not only a duty but refusal to emigrate for the sake of belief is a treason. Attachment to a particular land and confining one’s activity and loyalty to it is, in Islam, a futile life and act when one’s religion and ideology is being threatened.

The idea of a ’nationalist’ Muslim is as absurd as that of a ’religious communist’ or ’capitalist Marxist’. When the ideology of Islam expands, nationalism is destroyed, and when nationalism grows, Islam is annihilated.

Do I love my country? Of course I do. You can’t escape your raisin’, as my mother used to say. Am I proud of my country? Certainly, within reason; I’m proud of it when it does things that are worth being proud of. Do I care about my country? Deeply enough to relentlessly criticize it when it uses its unprecedented power in the wrong way. Do I think the best way to express my love, my pride, my concern is to wrap myself up in colors and read aloud whatever patriotic bromides are placed in front of me? What do you say...