Austerity at the palace and Abu Dharr

Can one make cuts to rights such as nutrition, health, transportation, and housing? Because the government has started to touch those rights of ours these days under the name of austerity. The abolished civil servant shuttle services are a clear example of this. Yet, we are talking about the needs we must possess at a minimum level for a humane and dignified life. All of the things we have listed are rights; they must be grasped with an awareness of rights, for anything beyond that leads us to slavery and pariah status. However, interests are not like that; in most of them, there is someone else's right and law; they have been obtained in a way that exceeds what is rightful. We know from the self-interested and the opportunists; their lives are out in the open, right in front of us. In that case, the place where austerity should be applied is clear; that place points not to rights, but to the self-interested. And that is exactly the place the government does not see or overlooks.

When discussing the issue of rights versus interests, we can give many examples from both history and today. I am someone who mostly prefers to give examples from history. This method seems more meaningful to me both in terms of getting to the root of problems and seeing the traditions that are maintained.

Abu Dharr al-Ghifari is one of the important companions, and we know him for his closeness to the Prophet. For example, according to a narration, the Prophet says the following about him: “There is no one under the canopy of the sky and above the earth more truthful than Abu Dharr” (Tirmidhi, “Manaqib”, 35; Ibn Majah, “Muqaddima”, 11). Again, in another narration, it is said that the Prophet spoke about him as follows: “Abu Dharr walks on earth with the asceticism of Jesus, son of Mary.” The concept of asceticism (zuhd) is related to not attaching importance to worldly goods, rank, position, fame, and reputation; they say that which is excessive is much, and they value things by the value of that which is little. We also know Jesus the Prophet for his “revolutionary stance”; he is side by side with the oppressed and the poor: The rumor is that Jesus the Prophet says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” His reverence for rights is clear, and the reaction he shows to the will that violates rights is at a level that will reach the divine presence. In one place, this means “If there is wealth, there is no God”; for those who want to see, it is so.

Abu Dharr spends the last days of his life in the desert of Rabadha, all by himself, in solitude. So, what is a person who was worthy of even the Prophet's praise doing in the desert, in exile? The answer to this question takes us to the rights-austerity-interest triangle. Abu Dharr opposes the unfair use of public property, the irregular payment of money to some from the treasury, and the unfair distribution of spoils. He objects to certain interest groups living in wealth and ostentation while thousands of people live in poverty; he deems this situation neither appropriate for his religion nor for his personality. His words rise day by day, and so do the addressees of his words.

One of those addressees is Muawiyah, whom we can describe as the King of Damascus. For he lives in Damascus more like a king than a governor. Indeed, Caliph Umar saw this situation at the time and accused him of imitating kings, but he did not remove him from office. Muawiyah's defense regarding his flashy life is quite familiar. He speaks roughly as follows: “Our life represents our prestige. The reason we look powerful is the office we represent; our neighbors must see us this way.” We know from his followers where his words come from.

It is in those days that Abu Dharr confronts Muawiyah. On one side is the poverty of the people, and on the other is a governor living in ostentation. As I said, do not look at his governorship; he lives in his Palace like a kind of King. Everything aside, Abu Dharr rebels against that palace and calls out to him: “O Muawiyah! If you built this palace with your own money, it is waste. If you built it with the people's money, it is treason and forbidden (haram).”

What is actually meant by palace is the poverty and destitution of the people; it is the unfair distribution of income, the lack of justice, the broken order; that palace points to the need for the system to change. He says that a dignified life cannot be built with palaces, and if we are to exist as a society, it is not buildings that should rise toward the sky, but values such as justice, conscience, and virtue. The palace is the symbol of the sultanate established, and opposing it is equivalent to taking on the entire system. Because Abu Dharr shouted this truth, he was exiled to the desert. This reality lies behind his death.

Throughout history and today, those who truly want austerity are those who challenge the self-interested, those who stand against them. Because the excess was there, the injustice was there, the waste and the forbidden were there. While there is a situation where we can have a say and demand the excess, we cannot set our eyes on the life of the poor and demand austerity through their lives. Because the name of this is not austerity, it is extortion.