New Literature for a New Era

Believers of the world unite!

Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims and others! Let all of us unite to do something together: something all of which is good and none of which is bad.

Let us all come together to jointly celebrate the World Day of God 2011 on this Eidul Adha, 1432.

“Islam is doing what everyone of us must do — or has undertaken to do: over and over and over.

It is part of our Focus — which is one of the best defintions of Islam.

And of Iman.

Islam is Focus.

And Iman is Focus.

Haneefan and Hunafaa’ are the expressions the Qur’an uses to capture the idea of Focus.

While Muslims must remind each other of our duties and responsibilities, the best and most powerful reminders are the ones that come from inside.

Often it is routine work.

But that is what Islam is — for the most part.

Islam is routine work.

And as for reminding each other, that is what we are supposed to do.

Dhakkir, says the Qur’an: “Remind them!”

For, reminders will help the good guys.

They will help the believers.

As for those who do not believe, nothing helps them.” (Dr. Pasha)

“Human beings are body and soul.

Body is what you see; soul is what is inside the body, invisible to the naked eye.

The body craves food, drink and medicine and must be fed and catered to with some regularity.

Pangs of hunger in humans are well known and acted upon with alacrity by those concerned.

But what most people don’t understand is that the soul too hungers and thirsts for nourishment.

And it has ailments that must be attended to.

But its cries are heard by few and responded to even less.

As a result, most human beings carry around in their often pampered and well-fed bodies souls that are emaciated, starved or diseased.

The results then show up in all kinds of unsavory ways – for individuals; for societies; and for the entire world.

Then all of those who never paid timely attention to the sick and dilapidated souls in and around them cry out in a chorus: Annaa Haadha?

That is Qur’an for:

“Why?

Why is this happening to us?

And how did we get to be in this sorry state of affairs?”

Yaa hasratan ‘alal ‘ibaad, says God Almighty in the Qur’an, as if in reply.

What a pity, humans should have reached this terrible state!” (Dr. Pasha)

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Nothing is more amazing in this world than a believer who is sustained by God’s Love.

Let me explain how.

“When a believer looks at God, I mean when he thinks or contemplates about God, he thinks his life is forever.

But when he looks at this world, he knows that his life hangs in the most delicate and dynamic balance of a dizzy whirl of a billion variables from minute to minute and from second to micro- and millisecond.

So a believer learns to scale his life and his priorities accordingly.

And his life then becomes a perfect balance of rights and responsibilities.

As a result, a believer discharges his duties, and fulfils his obligations, to friend and foe alike, and to humans and non-humans alike, as if he had but maybe seconds to live.

But he leaves his rewards in the safe and secure hands of his master – God Almighty.

And he rests comfortably in the safe and secure knowledge that what is his by divine dispensation will also be his in actuality. 

And what was meant to reach him in this world will never miss him, no matter who gets in the way or tries to stop it.

A believer never surrenders his rights, no matter how seemingly insurmountable the odds against him, for he knows his rights are given to him by his maker and master, God Almighty, and not by fellow-human beings like himself.

Nor does a believer allow the rights of anyone else to be denied or diminished, for he knows all rights, his as well as everyone else’s, come from God and it is his God-given duty to cherish and protect them and to strive tirelessly to secure them for himself as well as for all others.

Yet, at the same time, a believer’s struggle for his rights is most cultured, compassionate and dignified, for, he knows that the one who gave him his rights will also make sure to deliver them to him.

As a result, a believer’s struggle for those God-given rights – life, liberty, property, family, human dignity, freedom of belief, freedom of expression and such – both for himself and for everyone else in this world, is persistent and fearless.

For, a believer reads in the Qur’an, which is God’s word in his hand, and in this world, and in the universe, that God does not change the condition of a people unless they themselves work to change it.

As a human being, a believer loves Liberty more than he loves Life, just as the American revolutionary Patrick Henry once said it as eloquently and forcefully as perhaps any man can ever say it: “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!”

And as the Bible quotes the indomitable Moses, Prophet and Messenger of God, may God bless him, as saying it to no less a tyrant than Pharaoh who not only considered himself the greatest king on earth, but also God: “Let My People Go!”

But a believer respects, loves, and celebrates life as a very special gift and trust from God, not just for himself but for all of God’s creation, both human and non-human.

Such a man is mortal to the extent all creation must drink inevitably from the decreed cup of mortality. But his life, legacy and impact on the world are forever, for, he is moved by the Spirit of God that God breathed in him when he created him.

Such a man is indestructible, unbreakable.

For, as someone once said it:

• You send him in exile, you turn him into a tourist on the endless expanse of God’s earth;
• You lock him up in jail, you make it possible for him to be in never-ending tete-a-tete with his Creator;
• Or you kill him, and thereby you confer upon him the priceless blessing of martyrdom and send him directly to paradise where he lives forever in eternal bliss in the presence of God Almighty.

Indeed, how different is the world of a believer who knows, understands, and believes, and cares, from the world of a non-believer who neither knows, nor understands, nor believes, nor cares.

And what an enchanted and impregnable and radiant and self-sustaining world it is!

Directly in the hand of God Almighty.

May God bless such a believer and those he loves and teaches, and whose lives he touches!” (Dr. Pasha)

“But it is hard: ignoring reality and going by some ideas in a book.

It is hard but it needs to be done.

It is in our interest, and it is in the interest of the world, to do so.

And then there is another thing: That Book, the Qur’an, is also a part of our reality.

In fact, that book is much more real than anything and everything that we consider to be real in this world.

Empirically speaking, there perhaps never was a better system of belief and behaviour than Islam.

Nor was there perhaps a worse set of its exemplars and spokespeople than modern-day Muslims.

So, the burden falls on those outside the fold of Islam to look past the Muslims and evaluate Islam on the basis of what Islam itself really teaches and promotes and claims to be.

And they are most fortunate in this respect, I mean the non-Muslims.

And so are Muslim peripheralists and borderliners who may have been born into Islam, but who may then have drifted away from Islam and Muslims in later life.

For, they have available to them the original word of God in the Qur’an – pure and unadulterated.

They do not need to depend on hearsay or cultural accretions and traditions, but they all can go directly to the pure and pristine teachings of the Qur’an.

At the same time, they also have available to them the unadulterated words and deeds of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, in the Hadith.

In the form of raw data and basic facts.

And, both the Qur’an and the Hadith are more reliable, more authentic and more true than any other material they would be able to lay their eyes upon, whether that is a newspaper; a magazine; a popular or scholarly book or journal; a historic document; a computer output of some description; or just about anything else in this world.

So, non-Muslims, as well as Muslim peripheralists and borderliners, must look past the somewhat less than ideal Muslim reality of today at the original purity and higher reality of the Qur’an and the Hadith and make their reasoned and pragmatic choices – about life and about Islam – based on them.  

In this way, they will not only choose and act wisely in this world, but they will also open themselves to divine grace and blessings to come pouring down on them from Heaven.” (Dr. Pasha)

“Sometimes those working for Allah may wonder why we have to keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Why, they may ask themselves, do we keep working so hard and see such minimal results.

Why do we all follow the same old style of doing things, they may say?

Why do we, they could ask themselves, for example:

• Keep on preparing and distributing literature the way we do;
• Keep on producing the same old-fashioned audio and video and computer material;
• Keep on designing and populating the websites the same old-fashioned way;
• And keep on doing everything as it was done over 1000 years ago?

And why do we, they could say for example, keep on trying to:

• Reach out to people;
• Invite them to Allah;
• Give them the message of Islam;
• Answer the same old questions over and over;
• Show them the miracles of the Qur’an;
• And try to share with them the joy, beauty and practicality of the teachings of Islam?

And it is perfectly normal and natural for them to feel and wonder about things in this way and to ask these questions of themselves and others.

After all, they are human beings – are they not? – even though they have chosen to be in the special category of those who have dedicated their lives to work for Allah and to serve his creation without asking for anything in return.

As for results, regardless of whether those results are a lot or a little, I will leave that question for another day. But I do want to make clear the role of seemingly dull and redundant routine activity in Islam and in nature.

Sheer repetitivity.

While in many ways things in the world change and evolve, by and large the universe is a giant amalgam of mini and mega structures and processes that pretty much perform the same routine functions repetitively, over and over, billions of times.

I wish someone would tell me how many times a human heart pumps blood during the course of a 60-year life span – all the same way.

Or how many times the sun rises and sets the same way in a 1000-year period.

And how I wish some learned scholar of Islam will explain to me how the way of doing prayers (Salaat) has changed in Islam over the past 1400 years, because it has not.

Not even an iota.

Because even today Salaat or Islamic Prayer is the same old process of:

• Making intention;
• Facing Ka’abah in Makkah;
• Standing upright;
• Making intention;
• Reciting from the Qur’an;
• Bending from the waist;
• Prostrating halfway;
• Sitting on bended knees;
• Chanting all the prayers and chants;
• And turning left and right to say to the whole world on each side:
• “God Bless You!”
• “God Bless You!”

Isn’t that how the Salaat or Prayer has gone on since the time of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, 14 long centuries ago?

Isn’t that how it has been repeated, day after day, night after night, and in place after place, in what is perhaps the greatest ongoing and living miracle of all time, for all these one thousand four hundred years – the way Muslims perform their daily prayers called Salaat?

Isn’t that in itself a most amazing miracle that anyone can see with their own eyes anywhere, anytime?

So why should those working for Allah, at any time or in any place, complain or feel bad about the constancy of their method, or the invariance of their message, or the redundancy of what they do in the path of Allah?

For, their message is eternal and immortal.

And it is simplicity itself: God is one and Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, is God’s messenger and prophet.

That message never changes.

That is how it has been and that is how it shall be – till the end of time.

And repeating it is what keep the world going.

And their method is the best that anyone can devise: purity of motives and intentions on the one hand and, on the other hand, utilization of means and methods that are the best and finest and noblest in the entire world.

That approach to the choice of methods does not change either.

So, why should a message and a method like that ever change?

Or how can those with a message and a methodology like that ever fail or falter?

For their message and method has the same constancy and durability as the rising of the sun in the sky and the leaping and splashing of the waves in the ocean.

And their success also is just as assured as the rising of the sun in the sky and the soaring of the waves in the ocean and the blowing of the winds between heaven and earth.”

Wa Lan Tajida Lisunnatillahi Tabdeela, says God Almighty in the Qur’an.

Paraphrase: You shall not find Allah’s way changing or faltering.” (Dr. Pasha)

“Time was when most Muslims used to worry about their Islamic Identity.

Islam, interpreted in a very broad, inclusive and proactive sense, defined who the Muslims were; what they did; and what some of their fundamental orientations and priorities in life were.

Muslims were by and large grateful, happy and proud that God’s mercy had rescued them from their mindless enslavement to narrow and often pagan tribal, ethnic, regional, linguistic, nationalistic and materialistic identities of the past – what the Qur’an calls “Jaahiliyyah” – and given them instead an overarching new identity of global and timeless dimensions of the kind that no one can imagine and nothing can rival, and called it “Muslim.”

It was he, God said in the Qur’an, who gave you, the Muslims, the new identity of “Muslimeen.” 

Huwa sammaakumul Muslimeen, is how the Qur’an phrased this fact.

Paraphrase: “It was he who gave you the name Muslims.”

And that glorious and comprehensive new identity, and a faithful and robust adherence to its implications and responsibilities on the part of Muslims for generations, took the Muslims – and the world – from one success, achievement, glory and joyous experience to another.

And it served them well for one glorious century after another for a very long period of time.

But Muslims, being human, began to get weary and confused about their divinely conferred identity of “Muslim.” And they started craving a new outlook on life.

They began to secretly covet some of the excitement and fun that other people around them, many of them non-Muslims, seem to be having.

“Why can’t we be like all these other people,” they asked themselves, “because they seem to be having so much fun?”

And they began to act a little bit like the Jews had acted with Moses, may God bless him, after he had rescued them from captivity in Egypt.

The Jews had remained more or less devoted to the worship of one God even during slavery in Egypt.

But freshly saved from bondage by Musa, Alaihis Salaam, and free to roam the earth without fear of persecution, they saw how the pagan communities around them worshipped all kinds of idols.

And the Jews then said to Moses, God bless him: “Moses, can you make some gods for us to worship, as these other people have their own idols to worship?”

And then God’s punishment overtook them.

So, the Muslims too walked down the same path of stark idolatry and Shirk and Kufr that Jews did after their miraculous escape from the tyrannical clutches of the Pharaoh. 

Buffeted by winds of rapid change around them, demoralized by repeated military and political setbacks, and yet, paradoxically, overtaken and dazzled by the instantaneous flooding of their coffers with incalculable new wealth, many of them started looking for ways to replace or graft their divine “Muslim” identity with all kinds of other Arab and non-Arab identities.

While some Muslims did all this fairly crudely and blatantly, some others did it with a great deal of subtlety and sophistication.

But by and large, the farther and faster the Muslims wandered off from their God-given identity of “Muslim” – and from their commitment to human equality and universal peace and justice inherent in their Muslim character and tradition – and re-embraced old Pagan (Jaahiliyy) values and identities based on the blind worship of race, ethnicity, language, tribe and territory, and the parochialisms and fanaticisms associated with them, from which God had miraculously rescued them, the more decidedly did God Almighty pry away from their dying hands the sceptre of leadership that he had given them and condemned and cursed many of them to a life of humiliation, shame, dishonour and helplessness.

Everyone could see it except the misguided Muslims themselves.

The Qur’an summarizes this state of Fall from Grace in two words: Dhillah and Maskanah – humiliation and lowliness.

As time went by, every passing day brought evermore flagrant new evidence of Muslims in different parts of the world trying to break away from the identity of “Muslim” that Islam conferred upon them and seeking refuge, glory and honour – ‘Izzat, as the Qur’an calls it – in the same old Pagan ways, culture, connections and identity of race, territory and tribe from which God had so miraculously set them free 1400 years ago.

And the Qur’an clearly warns – And how sad and terrible and hopeless that warning sounds! – that there is only one source for all glory and honor and that is God All-mighty.

Listen to the following words of the Qur’an and see how clear and conclusive they are: A-yabtaghoona ‘indahumul ‘izzat?

Paraphrase: “Is that where they expect to find honor and name and fame and dignity for themselves?”

And then the Qur’an answers its own question in the following words: Fa-innal ‘izzata lillahi jamee-‘aa.

Paraphrase: “Surely, all honor and glory belongs to Allah and it is from him that it is all derived.”

Elsewhere in the Qur’an Allah All-Mighty states the same truth in the form of a general principle: Man kaana yureedul ‘izzata, fa-innal ‘izzata lillahi jamee-‘aa.

Paraphrase: “Whoever is looking for honor and glory, they should know that Allah is the only source of all name, fame, honor and glory.”

Will all Muslims, punch-drunk on their new bedazzlement with sundry Arab and non-Arab Identities, wake up while there may still be some time left on the divine chronometer and reclaim their true “Muslim” and Islamic Identity so that they may still be saved from the most terrible and irreversible wrath of their God, which is sure to come if they continue on their dubious paths of self-delusion and self-destruction?” (Dr. Pasha)

“Working for Allah is what you do for living – meaning, that is what you do as the overriding purpose and preoccupation of your life.

All else – your job, career, education, family, friends, everything – is part of the support network you need to be able to do Allah’s work.

What is Allah’s work? Let me try and explain, even though it is by no means an easy undertaking.

Or, maybe, on the other hand, it is the simplest and easiest thing to do. So here goes:

Working for Allah is living and dying for Allah, as the Qur’an quotes Prophet Abraham (May God Bless Him!) as saying.

Working for Allah is living every moment as if you see Allah and he sees you, as Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, said.

Working for Allah is helping and serving all of God’s creation everywhere and in every form.

Working for Allah is living and working in this world as if this life will last forever.

Working for Allah is preparing to leave this world as if it will happen tomorrow.

Working for Allah is doing all that Allah requires of you as if this were your last day on earth.

Working for Allah is honoring your parents; it is showing kindness, respect and affection to your spouse; and it is loving and providing the best for your children.

Working for Allah is loving your neighbor like yourself; and it is treating others how you would want them to treat you.

Working for Allah is offering a blessing and a greeting of peace and joy to everyone: those you know as well as those you don’t know.

Allah’s work is helping friends; forgiving enemies; and showing compassion to the afflicted and the needy, regardless of who or what they are.

Working for Allah is being generous almost to a fault; it is giving even when you have nothing much to give.

Working for Allah is feeding others when you go hungry yourself.

Allah’s work is educating the world and inviting people to God.

Working for Allah is ensuring peace, security, justice and stability around the world.

And it is fighting tyranny, injustice, cruelty and oppression against anyone anywhere.

And it is working tirelessly to make sure that God’s world is better tomorrow for everyone of God’s creation than it is today – and that means every Jew, Christian, Hindu and Muslim on the one hand and every bird, beast, fish and plant on the other hand.

It is for this that God created us: to work for him; to work for his world.

And it is to invite us all to do this – to work for him; to work for his world – that he sent his noble prophets, may Allah Bless Them All, into this world.

To paraphrase what God All-Mighty says in the Qur’an: “I created human beings so they would serve me.”

How can anyone – Muslim or non-Muslim – say no to something like this?

And how can anyone go wrong with a life full of commitment to something like this?

And anyone with any sense, if they won’t work for Allah, who will they work for?” (Dr. Pasha)

“Those who want to do something – anything – bad enough, they will always find a way for doing it.

This may be a good place for Muslims to ask: How badly do we want to do Islam?” (Dr. Pasha)

“Two kinds of people live on God’s earth – among all the millions of other kinds that there are:

A)  Those who get things done.
B)  Those who talk about getting things done.

The first kind: Doers.

The second kind: Talkers.

While Islam cares about all kinds of people, including the talkers, Islam has a particular soft spot for the doing type.

Here may be a clue to the difference: between doing and talking about doing.

Doing tells us where people’s hearts really are.

And it tells us what people’s true priorities are.

Doing tells us what people really like to do.

Talking tells us what people like to talk about when they finished doing what they were out to do, what they really wanted to do.

Or when they have nothing really to do.

So, talkers talk, while doers do – they do what they really want to do.

Doing gets things done.

Talking fills time and makes us feel good. It also creates the illusion of doing.

Often, talking becomes a substitute for doing.

Islam, of course, values both types, even though, clearly, it is partial to the doing type.” (Dr. Pasha)

Syed Husain Pasha

“The eventful year of 2011 is fading fast and the dawn of 2012 is about to break.

The world is abuzz with talk about Islam and Democracy. And people, good people, everywhere, are busy patching one to the other.

They seem to think that somehow the time has come to concoct a brew containing both ingredients: Islam as well as Democracy.

The allure is irresistible.

And the drums of Democracy are rolling around the world, including the Muslim world.

But Muslims have their own special way, as they often boast, of doing things. And doing Democracy is no exception.

But Muslims’ way of doing things is nothing if not remarkable, or, should we say interesting.

Mindboggling may not be too strong an expression.

And often, it has very little to do with reality, logic or common sense.

As for science, Muslims chased that Cinderella from their home and habitat a long time ago.

As a result, in Muslim culture, and in Muslim lands, it seems to be generally the foxes that guard the henhouses. 

And it is absolute Muslim monarchs, and other sundry tyrants and dictators, that dole out democracy to their subjects in ways and quantities – and as per the schedule and framework – they and their sycophantic and traitorous native advisers and former colonial foreign masters see fit.

And they have at their beck and call hosts of religious hirelings to put their seal of approval on these moves and keep the gullible and oppressed Muslim masses quiet and subdued.

But you cannot say Muslims do not have a sense of humor, or even a sense of irony. 

Muslims often seem to do things in ways that makes you want to burst out laughing.

That is when you have run out of tears to cry over the sorry plight of the poor, poor, poor Muslim men, women and children groaning under the yoke of some of the most barbaric and brutal oppression known to history.

Take Egypt for example, which is a country of roughly 83 million people today.

The tragic and benighted land of Egypt has been ground to dust under the heel of one repressive military dictatorship after another for nearly 60 years.

Today, the march to Democracy in Egypt will now be headed and supervised by a body that calls itself The Supreme Military Council, what else.

And that Supreme Military Council of Egypt is headed by a man who calls himself not just a General, but a “Field Marshal” – a title given to him by General Husni Mubarak who used to be the Military Dictator of Egypt for over 30 years before him.

Field Marshal Tantawi served the former Military Dictator Husni Mubarak for 20 years as his most loyal and faithful Defense Minister.

This is the man, and the other generals in cahoots with him in the Supreme Military Council, who will now preside over Egypt’s transition from 60 years of the most tyrannical military dictatorship to freedom and democracy!

As someone said: Go Figure!” (Dr. Pasha)

“Just imagine how much the educated world of today owes Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.

And yet how ignorant and ill-informed and uncaring that world is about him.

Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, came into this world in early Seventh Century.

That was when reading and writing were generally forbidden for everyone except members of the royal family, the rich landlords and the most privileged few.

Many people were put to the sword for daring to teach themselves or others how to read and write.

In such a climate, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, came and offered the world a “Book” – Al-Kitaab.

And he called that book The Reading – Al-Qur’an.

And he issued a common command to the whole world – to all of humanity – saying: “Read!”

Then he said if any man or woman taught himself or herself one single passage of that Book, Al-Kitaab, big or small, that would be more than 200 times better than worshipping God in other ways.

And he said that to Hazrat Abu Zarr, a companion of his, who was a most devout and God-fearing individual, given to worship a great deal.

He didn’t say “200 times better,” he said “More than 200 times better.”

Does the world of today know anything about this man?

And does the educated world of today know anything about this most amazing of miracles that he gave the world: the Miracle of Universal Education?

Do the Muslims know about this fact?

Do the non-Muslims know about this most miraculous fact?

What would it take for the Muslims to get out and share this fact with the rest of the world?

And what would it take for the non-Muslims of this world to inquire and find out about it?” (Dr. Pasha)

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Safe House

“As a Muslim, your house should be the safest place on earth for the little babies of your worst enemies, even of those who may have raped your women and butchered your babies.

That is what Islam teaches and that is what Muslims demonstrated throughout their history.

No, such a system could not have been devised by mere mortals. Only God, the creator of all, the most compassionate and loving, the most compassionate and loving, as he refers to himself repeatedly, could have designed a system like this – for all human beings.

And he did.

That is why Islam spread like wild fire, when it first appeared in Arabia 1400 years ago.

And that is why it will do so again.” (Dr. Pasha)

“There are those among Muslims who would like to graft Democracy onto Islam.

They say Islam is good and it is from God – from the East, they say.

And they say Democracy is from the West – and it is good, they say.

And then they say, wouldn’t it be nice if we married them off: Islam and Democracy together; Islam from the East and Democracy from the West.

What these Muslims – many of them good Muslims – don’t realize is that Islam is about People and their freedom and Democracy also is about People and their freedom.

That means both Islam and Democracy are Islam – together and inseparable.

And that which is about People and their rights is from God, no matter by what name you call it.

It is Islam.

Therefore, Muslims don’t need to marry one to the other. All they need to do is to understand their Islam properly and practice it fully.

For, that is Democracy.

And that is also Islam.” (Dr. Pasha)

“I sometimes think: What would it take for Muslims to see the obvious?

What would it take for Muslims to realize that Islam is Democracy and Dictatorship is Haram?

And it makes no difference whether it is a military or civilian dictatorship, or whether it is a hereditary monarchy or kingship of some kind.

They are all Haram in equal measure. And they are all equally antithetical to Islam.

For, they are all various faces of pharaoh and Pharaoh and Islam do not mix.

They are all, in their own way, basically anti-People and therefore essentially and irrevocably anti-Islam and anti-God.

The only government that is allowed by Islam is the one that is instituted – put in place – by the People with their full, free and informed consent.

And that is totally accountable to the People.

That is Islam.” (Dr. Pasha)

“Islam places in the hands of all of us a most personal and intimate miracle: How to defy death every time it strikes.

Here is how.

“Everything shall perish,” the Qur’an declares, “except him!”

Reference is to God.

Islam defines human mortality in a way that is truly death defying.

“Everyone must taste death,” says the Qur’an.

“Death shall lay its hands on you even if you were inside fortified towers,” the Qur’an says elsewhere.

This is nothing new or special to Islam, this teaching about the inevitability of death to all. It is common human observation.

It is the reality of life on earth.

But the way Islam frames the whole human life, and then contextualizes its end on earth, is most simple, elegant, heartwarming and, yes, death defying.

This is the lesson the Qur’an drills into every heart and mind: “We all belong to God.”

For those who truly believe in this message, there is nothing more comforting or life-affirming.

We are all God’s People; we are all divine possessions; that is what that message says.

Innaa lillah, are the words of the Qur’an defining the basic relationship of human beings to God: “We belong to God; we are his.”

And most certainly, he shall not forsake or abandon us – that is the loud and clear implication.

So, what happens when life on earth ends?

From the point of view of the Qur’an, nothing could be more self-evident: “We all return to him.”

We all go back home.

In the words of the Qur’an, Wa innaa ilaihi raaji’oon: “And to him shall we all be returning.”

What an elegant and economical equation – the very soul of parsimony and simplicity, as scientists would call it, even though some scientists may have all kinds of fits when we mention God.

But that is what the Qur’an teaches: “We all belong to God and it is to him that we shall all be returning.”

Hear the inimitable Qur’an put it all together in its own divine, immortal words: Innaa lillahi wa innaa ilaihi raaji’oon!

You reach this point and you are face to face with a miracle – a two part miracle.

Part one is the realization that you belong to God; and that it is he that is your true owner and master.

Part two is the understanding that one day – any day – God can and shall call you back to him.

If you believe and internalize the two parts of this divine-human equation, you are almost immune from Fear and Grief – at least as immune as it is possible for a human being in this world to be.

To me, this is nothing short of a miracle, a death-defying miracle.

What is more: Anyone, anywhere, can see this miracle with their own bare eyes, and hear it with their own mortal ears, every time a Muslim’s death is announced within the hearing of another Muslim.

Immediately, upon hearing of another Muslim’s death, a Muslim will cry out, Innaa lillahi wa innaa ilaihi raaji’oon: We all belong to God and we shall all be returning to him.

That means every time someone dies, Islam teaches Muslims the miracle of being able to pull a message of life from that news of death.

This is an ongoing miracle that anyone can see with their own eyes wherever there are Muslims.

And that alone should be enough to show them – to show anyone anywhere in the world – that Islam is not a man-made system.

And that Islam could only have come from God.

And this has gone on for over 1400 years: the miracle of Muslims reacting with this most life-affirming message of Innaa lillahi wa innaa ilaihi raaji’oon – to themselves and to everyone else – every time they hear the news of someone’s death.

Nothing has changed from the time since the Qur’an and the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, placed the power of that miracle in the hands of the people who would choose to believe in them.

This death-defying miracle alone should be enough to wake up the world to smell the perfume of Islam and come forward to embrace it.” (Dr. Pasha)

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“We are all weak, mortal – helpless. And we all need help.

Without help, from all kinds of sources, human life on earth is inconceivable.

We are often the sum total of the help given to us, or not given to us, by our parents, teachers, friends, relatives, governments and others.

But above all, we are an embodiment of the help God Almighty gave us, every step of the way into this journey we call life.

We are a reflection of his love, mercy, compassion and helpfulness.

And of his benevolence and charity and giving.

Every pore in our body is. Every possession in our hands is.

And without his continued help, giving and sustenance, we will not survive in this world for one microsecond.

That is why it makes sense for us to turn to him for help in all our affairs, big or small.

And ask him for help.

For, without his help and decree nothing ever gets done in this world.

And without his disposing of things, nothing moves, nothing happens.

Whatever it is that you need, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, indicated, ask him, not others.

Even if it is only your shoelace that you need help with, turn to God for help, a Hadith seems to suggest.

That means nothing is too big or too small for you to ask or for him to give.

And he loves to give more than you love to ask.

Just consider this:

No one else has a name: The Greatest Giver and Bestower of All – Al-Wahhaab.

No one else calls himself: The One Who Loves to Do Favors More than Anyone Else – Al-Mannaan.

No one else carries a title that says: The Most Generous and Giving of All – Al-Jawaad.

Nor does anyone pride himself on being the Most Bounteous and Noble of All in Giving – Al-Kareem.

And no one else ever set himself as the Most Tolerant, Patient, Gentle and Forbearing in the face of importunities from those in need or distress – Al-Haleem.

So, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, doesn’t want you to take your mind off these attributes of your creator even for one moment.

And he wants you to rush to him every time you need anything, no matter how small, and no matter how big.

And the fact is, no one else owns anything.

And no one else loves to give the way God, your maker and master, does.

So, it is to him you must turn and it is him you must ask for help.

In all things, small or big.” (Dr. Pasha)