First of all thank you very much for being so encouraging about my efforts so far. I take this opportunity to present my views, thoughts and hence the perspective of the crisis which are facing as Muslims today.
Today, definitely our religion is the most hated one in this world and being a Muslim it hurts more and we feel sorry for the fellow Muslim who has to go through all this now. Having said that I would also like to add here that most of the problems which we face are self-invited as we have never bothered to look deep into our religion and understand the philosophy well.
This humiliation is because the religion which we received through the presence of holy prophet is not the religion which is being followed everywhere. There is a huge gap between what was given and what the ummah has taken. We never bother to read the holy Quran and ponder upon the ayahs. In order to understand the philosophy in fact most of the Muslims, and for that matter, even the educated Muslims are dependent on Maulvis and clerics.
Muslims today want to follow the religion to perfection, but because of lack of guidance they don’t have the understanding. This I believe is the root cause of terrorism, as clerics or a maulvis can easily make them their prey and misguide the youth through distorting and misrepresenting the verses of Quran, the way it happened at Hotel Taj in Mumbai, where the terrorist was a young boy of 17. This does not mean that one should not read it and ponder upon the ayahs. In fact I feel that if we strive on our own and try to read and ponder upon the ayahs we can develop the understanding and guide youth of the Muslim world. That would be a great service.
Yes, we claim that we love the holy prophet, but our actions speak otherwise. We have chosen the wrong leaders who misguide ummah and that makes things even worst. If we compare ourselves with the rest of the world, we would find that Muslims, no matter in which part of the world, want to practice their religion well. That is our faith and I think it should be that way. But in the process if we are misguided, then even if we don’t wish we could do more harm than good. In such a case a good religious awakening is the need of the hour.
The word Jihad has been used in Quran for 44 times, and it means striving but which is always misunderstood and misrepresented. The best example of Jihad was given by the household of holy prophet when Imam Husain (A. S) was martyred in Karbala. It gives the lesson of patience, love and compassion. In his army there were Hindu Brahmins (Ref:“The Vision of India”, Historian Sisir Kumar Mitra, P 183) and even Christian who lost their lives protecting the religion. This gives the message of humanity and universal brotherhood. But again nobody knows this and the worst part is that Muslims have reduced Karbala as a political war.
How I hope that Muslims understand what Jihad means by reading more about Karbala and that way many would be saved from getting astray.
Our holy prophet (pbuh) has said that for the sake of education go as far as China if needed. He also said that he is the city of knowledge and Ali is the gate. Thus he has shown the importance of gaining knowledge but the saddest part of our religion is the people have forgotten this and Talibans have got all the power to destroy schools which imparts knowledge to girls. Yes, Talibans are the problem, if we educate the youth in understanding what the holy prophet (pbuh) and Ali (pbuh) has said we may create some difference here.
The household of prophet (pbuh) is the knowledge centre so if we follow their teachings we can make our world a much better place and hereafter would also be good. Yes I agree that want for a good hereafter in isolation without working for a successful and meaningful world is a wishful thinking. If we understand the religion from the right source we can do well for our both the worlds.
The problems which the Muslim world is facing today like Feudalism, Child abuse, atrocities towards girls and more, were prevalent in Arab world in the pre-Islamic era; In fact the religion was revealed to fight this menace out of the society. We feel really sorry that we have not imbibed the true teachings of religion i.e. Quran and Sunnah and we are merely claiming that we love prophet (pbuh). If we really love him things would change in the Muslim world.
The problem of corruption and bad governance is prevalent everywhere in Muslim world. And it is an irony that a UN Secretary had shown us, the Muslim world, how the good governance can be conducted by citing Hazrat Ali (A.S) words. Mr. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary has said ‘The words of Ali Ibn Abi Talib, “O Malik! The people are either brothers in religion or your equal in creation” must be adhered to by organizations and it is a statement that all humanity must embrace.’
In fact UN Legal committee members voted that the order of Hazrat Ali (A.S) to Malik al Ashtar (Ref: NahjulBalagha, letter 53) should be considered as one of the sources of International Law.
My idea of this series of articles is to bring in-front, with logical reasoning and authentic hadiths, the true meaning of the book. I know that people might agree might not agree with whatever I am saying. But if I am able to inspire them to start pondering over the teachings and ayahs; I think a good awakening can be created. I feel that Islam cannot be removed from the heart of a Muslim and hence it is important for him to understand the religious philosophy well, failing which we might prove Mr.George Bernard Shaw right as he has famously said “Islam is the best religion but the Muslims are its worst followers.”
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