Red-Pilled Muslims & Their Obsession with the Right
Lessons from Sūrah al-Munāfiqūn (The Hypocrites)
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Lessons from Sūrah al-Munāfiqūn (The Hypocrites)
Aug 6
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There has emerged in the last decade or so a phenomenon that while I can’t say I don’t understand it (otherwise why would I comment on it) but I cannot say that it disturbs me the way many Muslims in the West, particularly in the States and the UK, have become obsessed with arguing with conservatives, right-wing cultural pundits, white supremacists, and Eurocentrists, all of whom seem to live rent free in their heads.
In a recent tween on X, self-proclaimed conservative Christian fire brand, Matt Walsh, has once again dragged or coerced some Muslim thinkers into raging against his claims as if they themselves seem to feel that he might have a point. Walsh stated on his X account,
The entire continent of North America was an uncivilized, primitive place and is now civilized because of European colonization. Now it is being dragged backwards by mass immigration. Do you understand the point now or do I need to keep explaining?
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Instead of acting like a lover whose advances have been rebuffed, a more important stance or reply would be to challenge Walsh’s assumptions (and the assumptions that almost every cultural proponent of the alleged superiority of the West claims) he so cheerfully and smugly stand on. Example:
Deeming the society and social structure of the inhabitants of the “Americas” before Europeans as un/civilized is irrelevant and more important, boring. What would be a far more interesting question to ask would be something like: were these inhabitants pre-European expansion happy with their society? Did they feel that anything was lacking? As to whether whites/Europeans or anyone else felt that it was lacking/barbaric, etc., is pure speculation and subjectivism and more importantly, this type of response would dislodge these racist and supremacist tropes from their assumed vantage points . And it’s here that we tease out the real issue at hand: white supremacy and Eurocentric thought are not merely bigoted or biased (anyone can be those) but that they seem themselves as the unquestionable standard of humanity by which all others must judge themselves (not Europeans/whites judging them!) as inferior. In other words, whiteness and those proclivities which descend from whiteness/Eurocentrism, are presented as quasi-divine (and perhaps not even quasi they way that Walsh’s and Peterson’s of the world think) and therefore transcendent. These red-pilled Muslim arguments seem, with all due respect, to come off as more of a jilted lover, whose advances or aesthetics have been deemed unattractive.
Stick to revealing their assumptions and presuppositions, dragging them down out of the clouds to be contested in the dirt and mud, like the rest of us, is a much more effective and dignified strategy.
And so these so-called conservatives have about as much value as stacked up pieces of lumber, as Allāh mentions in the Forth Verse of Sūrah al-Munāfiqūn (The Hypocrites). The Walsh’s and Peterson’s of the conservative world also share some other qualities of the Hypocrites: they fear Muslims and react to them without provocation. The great Andalusian exegete, Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbī, may Allāh have mercy on him, wrote concerning this verse,
وقال الزمخشري: إنما شُبِّهَهُم بالخشبِ المُسنَدَةِ إلى حائِطٍ، لأن الخشَبَ إذا كانت كذلك لم يكن فيها مَنفَعةٌ، بخلافِ الخشَبِ التي في سَقفٍ أو مَغروسَةٍ في جِدارٍ؛ فإن فيها حينئذٍ مَنفَعةٌ. فالتشبيهُ على هذا في عدمِ المَنفَعةِ، وقيل: كانوا يَستَنِدون في مجلسِ رسولِ اللهِ ﷺ فشُبِّهَهم في استنادِهم بالخشبِ المُسنَدَةِ إلى الحائطِ ﴿يَحْسَبُونَ كُلَّ صَيْحَةٍ عَلَيْهِمْ﴾ عبارةٌ عن شِدَّةِ خَوفِهم من المسلمين، وذلك أنهم كانوا إذا سَمِعوا صِياحاً ظَنُّوا أن النبيَّ ﷺ يأمرُ بقتلِهم
Al-Zamakhsharī said: “They were compared to propped-up timber because timber in such a state is of no use, unlike timber that is part of a roof or embedded in a wall; for then it serves a purpose. Thus, the comparison here is regarding the lack of utility. It is also said that they used to lean in the assembly of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, so they were compared in their leaning to propped-up timber. The phrase, yaḥsa[i]būn kulla ṣayḥah alayhim, describes the intensity of their fear of the Muslims, as whenever they heard a shout, they thought that the Prophet ﷺ was ordering their killing.”
In other words, the likes of Walsh, Peterson, and a great many so-called conservatives, are cowards and are not worthy of this level of attention, distraction, or response.
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