New Literature for a New Era

Iqbal on the Core of Muslim Character

I think the following are Iqbal’s words in the beautiful language of Urdu:

Sabaq phir padh sadaaqat kaa, ‘adaalat kaa, shujaa’at kaa;
Liya jaa-ay-ga tujh say kaam dunyaa ki imaamat kaa.

Don’t ask me who is or was Iqbal, for, right now, if you don’t know, I don’t care to tell you either. You should know. Those around you should have told you. Nor do I know if the couplet I quoted above is fully accurate or not. Again, I leave that up to you to find out.

I am what people may call a working man with what they refer to as a full-time job – a gift from Allah, like everything else in this world, or in any other world that there may be. Where do I have the time, the resources or the energy to go and meticulously check out every little detail of everything that I might want to speak or write, even though that is exactly what I would like to do and that is exactly also what is expected of a Muslim?

But the imperatives of time and circumstances – space if you will – decide.

Life is not a set of abstract principles lived in a vacuum tube from which all air has been emptied. Life is a set of highly constrained concrete measures and steps that are on the one hand space-time-based and which are at the same time derived from and guided by certain abstract and universal principles rooted in accumulated human wisdom, clear and tested science or unimpeachable divine revelation.

So, sometimes, it is more important to say certain things that you feel are broadly and fundamentally true, even though you may not be one hundred percent sure of every single detail about them. What may be advisable in these situations, however, is to be aware of your limitations and where applicable own up to them and alert others to them, so that those hearing or reading you will be on guard.

That is the kind of integrity Islam teaches and requires. And that is the kind of character Islam builds.

And that is one big reason why Islam spread the way it did: Because the people of the world, who had been lied to and deceived all their lives, all of a sudden ran into these fellows called Muslims whom they could trust – fellows who were honest and sincere beyond belief and who seemed willing to speak the truth, even when it might hurt their own personal interests.

Where was the surprise if the world fell in love with fellows like that when this message of universal human liberation burst upon the world for the first time after a long break?

Those were the principles then that the Qur’an taught the world. And that is the kind of culture and character Iqbal tells Muslims they should build all over again. For, the Muslims were, according to Iqbal, once again on the verge of being called to the leadership of the world.

What an amazing man was this Iqbal and how amazingly insightful was his message, a derivative from the pure and pristine teachings of the Qur’an and Islam!

So, Liberty Is Mother’s Milk to Muslims: Or at Least It Should Be

Therefore, while liberty is the common right of all humanity, and in many ways its shared heritage, to Muslims it should be nothing less than mother’s milk. A Muslim is conceived, born and brought up in liberty and dedicated, as someone said, to the proposition not “all men” are created equal, but that “all human beings” of all races and both genders are created equal.

It is not a simple matter to be pooh-poohed or dismissed lightly, but rather, it is a most important and fundamental difference – this difference between “all men” and “all human beings.” When the best of the best in this world were still struggling, even that with such glaring imperfection and timidity, we the Muslims had gotten hoarse singing for centuries the loftier song of Universal Human Equality and not just of male equality, that too White male equality, or more appropriately, the equality of White males with property.

Smart and decent people everywhere need to understand and accept these differences. For, in the appreciation of these differences lies the key to a proper understanding of the world in which we live today. That is also how we can most effectively address the question of how to go about making the world of today a better place for all.

Human Equality Means Equality for Everyone

So, human equality in Islam means the equality of all human beings regardless of race, color, religion, creed or gender. That means all the Jews; all the so-called “Savages” of American Indians; all the so-called “Negroes” on whom centuries of the most brutal slavery was imposed for no other reason than the fact that they were Black and therefore inherently unequal to Whites.

That also means all the women in the world, long before some of them in America turned suffragettes and were enfranchised and were “given” the right to vote by their sons, brothers, husbands, fathers and grandfathers.

And it also means all the Vietnamese “Gooks“; all the Chinese “Chinks“; all the “Untouchables” of India; and all the “niggers” of old America and all the “Sandniggers” and “Hajis” of new Iraq.

These are some of the despicable and disgusting labels of derogation, humiliation and disparagement that human beings invented and applied to other human beings at different times and in different places in order to dominate, enslave and oppress them and steal and plunder their wealth and resources and exploit their labor, talents and skills for their own personal aggrandizement and benefit.

Islam, on the other hand, made it clear that human beings were all ab initio – right from the beginning that is, right from the moment they were conceived in the wombs of their mothers – unalterably equal to one another. There were no doubts, questions, hesitations, ifs, buts, vacillations or prevarications about it in the divine culture on earth that Islam fostered and established beginning with the middle of the 7^th Century.

Simple Formula of Human Equality

There was a clear and simple formula for universal, unconditional and categorical human equality that was drilled into every Muslim’s head right from the outset. And that never lost its luster or integrity from the day it was first promulgated on earth in its present form in the pages of the Qur’an and through the blessed words of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, 1400 years ago.

Here are broad contours of that formula:

If you are connected to Adam in any shape or form through a single common drop of his blood, then you are all fully and absolutely equal to one another, and you are all, by virtue of that common and exalted ancestry, endowed with inherent dignity and rights in equal measure in a way that no king or commoner, and that no individual or government on earth, can touch, diminish or take away in any form or fashion except through due process.

According to the core message of the Qur’an, that is how all human beings are created and sent into this world through the sperms and zygotes of their parents: absolutely equal in their humanity and absolutely inviolable in their basic dignity and human rights.

Human beings thereafter begin to distinguish themselves based on the kind of character and qualities they bring to the table – qualities of head as well as qualities of heart – and based on the efforts they expend in the pursuit of mental, moral, physical and other forms and types of excellence from a worldly as well as other-worldly point of view.

There! You have it in a nutshell: the theory of basic human equality as well as of human differences.

It is also Islam in a nutshell.

Striving for Liberty: The Great Human Imperative

Thus, liberty is what Islam is all about. And it was to set humanity free from its chains and shackles of mind, body and spirit that Islam came into this world. And striving to bring to humanity the gift of liberty is Islam’s greatest gift and imperative.

Read the Qur’an and you will know.

Don’t believe me? Here is the Qur’an for you: Yadwa-‘u ‘anhum israhum wal aghlaallati kaanat ‘alaihim.

Paraphrase: “Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, frees them from the chains that bind and shackle them and takes down the burdens that oppressed them and broke their backs.”

Elsewhere the Qur’an holds out activism in the service of liberty as the lodestar of human life. Fa-laqtahamal ‘aqabah, it says condemning those who will not strive in the pursuit of liberty.

Paraphrase: “And he did not make the hard choices.”

Wa maa adraaka mal-‘aqabah?

Paraphrase: “Do you know what that tough decisions is?”

Fakku raqabah!

Paraphrase: “It is setting people free by shattering the bonds around their necks.”

That is Islam for you, folks. It came to set human beings free. And it came to encourage everyone to work to set everyone else free.

If Muslims forgot that or never learned it, and if non-Muslims never found that out about it or pretended not to know it, then it is the fault of neither Islam, nor of the designer of Islam, God Almighty, nor of the Prophet of Islam, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.

The responsibility rests entirely on us, human beings of our time, both Muslim and non-Muslim, A, for not knowing it in the first place and, B, for not sharing it with others thereafter.

Lost Souls of Islam – and Non-Islam

Now let us look at some reasons why the world knows so little about Islam

My readers have every right to ask, if Islam is all you say it is, and if the Qur’an contains any or all of these seemingly earthshaking claims you seem to be making in its behalf, how come no one knows about it?

The answer has many parts and here are some of them.

Part One. The main reason why “no one,” as we say, knows about it is because the Muslims have more or less given up telling people about it. There were times when Muslims did it with gusto, tell the people about Islam I mean. Those were the times when Muslims cried from every rooftop about Islam and its beautiful message of love, liberty and uncompromising human dignity and equality.

That beautiful message was the reason why everyone everywhere rushed to embrace Islam, not because, as some so-called scholars, writers and protagonists claim, Muslims went around chopping off every non-Muslim head they could find.

If Muslims had done that, two things would have happened. First, there won’t be any heads left to accept Islam. Second, there won’t be any non-Muslims left in much of the world today, at least in those parts of the world where Muslims were in power to any degree.

So, this was one of the most brazen lies perpetuated against Islam by all those who were opposed to the fundamental message of human liberty and equality that Islam brought into this world and that Muslims tried, at one time, to take to everyone’s doorstep everywhere.

This was done to stop the march of Islam, to slow the progress of human liberty in the world and to keep human beings in bondage and chains everywhere. That is how tyranny over the minds, bodies, souls, lands and resources of human beings came to be so rampant in all these past centuries and continues in one form or another to this day.

Therefore, Islam spread not because Muslims went around chopping off non-Muslims’ heads wherever they went, but for two simple reasons. First, people everywhere welcomed and embraced Islam because Islam was the most liberating and life-giving message the world had heard in a long time.

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