Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Muslims Need Unity Not Uniformity!

It is not very often that one comes across words of such profound wisdom that it makes one stop instantly to ponder deeply at what has been just said. The realization then dawns that it is so very true and you probably thought about it all the time but just failed to put the same in words.

This is what happened when I recently heard Imam Suhaib Webb use this phrase, 'Muslims need unity, not uniformity'. Now Suhaib Webb is kind of a new discovery for me. He is one of those Americans who had a hard time during his childhood and discovered Islam as a youth, got so fascinated by it that spend time some where in the Middle East; in his case Al-Azhar of Egypt (where he still is); to learn more about Islam and is now a full fledged scholar sharing and teaching Islam with the people of America.

Muslims should realize that Islam doesn't present a very rigid framework of dos and don'ts as one would tend to think or believe but is in fact a very vibrant and dynamic system which always never has one absolutely right option to choose. The Islamic law is a wide spectrum which lies within the allowed but yet has multitude of differences. Muslims can and should beg to differ on various contentious issues and work with wisdom and deep contemplation every time they face a problem.

Now there is a bit of more understanding to do. The traditional sources of Islam, i.e. The Quran, Muslim's Holy Book and the life of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) shall always remain the primary and most basic sources of guidance to which Muslims will turn to for help when ever they have a life option to make. This probably means they wouldn't go the Christian way who now seem so far away from what Christianity originally taught, though such can be feared with Islam too with the advent of so many so called "liberals', 'moderates' or 'reformists' who in their attempt to set things straight deviate so much from the real spirit of the faith.

Coming back to our point, Muslims need to staunchly unite on theological basis on which there is no chance to budge. Islam offers pretty straight forward concepts on life, God, life after death, prohibitions and obligations, etc which Muslims have to comply with. But apart from that come hundreds of issues where in it cannot be expected from more than a billion people to act in the same manner, more so to be in uniformity with how Muslims lived for all these centuries. With the advent of globalization, easy travel and the spread of Islam to every corner of the world, Muslims have to come to terms with not only geographical and cultural differences but also the differences arising from the war of ideas.

How can one think today that there should be standing on common grounds in terms of say dress, food, language or societal makeup. Each of these have guidance from the traditional sources of course, but it can never so happen that there is absolute uniformity among all Muslims around the world on these issues. These are mere outwardly things. Imagine ideas and concepts. There can always be so much of debate and in the end there definitely is freedom in what opinion you adopt and surely you can be different from the others.

Muslims should learn to marvel sometimes in the diversity they adopt, while professing absolute, unrelenting and uniform faith. These should become points of extensive academic contemplation and research. There should always be rethinking on how you adopt to new challenges and how you gel with changing times to establish new patterns. Come to think of issues like democracy, global warming, poverty alleviation, education, birth control, insurance, internet and social networking, etc. All these are very intimidating problems for the Muslim scholars and it requires significant academic exercise to find solutions for. But we should eventually learn that we need to respect emergent differences on geographical and periodical basis that arise from such exercise. There should be freedom to adopt changing rulings based on the various parameters and requirements. An example to elucidate might be that birth control can be prohibited, partially allowed or completely allowed based on multiple factors and differences can still exist in different parts of the Muslim world.

Muslims should learn to realize the reality of such differences and learn to live with them but at the same time bind with each other world wide in a common bubble of brotherhood. Your differences should raise the esteem of the one you differ from and his right for the same be respected and at the same time every effort be made to avoid intolerance from cringing up, which in reality is the actual vice plaguing the Muslim world arising from such differences.

Newer times bring in newer problems and we as an Ummah* should rise to the occasion to not just relate with them and find solutions to them but also offer the same solution to the people of the world. This can form a very crucial and beneficial aspect of dawah* too. Muslims should learn to recreate the lost glory of its predecessors instead of just bragging about Islam's rich and resplendent history. Think of it. We have failed miserably to continue the torch of enlightenment which the Muslims had lit centuries ago and are now languishing in a heap of misery which is our own doing or quite ironically, undoing.


Ummah: The followers of The Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him)
Dawah: Invitation to Islam

Friday, August 14, 2009

MUSINGS

He was not alone, but there was no communication among the nearly fifty people in the dimly lit hall. There was stillness in the air. It was still pitch dark outside on the chilly November night and that meant nearly no sound of moving traffic. An occasional cough or a new person entering would be heard and a slight fidgeting movement observed. But there was no silence either. The continuous intonation going on in the background touched his ears often but the meaning of all of it was obscure. His eyes shifted from the vivid designs on the mat on which he was standing to empty void and his mind wandered into aimless random musings…

‘When no amount of remorse helps... When repentance is overwhelmed by sin… Wow! What a thought. Wonder how many people go through that? Many may be. Well isn't it obvious, every body’s life has loopholes somewhere or the other. It’s so difficult to see a perfect human being, whatever that means. Or perhaps it is capricious to imagine such a possibility. Capricious? Is that the right usage? It means wishful thinking though. The country does not run on wishful thinking but that is what the bloody politicians are trying to do all the time. The only thing that can free the people from their leaders’ evil and avaricious bondage is a good education. And a good education is hard to find. In fact the entire education system is going down the drains.

But what great have well educated societies achieved? One thing they have probably learned is to challenge everything around them. And this way they have produced people who challenged even the good things, taking the entire value system for a ride. Adultery is fine as long as it involves two consenting partners. Whoa! Where is the world going to? Human rights are important only when it comes to dealing with the guilty. Wait a minute. May be a little change in the pattern of thinking is required. More important is not what people act or do or think. Whether they are right or wrong is inconsequential. More important to me is me, I! ‘Khudi mein doob kar pa ja surag e zindagi; Tu agar mera nahi banta na ban apna to ban!’ Iqbal. That guy was great.

While reading about a lady called Ismat Chughtai, described as a path breaking novelist in Urdu fiction writing, I learned that she achieved instant success. I should have guessed why? Her writing is way ahead of its time. Can you believe it? At a time when Urdu itself seems to be sinking, there is this lady here who has fans even in the western literary circles. And why should that be. Oh yes! One of her novels deals with female sexuality and lesbianism in a seemingly conservative society like the Indian sub-continent. Easy isn’t it.

More often it has been the introverted creative humans who tend to break the norms. That’s the reason why artists or poets become famous for their bold and custom defying take on issues. M.F Hussain? Deepa Mehta? Isn’t it the same with the lovers?The best love today is when the lover commits shirk towards the object of his affection. One of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s most famous song has lyrics like, ‘tera naam loon zubaan pe, tere aage sar jhuka doon; mera ishq keh raha hai, mein tujhe khuda bana doon’. Straight shirk!

But what is more important is the spirit. Take for instance a man praying. What is the use if his prayer becomes a mere physical one and there is no spirit behind it? If he is not able to alienate himself from the world around him and control his mind, as if he is in communication with God? That is more important rather than the monotonous exercise of an explicitly physical prayer. People get fiercely agitated if for example someone desecrates the Quran. But they have never understood what the Quran really wants to say in the first place! Isn’t that a bigger blasphemy of the book? A sin in itself?

Reminds me of Se7en. People should watch that movie. The seven deadly sins! The allegory to Dante’s ‘the Divine Comedy’ is excellent. I don’t know if the use of the word allegory here is correct. I will have to check on that. The seven deadly sins, Gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and wrath! What do I suffer from? Lust? Man. I should have kissed Salma that day. What an opportunity. I will never know if she would have agreed. But I know she kind of liked me. She was a different girl. Nobody could ever guess her. But may be me. May be I understood her. I think had a chance. She was not beautiful but she had something in her that made her a whole lot attractive. Why am I thinking about her now? Whenever I remember her I don’t miss musing, ‘did I save myself committing a sin?’

Robin Sharma was right. Nobody ever regrets ever having done a good thing when one is lying on his death bed. And the contrary? Having committed a wrong thing, a sin? Yes. May be a lot too. But I have no idea how much that matters. May be it does. May be I should start trying to become a good person. What does it take to do that?Remorse? Repentance? Whatever. What lies in my future? The only thing certain is death! Everything else looks so bleak, and so ambiguous.

That story about the two sisters was great. One of them got really close to this guy she met on the internet and was contemplating meeting him…’

‘Allah-u-akbar’, he heard the imam and the congregation went into ruku.