Metaphysical Oppression
Opinion: By Imran Syed
In my recent articles, I have borrowed extensively from the speaking points of liberation philosophers such as Paulo Freire and Enrique Dussel. I frequently emphasized the distinction between an oppressive elite and the oppressed masses, exploring thematic elements as they relate to us as an ummah. In these discussions, the concept of "the oppressed" often evokes images of physical abuse, refugee crises, torture, executions, and riots. While such descriptions undeniably fall under the category of oppression, the philosophers I reference wrote against a broader, capital "O" Oppression. This refers to the act of subjugation across all facets of life. Interestingly, in Latin America—where many of these philosophers originate—the oppression they confronted was less physical and more ideological. It was the savage capitalism that ravaged South America, its people and its spirit, that these writers were reacting against, a shared reality with the Muslim world.
This is the essential perspective from which I write as well: the oppression that is typically imagined often misses the mark of the broader frameworks that enable it—an oppressive order that manages and imposes its own reality. This level of awareness allows us to uncover what I term metaphysical oppression: the subjugation of individuals and the structuring of societies through the imposition and distortion of fundamental ontological and existential truths. What disables a people from being active agents in forming their future and from challenging the debasement of the self.
What is metaphysics?
Before we continue, we must clarify what we mean by "metaphysics." Put simply, metaphysics refers to the study of reality, existence, and what it means to be. It seeks to answer the questions "what there is" and "how it is." Unlike scientific endeavors, which focus primarily the "how," metaphysics is concerned with the "what" and the "why."
Too often, this definition evokes a sense of intellectual inferiority in the common person, as it wrongly assumed that such discussions are confined to the realm of philosophical ivory tower On the contrary, as a question of reality itself, it ought to concern everyone. In the words of Ali Harfouch “metaphysics is an existential orientation, the images of man, God, and the cosmos that tells us … how to exist as beings-in-the-world. Metaphysics tells us what is possible and what is impossible … It delineates or expands the boundaries of consciousness.” Our source of thought and being on the most fundamental level stems from our metaphysical orientation, everyone has one whether they are aware of it or not. As mentioned by Harfouch, our orientation of what the images of man, God, and the cosmos prepares us as agents that act into reality based on such images.
To neglect metaphysics is to remain blind to the underlying structures that shape our perception and, ultimately, our lived experience. Far from being an abstract luxury, metaphysics is indispensable for understanding and navigating the world, making it a subject of universal concern. As an ummah, metaphysics concerns us through and through. It is only through a correct orientation of man, God, and the cosmos that we ensure a correct existence that is to be ultimately judged by Allah. What dictates our metaphysical horizons, and thus our critical thought is of the utmost importance.
But what happens if we don’t concern ourselves with our metaphysics?
We shall cover that shortly
What is oppression?
The root word for ‘oppression,’ as Marilyn Fyre points out, is the element ‘press:’ “Presses are used to mold things or flatten them or to reduce them in bulk, sometimes to reduce them squeezing out the gases or liquids in them.” She says, “Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict, or prevent the thing’s motion.”
To capture oppression in its most complete sense, we can define it as the systemic denial of autonomy and dignity through structures and mechanisms that perpetuate inequality and subjugation. Like we mentioned earlier, it's not limited to individual acts of domination but extends to the institutional, cultural, and ideological frameworks that normalize and sustain the subjugation of certain groups. The emphasis lies in that oppression is not just an external force but a pervasive condition that infiltrates consciousness, shaping how individuals s themselves and their capacity for agency.
The Quran employs the term zulm to describe oppression, “Corruption has appeared in the earth and the ocean due to what the hands of men have wrought” (30:41). Toshihiko Izutsu further clarifies zulm as “to act in such a way as to transgress the proper limit and encroach upon the right of some other person”. Of course, this is in close relation to the mizan, the Quranic conception of the cosmos as a divine order, “He has raised up the sky. He has set the balance. So that you may not exceed in the balance: Weigh with justice and do not fall short in the balance…” and “As for the earth, we have spread it out, and set firm mountains upon it, and caused everything to grow there in perfect balance”. Thus, zulm (oppression), is the act of violating this balance and reprioritizing the encompassing self (an-nafs al-’ammarah).
To reiterate, oppression succeeds when it denies agency and choice to the oppressed. Thus, a system operating within a zulmi order must actively distort the mizan to align it with its own nafs. The mizan serves as the foundation through which individuals achieve balance, being endowed with a certain degree of knowledge and consciousness. For oppression to succeed as a totalizing system, it must be structured to deny this knowledge and consciousness. It achieves this by narrowing the horizons of thought, disabling awareness, and instilling a form of knowledge that renders its subjects passive and complicit. This is the essence of metaphysical oppression.
Metaphysical Oppression
We thus arrive at a comprehensive awareness of the highest degree of oppression, metaphysical oppression. Metaphysical oppression put simply, is the act of forging new metaphysical horizons through a certain type of knowledge that helps legitimize the totalizing oppressive system. This knowledge results in the re-creation of the image of man, God, and the cosmos in the image of, what Sherman Jackson calls, “second-creators”.
The Quran identifies "second-creators" as the taghut—those who transgress. Having forgotten their createdness, the taghut overstep their rightful place within the mizan. They engage in acts of re-creation, alienating the self from its First Creator, God. The boundaries of what is possible and impossible, as well as what is desirable and undesirable, are now dictated by the will of these second-creators. This form of oppression succeeds because, by usurping the First Creator's role as the sole authority over metaphysical knowledge, it presents itself as a divinely ordained, fixed order—appearing natural and unchangeable, fixed from on high.
Alternative thought and action are suppressed, rendering them unimaginable to the subjects of such an order. Agency is extinguished by the totalization of the system, and choice ceases to be a concern because the subjects remain unaware of its absence. In our age, secular power controls the boundaries of dissent precisely through the management of metaphysical horizons and the production of specific types of knowledge. There is no recourse to an exterior perspective; everyone is compelled to reconcile themselves with the system. The world becomes confined to a narrow framework, leaving no room for creative acts—only the exertion of pure power. Thus, when we speak of oppression, we mean oppression of the body but above all, the consciousness, as it is through the subversion of consciousness that an oppressive order becomes hegemonic and unquestionable.
The question remains, why have we said that metaphysical oppression is the highest degree of oppression? Let us turn to an ayah in the Quran that characterizes fitnah as being “worse than murder (wa‘l-fitnatu ashaddu mina‘l-qatl).” Sherman Jackson defines fitnah as “a consciously preserved system of normalized domination.” Fitnah is then the hegemonic hold of "second-creators." It not only entails the reformation of the Muslim self in alignment with these metaphysical frameworks—a process that erases the original identity—but also leads us to internalize the "second-creators'" conception of humanity, the world, and God. Murder, and thus any other similar forms of oppression by analogy, are easier to sustain as an ummah than metaphysical oppression because they may be isolated events. A metaphysical usurpation, on the other hand, signifies the complete loss of the ummah as a body and Islam as a movement.
"And We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the Truth..."
(Qur'an 41:53)