The word ملأ

The word ملأ is often mentioned in the Quran when discussing people who surround an oppressive/unjust person (think pharaoh). It's translated as "the eminent ones" or you can understand it in the sense of those who surround the owner of authority; advisors, confidants, close friends....etc.

When thinking of such a group, the word enablers come to mind. Those who encourage a person's behavior/action and embolden their deviance.

For example:

Holy Quran 7:127
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وَقَالَ ٱلْمَلَأُ مِن قَوْمِ فِرْعَوْنَ أَتَذَرُ مُوسَىٰ وَقَوْمَهُۥ لِيُفْسِدُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَيَذَرَكَ وَءَالِهَتَكَ ۚ قَالَ سَنُقَتِّلُ أَبْنَآءَهُمْ وَنَسْتَحْىِۦ نِسَآءَهُمْ وَإِنَّا فَوْقَهُمْ قَٰهِرُونَ

And the eminent among the people of Pharaoh said," Will you leave Moses and his people to cause corruption in the land and abandon you and your gods?" [Pharaoh] said, "We will kill their sons and keep their women alive; and indeed, we are subjugators over them."

The "enablers" did not say to pharaoh "go ahead and kill Moses and his people" rather they planted a seed of fear in the mind of someone who is capable of doing great harm and then let things unfold.

My point is, while in many of our discourses and discussions about an oppressor's rise to power (think Trump) or a person's abuse of power (think police officers disproportionately shooting black people) or a person's disregard for the sanctity of life of others (think of anyone who murdered someone) we often neglect the enablers who surround them. We need to look at the environment and who is in it and what role have they played that may have led to the situation at hand.

Another point is for us to stop looking at such situations as isolated from us. We're baffled by these happenings yet we don't take a close and thorough look at ourselves and end up, inadvertently and at the very least, being enablers.

You can enable by encouraging,
but you can also enable by being silent when truth needs to be spoken,
by being complacent,
by shirking your responsibility as a citizen of your community.

Change won't happen unless we change the environment that allows negative enablers to dominate and that change has to come from within.
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