Escaping the Plantation & Reimagining the Promised Land
On Being Held Captive in the Midst of Opposing Oppression
Bismillah Al-Raḥmān Al-Raḥīm; Ṣallā Allahu ʿalā Sayyadinā Muḥammad wa ʿalā Ālihi wa Ṣaḥbihi wa Sallam — In the Name of God, Most Merciful and Compassionate; God’s Blessings and Peace be upon our Master, Muḥammad, and on his Family and Companions.
I have struggled to write this piece for the last four months. I have debated whether to be brutally frank or to take into account the varying sensibilities of the people who will read this, intentionally or by happenstance. The former will not allow many to consider my argument objectively, and the latter will probably gain me sympathetic readers but force me to abdicate the gravity of my thoughts and the resulting conversations & actions I envisioned.
So, what is the problem? Over the years, we have allowed our thinking and vision of leadership among Muslim, African American, and other oppressed and marginalized communities to be centered on a form of conformity to the status quo and a disturbing amount of drifting from one side to the other of the line of obsequiousness.
I am not saying that dialogue and amicable relations with people we disagree with are not important or should not happen. What I am saying is that we are more invested in the image of being engaged than in engagement that leads to meaningful and positive outcomes. What has become even more egregious is how we have allowed ourselves to be deluded into believing that operating within the current system, on its terms, is our way of achieving honor and social & economic parity with our oppressors.
One of the most profound failures of the aforementioned groups is their failure to build the systems and institutions we need to achieve four essential things for human liberation, development, and sovereignty.
Control over the essential resources and infrastructure that allows groups of people to have control over their essential day-to-day needs and communal wellbeing. This includes food, clothes, shelter, access to and control over water, and other similar types of goods and services that allow for communal wellbeing and human flourishing1.
The unfettered ability to establish our own independent financial systems and institutions that would allow us to develop and accumulate tangible wealth, which allows for unfettered development of and access to the resources that allow people to determine the value they wish for their commodities, goods, services, and trade without outside dictation, control, and exploitative influence.
The ability to govern and educate our communities according to the beliefs, values, mores, and practices that give our people their unique God-given identity and purpose.
The true right and ability to protect and defend our people and beliefs from all forms of tyranny and oppression, particularly the infringement of the first three of these four points.
After our so-called liberation from slavery, colonialism, and murderous oppression, we fully adopted the various governmental, financial, educational, and ideological frameworks and systems of our oppressors & former slave masters and have completely rejected everything we inherited from our forefathers. Our obsessive love for and full embrace of democracy when none of the governments that tell us to embrace democracy have ever been democracies. Our obsession with the hyper-exploitative interest-based banking system, and our refusal to establish a truly separate and effective interest-free model of banking and finance, despite the plethora of guidance found in the Sharīʿa. Surrendering our control over our resources and land for the sake of gaining the minuscule amount of so-called wealth that is readily paid by our oppressors, so that we can complain about how they continue to increase their wealth, and we continue to drown.
While there is certainly a great deal that must be discussed about these four points, the most immediate matter I am highlighting is our inability, over the last century, to formulate any model framework that has not drawn, in great part or in toto, directly from the West. To add insult to injury, we relegated the revelation of Allah ﷻ and the Sunna of His Rasūl ﷺ to be listed as an inspiration or a source for our legislation, so that it only serves as a performative display of us adhering to the Divinely Revealed Law.
The shock and awe of genocide and oppression over the last two and a half years has served as a clarion call for anyone who has not fully appreciated the gravity of the corruption and malfeasance practiced by people placed in positions of leadership in nearly all of the world’s polities. Many people who have witnessed this are justifiably angry and ready to work towards the necessary change, but astonishingly, there are an equal or even greater number who still expect that there is an opportunity, or even worse, promote the idea that we are obligated to use the current systems and institutions to effect that change.
My contribution to addressing this imperative need of our people is a 3-part formula that identifies the problem (the descriptive element), provides a solution & methodological framework (the prescriptive element), and shares a pragmatic yet serious alternative worldview to the current reality (the epistemological training element). I have correspondingly named them Captive Opposition, Khidmiyya, and Reasoned Perspectives. Over the next couple of months, I will be sharing the details of each of these frameworks and methodologies, along with the vision of the work I am dedicating myself to.
I will be sharing this for two primary reasons:
I am now in the candidacy phase of my doctoral program, and I am sharing my work to aid me in refining my thoughts and writing for my thesis.
I am actively working to activate these frameworks and build the institutions and programs that will serve as the cure to these overwhelming issues while attracting people who believe in the vision and are ready to physically, financially, and spiritually support the work.
I have written haphazardly on these topics since starting this Substack. I have also been consumed by my institutional commitments and coursework for my doctoral program. All of this is now coming to an end. I am now entering a period of independence, transition, and commitment as I prepare to fully commit to this mission and vision.
I am returning to Ghana at the end of May 2026 after working in higher education for nearly three years, to focus on the writing phase of my doctorate, build out this platform, actively work on building the institutional vision of Umma International Group, and document the process as my thesis case study. I invite you all to engage with me, push me to the levels of excellence and disciplined dedication this work demands, and share in the reward of the work, InShā’Allah.
Let the real work begin!.
Whenever I discuss human flourishing, I am referring to a life bounded by belief in Allah ﷻ, and obedience to Allah ﷻ and His Rasūl ﷺ, in addition to all of the other beautiful and permissible things of this world that give life flavor and allow us to have the meaningful experiences that we all associate with human flourishing.