The truth is we (Muslims) are bankrupt as a religious community

[Guest guest]

shriadishakti , " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org> wrote:

>

> Only after reading the entire www.al-qiyamah.org will Muslims

> understand the depth of centuries-old deception, falsehood and

> conditioning the Ummah has been led regarding the Resurrection. So

> my question off the bat: When the ulema are so erroneous about Al-

> Qiyamah, the heart and soul of Islam explicitly entrenched in

> numerous surahs, what makes them think there are correct in even

> more difficult issues? Why talk about purifying Islam when the

> unsurpassed beauty of His Holy Qur'an regarding the Resurrection

> has been mutilated beyond recognition by the same people?

>

 

 

BY Hamza Yusaf

 

Muslims were seen rejoicing in some parts of the world in a display

of what can only be called shamaatatul 'aadai', which is rejoicing at

the calamities of ones' enemies. This is something explicitly

prohibited in Islam and was never practiced by the Prophet of Mercy,

upon him be prayers and peace. We have seen images since of American

flags burning to further arouse the wrath of a nation filled with

grief, confusion and anger. Again, Islam prohibits the burning of

flags according to the explicit verse, " Do not curse [the idols]

of those who call on other than Allah, thus causing them to curse

Allah out of animosity [toward you] and without knowledge. " This

verse prohibits even the cursing of false gods because of the

consequences. We have also seen image after image of Muslims with

beards and turbans, who by all outward means look religious and

pious - but are they really?

 

Unfortunately, the West does not know what every Muslim scholar

knows; that the worst enemies of Islam are from within. The worst of

these are the khawaarij who delude others by the deeply dyed

religious exterior that they project. The Prophet, peace be upon him,

said about them, " When you see them pray you will consider your

own prayers insignificant. They recite the Quran but it does not

exceed the limits of their throat. " In other words, they don't

understand the true meanings. The outward religious appearance and

character of the khawaarij deluded thousands in the past, and

continues to delude people today. The Muslims should be aware that

despite the khawaarij adherence to certain aspects of Islam, they are

extremists of the worst type.

 

Our Prophet said, peace be upon him, " Beware of extremism in your

religion. " Islam is the middle way between excess and neglect.

Zealots are a plague upon religion. These extremists come in two

types. The first is a reactionary extremist who falls far right of a

centre-point. Reactionary extremists do not want any pluralism; they

view the world in melodramatic, black and white, good and evil terms.

They are good and anyone who opposes them is evil. From among the

Muslims these are people who `excommunicate' any Muslim who

fails to share their interpretations of the Quran. They use takfir

and character assassination as a tool for marginalising any criticism

directed at them. They are used often by the Western media in order

to scare simple people and cause them to believe that Muslims are

insane. Unfortunately, our communities provide them with much fuel to

fire their incendiary flames.

 

The second group are radical extremists, who while they are almost

identical with the former group, differ in that they will use

violence to further their cause. They are actually worse than the

first. They believe like every nefarious secret society before them

that `the end justifies the means.' They see any act as

acceptable if it will further their `cause.' This is blatantly

anti-Islamic for a number of reasons.

 

Firstly, Islam's means must reflect its noble ends. Any means

that does not embody the core truths and ethics of Islam is not from

Islam and thus denounced as aberration. Secondly, Islam is not a

secret society of conspirators who no one knows what they are

planning. Islam declares openly its aims and objectives and these are

recognised by good people everywhere as pure and congruent with their

own wisdom and traditions. In the case of many of these extremists

even the non-Muslims recognise that no religion of any weight could

sanction the taking of innocent lives. The Quran says that the Torah

and the Gospel have guidance and light and that the Quran came to

fulfil these prior dispensations. Good Christians and Jews who

believe in God and live ethically upright lives have no frame of

reference for such acts, so how could these acts be from Islam, which

confirms what has come before it?

 

Thirdly, they are invariably people who have never taken a true

spiritual path to God and nor have they studied the humanities. I can

almost guarantee that you will not find a scholar of poetry among the

whole vile lot of these people. They have no true knowledge of

Arabian culture, which is centred in the idea of futuwwa; a word akin

to the western word chivalry. The terrorists posing as journalists

who killed Ahmad Shah Masuud were cowards of the worst type. Killing

themselves was not bravery but stupidity, but killing one's enemy

in such a way is the worst form of treachery and the Arabs have many

poems denouncing such type of people.

 

Our real situation is this: we Muslims have lost theologically sound

understanding of our teaching. Islam has been hijacked by a discourse

of anger and the rhetoric of rage. We have allowed for too long our

mimbars to become bully pulpits in which people with often

recognisable psychopathology use anger - a very powerful emotion - to

rile Muslims up, only to leave them feeling bitter and spiteful

towards people who in the most part are completely unaware of the

conditions in the Muslim world, or the oppressive assaults of some

Western countries on Muslim peoples. We have lost our bearings

because we have lost our theology. We have almost no theologians in

the entire Muslim world. The study of kalaam, once the hallmark of

our intellectual tradition, has been reduced to memorizing 144 lines

of al-Jawhara and a good commentary to study it, at best.

 

The reality is we are an Umma that no longer realises that Allah is

the power behind all power; that it is Allah who subjugates one

people to another; that He gives dominion to whom He pleases and He

takes it away from whom He pleases. Our understanding of tawhid has

fallen into such disarray that we can no longer introspect when

afflictions befall us and then wonder in amazement at why the

Americans seem incapable of introspection. Indeed, I personally

attended a memorial service in San Francisco with over 30,000 people

and the Reverend Amos Brown said in no uncertain terms that America

must ask herself what she has done either wittingly or unwittingly to

incur the wrath and hate of people around the world. Muslims on the

other hand, generally prefer to attack the West as the sole reason

for their problems when the truth is we are bankrupt as a religious

community and our spiritual bankruptcy has led to our inability to

even deliver the message of Islam to Westerners in a time when they

were giving us platforms to do so.

 

It is ironic that the Western media while producing many vile

programs on Islam has also produced and aired material of the highest

quality with a high level of accuracy only to be vilified by Muslims

because it was not good enough. Where is our media? Where are our

spokespeople? Where are our scholars? Where are our literary figures?

The truth is we don't have any - and so instead of looking inward

and asking painful questions such as why we don't have such things

and such people, we take the simple way out by attacking people whom

Allah tells us will do mean things, say bad things and plot against

us. And always when we are warned we are told to be patient, to work

for the good, to trust in Allah, to return to Allah, to implement our

deen.

 

Conspiracy or not, we are to blame for the terrible backlash against

Muslims. The simple reason is that when a crazy Christian does

something terrible, everyone in the West knows it is the actions of a

mad man because they have some knowledge of the core beliefs and

ethics of Christianity. When a mad Muslim does something evil or

foolish they assume it is from the religion of Islam, not because

they hate us but because they have never been told by a Muslim what

the teachings of Islam are all about.

 

Hamza Yusaf

http://www.chowk.com/