Many Faces of Corruption

Plato in The Republic, written circa 390 B.C.E., wondered how a person could be courageous and gentlemanly simultaneously. Early philosophers considered these two behaviors to be mutually exclusive and incompatible with each other. They wanted ideal citizens and a utopian state. In those days, by courage was meant boldness flanking the shocking, and gentlemanliness stood for tender-heartedness. People generally agreed that these were two irreconcilables and that they could never be synchronized in one and the same person. Well, the Quran shows us that we can be kind and compassionate yet stand up for our rights and fight for justice and that we could achieve, insha Allah (God willing), a utopian life here and now.

When we look around us and especially at the so called “Muslim” world, we see retaliations,

seemingly motiveless and stray killings, bombings, hijackings, kidnappings, intentional mass murder, attacks on worshippers in mosques, incidents of blood, gore and brutality often sponsored, connived or condoned by “gentlemen” of “high social standing and breeding.”

The Quran terms such violence and bloodshed as “zulm” (tyranny and transgression) which stem from unhampered power exercised by a person or an authority which is bereft of compassion, benevolence and forgiveness. But who can be more powerful than the Almighty? Because He is Omnipotent, He is Omnipresent and because He is Omnipresent, He is Omniscient. We can confirm from the Quran that whenever His supreme power and ability is named, His attributes of kindness, wisdom, forgiveness and mercy have also

been mentioned.

[57:1] Glorifying GOD is everything in the heavens and the earth. He is the Almighty, Most Wise.

[57:9] He is the One who sends down to His servant clear revelations, in order to lead you out of the darkness into the light. GOD is Compassionate towards you, Most Merciful.

[4:149] If you work righteousness - either declared or concealed - or pardon a transgression, GOD is Pardoner, Omnipotent.

By the grace of God, one can find endlessly the verses from the Glorious Quran to show that God exercises His sovereign authority with severity tempered with sympathy and disposition to forgive.

Cont’d on page 2