New Literature for a New Era

For those of us who have been spared this harrowing situation by God, it is difficult to comprehend what it is to physically experience these conditions and to do so in many instances for generations – almost as if these people know of nothing else.

Authoritarianism in all its manifestations is appalling and horrendous. And it is directly opposed to all that Islam teaches.

But it seems to be the common fate of Muslims around the world. And the only thing that seems to vary is the degree to which it prevails throughout the Muslim world.

But no matter how much it may vary in degree, authoritarianism is still the same. And it is despicable and reprehensible.

It runs counter to the very nature as it were of what we are made of as human beings. The human mind and spirit find it difficult to cope with negative comments and criticism far less being told at every step what to do, what to think, and what you can and cannot do.

And being forced to accept whatever is given to you in-spite of the inequity and injustice and oppression that surround you from every direction.

To live a life where you have to stay quiet and conform, or be afraid for your life and that of your relatives and associates, is no life at all, regardless of the form and nature of the threats that are directed at you.

So Allah bless those in the so-called Middle East who are fighting with their lives in a real and direct way for their basic rights and freedoms. Things which we in the West take for granted.

These are rights and freedoms which we in the Western part of the world have become accustomed to and expect.

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• We are not prisoners of a narrow view of what people call religion, but we look at Islam the way the Qur’an presents it to us and how God Almighty suggests what Islam really is, and how Prophet Muhammad, sallahu alahi wa sallam, showed us what it is.
• Islam and the laws of nature, and universe.
• Human beings subject to the laws of God.
• Different levels, forms and phases of Islam.
• Freedom of choice to believe or reject belief in God Almighty.
• Oxymoron in trying to prove the existence of God.
• Why you can’t prove the existence of God – because God is whose existence you can’t prove.
• The essence of a democratic way of life.
• No Islam without democracy, democracy is God’s way.
• There is compulsion on one-side and this is freedom and choice on the other side and that is Islam.
• The devil’s successful lie, that Muslims don’t believe in choice.
• God has made it a level playing field.
• The Lie from the devil putting the blame on the women.
• Divine instruments installed in us to protect ourselves from untruth and the devil.
• The devil’s first lie.
• Recovering from colonial domination; Africa, Americas, India, Arab World, Iran…
• Generation after generation, brutality of dictatorship.
• Suddenly the Egyptian nation woke up.

When God wants something to happen, he just says “Be!” and it happens.

That is the ultimate Rule by Decree.

It is Rule by Royal Fiat.

That is because God is King.

And that is because God is the Owner and the Master and the Maker of all things and beings.

But People must rule not through fiat or dictate or edict, but through consent.

They must rule by the Consent of the People.

People must run their affairs, from family and friendship networks, to government and society and business, using nothing but mutual consultation, debate, deliberation and discussion.

That is Islam.

In Islam, the only acceptable form of government is Government of the People by the People.

The current turmoil in the Middle East is not about jobs and bread. It is about the fight of the people of the Middle East for their basic humanity, liberty and dignity.

And Middle East will be free from its Colonial masters and their native stooges and proxies, when the people of the “Middle East” will rise up, as they are doing now, and will get rid of all their tyrants, military or hereditary or civil.

The Middle East will be free when its people are able to start their life over in a transparent, tranquil, peaceful and fair and democratic political structure with freedom, justice, equal rights and dignity for all.

And when, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, every Middle Eastern man, woman and child will reclaim their basic and “inalienable rights,” with which each and every single one of them is “endowed by their creator.”

But when we make ourselves blind to injustice and deaf to truth, and play dumb when we must speak out, then the world catches up with us and God’s justice takes its own course.

As someone said:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
but then there was no one left to speak out for me.

We saw 80 million men, women and children of Egypt hurting under the heel of Tyranny for 30 long years. We did not speak out, even though our speech was given by God the power to change the world.

We heard their screams of pain under 30 years of military, emergency and police dictatorship of the most brutal kind, and we did not speak out, even though our speaking out would have put an end to the suffering of these forgotten millions.

Or at least made a dent in it.

We knew of the torture chambers of Egypt, and Tunisia, and Morocco, and Algeria – and a whole range of other places – and we decided no one will notice.

And we went to our churches and mosques and synagogues and temples and tried to pull wool over God’s eyes through mumbo jumbo we thought were our prayers.

Congratulations, Egypt!

Men and women of Egypt!

Innocent tiny little tots of Egypt!

Young and old youth of Egypt!

Muslims and Christians of Egypt!

Congratulations to you all!

And may God shower you all with his love and grace!

And he has done so already, indeed. For, you are the blessed of our time!

And what you have done will bless our world.

For, you laid your lives on the line, so the world can breathe a whiff of liberty and sip a taste of justice in these perverse times dominated by Injustice and marked by Tyranny.

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• Salaam encompasses all that is good in this world.
• Islam is eternal – from God. So why all the different versions of Islam?
• The role of the Messengers of God
• The Quran is the yard stick by which the World lives yet Muslims are sitting on the Qur’an like a snake on a treasure.
• The Revealed Books
• The Qur’an validates, verifies, and comes to the rescue of other people’s culture, scripture and their “religious teachings”.
• Truth about Jesus in the Qur’an
• What chance does the story of the Birth of Jesus have of being accepted in the world?
• If you’re a human being you should take care of your body, family, community/ society in which you live, it doesn’t matter if they are Hindus, Jews or Christians.
• The demonisation of Muslims by the media
• Egypt’s Revolution – the Egyptian people’s fight for basic rights.

The unfolding Egyptian Revolution – as of February 6, 2011 – is a new dawn of hope for humanity.

This revolution has given birth to a new free nation under God and to a brave new people in God’s calculus of Freedom and Dignity.

And it has given the world a new Egypt – free, fearless and forward-looking.

The prayers and best wishes of civilized, decent and right-thinking people everywhere – men, women and children; Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians and others – are with the brave and indomitable Egyptian People in their struggle for liberty, dignity and justice for themselves and for their country and society.

The Egyptian Revolution is not a demand for bread or jobs. It is not a fight for passing political and economic gains for specific groups or individuals.

This is a most blessed fight to the finish, at its most fundamental and comprehensive levels, for freedom and for the inalienable right of people everywhere to their Most Basic Human and Civil Freedoms and Dignities.

Abe and Abdul are two nice blokes in quest of enlightenment. They have an uncanny inability to keep their mouth shut when doing so may well be what the doctor would have ordered. How bright they are individually, or what the sum total of their combined brightness is, could be anybody’s guess. There are times when either one of them could substitute for anyone of us, which is both exhilarating and scary at the same time.

There are many Non-Muslims who clearly understand how those dictators in Muslim lands are thieves and crooks, and how they brutalize the People and pillage and squander their wealth.

And how in many cases they are doing the bidding of their foreign masters and mentors to the detriment of the genuine interests and needs of their own people, nations, societies and region.

Now it seems Allah is getting rid of some of these dictators and tyrants on his own.

Out of the blue sky, as they say.

Miracles of cataclysmic social and political change are sweeping what the Colonial Masters and their dutiful slaves call the “Middle East,” right before our eyes.

Everybody else can see that – including many non-Muslims. Why can’t the Muslims?

I suspect, Allah will judge us, not so much by where our bodies were, in the mosque or in the market.

But more perhaps by where our hearts were, with the Tyrants or with the People.