New Literature for a New Era

Conquest of Compassion:

The world also knows that a “conquest,” or the air, demeanor or attitude of a “conqueror,” is not what Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, brought to Makkah, when he entered that enemy capital at the end of two decades of bitter and bloody struggle, in which his enemies had, among other terrible things, torn off and chewed on the liver of his uncle Hamza (May Allah be pleased with him!).

As he rode into the “conquered” forbidden city of Makkah – which God Almighty had miraculously thrown open for him as he was later to throw open the sacred city of Jerusalem to his follower Umar – his head was bowed so low out of humility before God that it was brushing the mane of his mount.

A blanket amnesty then descended upon former enemies and their leaders were honored with special consideration.

That is the kind of “conquest” that “conqueror” Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, brought to the “conquered” enemy stronghold of Makkah.

Not one house was burned. Not one woman was raped, dishonored or insulted. Not one baby was butchered. Not one property was looted. Only a handful of hardened criminals, their number in low single digits, lost their lives in punitive law enforcement action.

The world has never seen a “conquest” so complete, so thorough or so compassionate either before or since the “conquest” of love and mercy that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, bestowed upon the city of Makkah and its “conquered” people.

Who but Allah’s mercy to all the worlds – Rahamatullil ‘Aalameen – could have done that?

A Revolution of Mercy:

So, here was Islam, all of a sudden, a revolution of mercy, justice, fairness, equality and compassion. Islam was now breaking down the barriers that had sundered the human race forever – and leveling the playing field for all, as it had never been leveled before.

Here it was, setting slaves free and asking slave owners to feed, clothe, shelter and treat their slaves in the same manner as themselves and their families. It even made slaves part of the household of the owner.

Here was Islam mandating humane treatment of animals and issuing proclamations for the protection of crops, trees, forests, waters, oceans, and other parts and aspects of the public space and environment.

Here was Islam all of a sudden conferring rights upon women they had not known before. Here was Islam in one stroke banning female infanticide and calling it one of the worst crimes and sins. Never since has female infanticide been a part of Muslim culture even in the worst of times.

Abolishing Religion:

And then Islam did something else – totally unimaginable to the rest of the world, even to this day: it ended and abolished religion altogether the way the world had known and practiced religion till then.

Islam did so by abolishing the entire class of clergy as well as the very institution of the church. It further declared that all human beings had ready, direct and unfettered access to God Almighty – without the intercession or intermediacy of a confessor, a shaman, a priest or a pundit.

Before his death, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, declared: I leave behind two things that will keep you from going astray provided you held on to them firmly – the book of Allah and my own practice of it.

That means humanity – or at least that part of it that embraced Islam and became Muslim – was now being told to sink or swim in a world without religion, priests, pundits, shamans, clergy, temples, tabernacles, altars, sanctum sanctorums and sacraments, using as its supreme guide only the book of God and the practice of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.

The sun never rose on a mightier day for human freedom, empowerment and independence.

In what is perhaps one of the most revolutionary pronouncements of all time, Islam then declared that the entire earth, from one end of it to the other, was now turned by God into a Masjid (a mosque) for the Prophet of Islam, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. And for those who embraced and followed his message of divine liberation.

The whole planet was pronounced to be a place where people from now on could freely worship God, wherever and whenever the time and the occasion overtook them. Human beings no longer needed to look for a temple, a tabernacle, an altar or a sanctum sactorum, or await the availability of the services of a priest or a pundit, to worship God.

All they needed was a clean spot anywhere on God’s big, beautiful planet earth – Good Earth, as Pearl S. Buck once called it – where they could face the direction of Makkah and perform their worship of God Almighty entirely on their own.

To this day, the world is barely cognizant or aware of the existence of a living miracle of this kind or scope in its midst. Nor does it have any understanding of its true scope or dimensions. Nor does the world have the slightest comprehension or appreciation of the kind of walking, living, talking miracle each Muslim individual is.

That every Muslim man and woman, no matter how deeply “religious” he or she may appear to be, is nevertheless free – at least in theory – of the stranglehold of a priest or a pundit on his or her soul and salvation. And that nothing – and no one – separates a Muslim man or woman from God Almighty except his or her own sins, ego and willfulness.

Ending Tyranny:

This was the ultimate in the liberation of the human spirit from bondage to the man-made modalities of clerical and priestly religion. And this was the greatest blow to what Thomas Jefferson called all forms of tyranny over the mind of man.

Thus, Islam changed religion forever by using a very simple formula: it abolished it.

Islam ended religion as much of the world had been practicing it and set humanity free to worship God entirely on its own, using the book of God and the practice of the Prophet of God, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, as its only navigational aids.

Never before had one man – an unlettered man who emerged out of a cave in a barren rock in Arabia – done so much for the mental, physical and spiritual liberation of the entire human race.

The world is yet to fully wake up to the significance and true dimensions and implications of Islam’s Emancipation Proclamation to the human race.

Consent of the Governed:

Islam, however, did not stop with that. On the political front it made the only lawful form of government the one which was based on the informed will and consent of the governed. And it did so in the most elementary and yet the most profound form.

The Qur’an made the seeking and sharing of information and opinion the very basis of human life and interaction at all levels – family, group, organization, society, culture, community, nation, the world. And it made information and opinion exchange central to the entire process of conducting public business.

The simplicity, parsimony and elegance of the words of the Qur’an on this subject are matchless: wa Amruhum Shoora Bainahum. The entire Muslim way of life, and the way Muslims conduct business, must be based on mutual exchange of information, opinion, views, input and advice.

The Qur’an told the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, to seek people’s views, ideas and opinions, and to go after whatever information may be out there, and to solicit whatever input may be forthcoming. It said: wa Shawirhum Fil-Amr.

The principle of the consent of the governed never found a clearer, simpler, more elegant or more forceful expression than this!

And it was at a time when this concept was unfamiliar to the rest of the world by over 1000 years. And when the doctrine of the divine right of the kings to rule whom they wanted and how they wanted was considered as self-evident and unassailable as the presence of the midday sun in a clear blue sky.

And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, in turn operationalized and humanized this universal divine principle as only he could. He told the people that when three of them set out together on a trip, they – those three – must choose one of them as their leader.

The concept of political choice, voting and elections was never laid out more robustly and succinctly, or stated at a more fundamental level, or formulated in a more sweeping manner. Thus, choice of leadership, starting at the most rudimentary level (three people on up), was thrust right into the hands of the people – the ordinary people.

The Qur’an introduced a brand new concept and term into human language called The People – Annaas! – a gender-inclusive new term that subsumed every human being of every stripe, color, rank and status. Not “Mankind” as some of the translators, themselves prisoners of archaic pre-Islamic thought and language, tell us, but The People.

The Qur’an uses this expression well over 200 times. It was in Annaas – The People – that God Almighty had now vested the right and the power to choose their own rulers and leaders. The rest of the world would not wake up to this idea for an entire millennium.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, also strongly and clearly spelled out the duty of the electorate and the governed – The People – to be assertive, outgoing and forthcoming in matters of public policy, practice, participation and debate.

He pointed out that the essence of the culture, the new social and political ethos, created by Islam lay in providing proper advice, counsel, opinion, input, information and feedback to those in power. And he did it in two divinely inspired and timeless words. “Ad-Deen, An-Nasihah,” he said.

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