Using Aqeedah to Tyrannize the Muslim Mind in UK – The Case of Halifax | April 04, 2005
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Dr. Pasha
Update on the Qur’an Camp at Halifax
Dr. Pasha’s Intensive Weekend Qur’an Camp
Saturday & Sunday, May 29th & 30th 2004
Calderdale Multicultural Activity Centre – C.M.A.C
Akeds Road, off Hopwood Lane, Halifax, HX1 2TR
The Intensive Weekend Qur’an Camp at Halifax, scheduled for 29th and 30th of May, will Inshallah proceed as planned. There is, however, an address change. The new address is:
Calderdale Multicultural Activity Centre – C.M.A.C
Akeds Road, off Hopwood Lane, Halifax, HX1 2TR
Below are some details as to why an address change became necessary.
“Do you, or don’t you consider Ashraf Ali Thanawi a Kafir?” That was the question the Imam at Halifax – May Allah bless him and open his eyes to the reality and complexity of living Islam in the West today – posed to me over the phone as a litmus test for allowing my Qur’an Camp to go ahead in his mosque as planned.
The way I see it, the whole issue comes down to this: “Are you or are you not one of us?” And that means one thing: whether or not I am a Bareilvi. The idea is if you are a Bareilvi, you are one of us, if you are not, you are not. Not only that, you may also be a Kafir. That means if you are a Bareilvi, you are a “good guy” – and our hearts and minds are open to you. What is more, so are also the doors of our mosque and our community. So, if you are a Bareilvi, you can come and teach and preach in our mosque. But if you are not a Bareilvi, we will not let you come into our mosque and teach or preach to our community – no matter how desperately our community may need such help.
What if it is the Qur’an – just the Qur’an – that I wanted to teach? What if it is just teaching the Muslims of Halifax how to read the Qur’an a little better and more correctly? What if all I wanted to do was to connect the People of Allah in the Halifax area with the Book of Allah in the House of Allah? No, not if you are not a Bareilvi and a Sunni like us.
What about all the social ills that plague the community – the drugs, the crime, the unemployment, the waywardness, the cultural alienation, the social disaffection and all the other unspeakable horrors that have burrowed so deep in the Muslim youth in Halifax and surrounding areas – should we not all work together to address them? No, not if you are not a Bareilvi – we don’t need you and we will not allow you to do it in our mosque and in our community. Your Aqeedah is all wrong. You have got the wrong Islam.
All right, how do you tell whose Aqeedah is right and whose Aqeedah is wrong? What is the litmus test? Simple! Answer one pivotal question and we will be able to tell whether your Aqeedah is right or not, and whether or not you are the right man to teach the Book of Allah in the House of Allah to the People of Allah in our community.
And here, again, is that question: “Do you or don’t you consider Ashraf Ali Thanawi a Kafir?” What difference does it make? Well, it makes all the difference. That is what sets the “good guys” apart from the “bad guys.” That is what tells us whether you are a true-believing Bareilvi or a Kafir Deobandi Trojan horse, out to brainwash the innocent and guileless members of our community.
That is how it is, and that is how it has been for a hundred years, in areas of India and Pakistan, and that is how we want it to be in Halifax and the rest of UK – in the 21st Century.
So, if you consider Thanawi a Kafir, you are one of us; you are a Bareilvi and a Sunni; and a good guy; and you are welcome to teach our community the Qur’an; or whatever else you want. But if you don’t, we cannot allow you to teach or preach in our mosque. We have an obligation to protect our younger generations, if not from a life of crime, deviance, alcohol, drugs and backwardness, at least from the evil Aqeedahs of all the non-Bareilvi Kafirs. We simply cannot allow non-Barelivi Kafirs to corrupt our innocent youth and naïve congregation.
It is as simple as that.
What can anyone say when faced with a situation like this? What can anyone do? How does anyone deal with something so preposterous and so egregious? My answer, however, was simple and direct. And here it is: “No!” I said. Then I explained: I do not consider Thanawi or the Ulema of Deoband in general, or the Ulema of Bareili, or the Ulema in any other place, Kafir. They were all good people, who did some good work in their own way, during the tenure Allah gave them on earth. Now they have all gone back to meet their master and he will decide what their fights and issues were all about.
Fallahu Yahkumu Bainahum Yawmal Qiyamati
Feema Kaanoo Feehi Yakhtalifoon (2:113).
Now our job – those of us who are left behind in this world, and who claim love, respect and allegiance to those Alims and Shaikhs and Pirs and Auliyaa’ from our past – is not to continue and perpetuate their ancient fights and disagreements, but to join hands over what was common among them: their love of Allah, Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, Islam and Muslims and their desire to serve the Muslims of their time and place in every way they could. We must take that joint heritage and work with it to make the condition of Muslims and the world better in our own time and in the places that are home to us today, whether it is Halifax, Bradford, UK or somewhere else. That means instead of creating divisions and weaknesses in Islam and Muslims using the names and work of our past leaders and Ulema and Shuyookh, we must use their blessed memory and legacy to unite and serve Muslims and make Islam stronger.
Here is what the Hadith says about people who use their past to ruin their present:
Innamaa Ahlakalladheena Min Qablikum Kathratu
Masaa-ilihim Wakhtilaafuhum Ala Anbiyaa-ihim.
Paraphrased, it means:
What destroyed those before you was their penchant
for excessive questioning and their disagreements and fights over their prophets.
Naturally, after Nabiy Karim, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, there are no prophets for us either to follow or to fight over. As a result, our fights and disagreements now must involve our Ulema and our good people. Because as the Hadith says: Al-Ulema Warathatul Anbiyaa’. Paraphrased it means, scholars are heirs to prophets. There is also a Hadith which says, Ulemaa-u Ummatee Ka-Anbiyaa-I Banee Israaeel, meaning scholars of my Ummat are like the prophets of Bani Israaeel.
So, today, we seem bent on doing what the Bani Israaeel did in earlier times with their prophets: We want to argue and quarrel and fight over our leaders, scholars and Ulema, just like they argued and quarrelled and fought over their prophets. But what was the result? What did their fights get them? Allah destroyed them on account of their fights and quarrels. What do you think Allah will do to us if we continue our own mutual fights and quarrels over our Ulema and Shuyookh? But before you answer that question, let me ask you another question and then leave you to figure out your answer: What exactly do you think has been happening to us for the past so many years, and what do you think is happening to us right now?
Long time ago, I decided not to fight the Muslims: not to get involved in their schisms and divisions; not to be a party to what some people will call their “religious” or “theological” disputations and hair splitting, steering clear of even the great moon-sighting debate; not to participate in their organizational politics and personal power play; and not to challenge anyone of them for anything – unless of course it was most blatantly and egregiously wrong or constituted a clear and present danger to public good.
As a result, when Muslims challenged me, I generally turned and ran – looking, you might say, for roots of trees to bite on while lying low (Hadith). But not this time. Not in the face of what I consider to be blatant tyranny over the minds and lives of generation upon generation of Muslims in the West – in the name of purity of Aqeedah.
The time seems to have come, and clearly issues have arisen, that make me want to speak out. And speak out is what I am about to do. But I must make it clear, right at the outset, that I bear no one any malice and I wish no one ill. And I have in my heart nothing but love and respect for the Muslims of Halifax, and the rest of UK – including their Imams, mosque committee members, teachers, Shaikhs, Ulema, leaders, community activists and all the others – regardless of their Aqeedah, or Maslak or Madh-Hab, or Jama’at, or organization or affiliation. They are all wonderful people working hard and with great dedication to do the best they can, under difficult conditions, to serve the Deen of Islam and the Muslim community. However, what I am doing right now is the one small thing that I value greatly in life: Calling it the way I see it; telling it the way it is. For, I don’t know any other way. And I hope and pray it will be with the best of motives and in the finest way I can.
This principle – of straight talk – is all the more dear to me, for its being the quintessential Islamic ideal, as per the Hadith of our beloved Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam:
Afdalul Jihadi, Kalimatu Haqqin
Inda Sultaanin Jaa-ir.
Paraphrase:
The finest form of public struggle is to speak
the truth in the presence of tyranny.
Some of these things I have said earlier in my speeches and discussions. Now it is time for me to put some of them down in writing.
When beautiful Bradford was about to burn, not too many people seemed to care about it till it happened. I was in Manchester at that time. I gave a fairly impassioned speech on the occasion. And I begged people to take me to Bradford, even as it smouldered. But I could not make it to Bradford at that time because it was not considered safe for me to go there.
A Muslim community not safe for a Muslim to visit? And in West Yorkshire? And in the United Kingdom? And in the year 2004? Nearly a thousand years to the Magna Carta? And many more hundreds of years from the day when Allah’s noble Rasul Moosa, Alaihis Salam, thundered before Pharaoh:
Arsil Ma’iya Bani Israa-eel (7:105).
Paraphrase:
Let my people go! (7:105; 20:47; 26:17).
And fourteen hundred years after Allah’s beloved Rasul, Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, declared:
They may put the sun in my right hand and
the moon in my left hand, but that will not
stop me from doing what I am doing.
But my heart was in Bradford. It was with the people of Bradford.
It was with the poor, dispossessed, misguided, ill-trained, uneducated Western Muslim youth of Bradford – part of what I have been calling since the late 1980s or early 1990s The Western Wing of the Muslim Ummah – whom not too many people over the past decades had succeeded in instructing in a better way of life, rooted in Islam and its glorious social and practical teachings.
I did however go to Bradford, months later, where I was privileged to participate in the weekly Dhikr at the Hanafia mosque and also give a number of speeches at the mosque. May Allah bless and reward their Imams and their mosque committee members and leaders who were most kind and gracious to honour me and to invite and allow me to do that at that time. May Allah honour them as they honored me and may Allah open his doors to them as they opened the doors of their mosque and community to me!
After all, what did or do I want from these or any other people? Other than to share with them a little bit of the understanding of Allah’s Deen and his book that Allah has so mercifully bestowed upon me. And to share with them also the vision Allah has given me of the glorious role of Islam and Muslims in the West – a vision that includes mainstreaming Islam and of making it a part and parcel of everyday life in Western societies on both shores of the Atlantic? It was that vision and that passion to be with the Muslims of the area and help them in whatever way I could that later on took me to Oldham and made the Oldham City Council rally around my work, even as many local Muslims preferred to watch from the sidelines.
When Oldham was ravaged by riots, not too many people seemed to bother till after it had all happened and the embers had died down. I was not in a position to visit Oldham then. But I did eventually go to Oldham and saw the condition in which Muslims lived.
No one should live like that. Not non-Muslims and certainly not Muslims. Not anywhere and certainly not in the heart of Yorkshire in the UK in the year 2004. To others it may be a question of quality of life and standard of living. To me it was a question of simple Islam. Others may criticize, condemn and pass resolutions or hold conventions and give speeches. To me it was a matter that called for immediate action.
As a result, I committed myself to return to Oldham and organize a community clean up. That produced Dr. Pasha’s First Islamic Community Clean Up with the help of the area Muslims and with full support and participation on the part of the Oldham City Council – wonderful people, all of them, Allah bless them all, in his own way, however he chooses to do it. For, he is Rahman and Rahim – the most merciful and the most gracious, the most beneficent and the most compassionate. And his mercy and grace envelop everything – Rahmatee Wa-Si’at Kullah Shaiy (7:156).
It was quite a sight – a sight I will never forget. And a sight probably not too many of those who participated in it are likely to forget – Muslims and non-Muslims alike walking the streets of the Muslim areas of Oldham, trash bags in hand, cleaning the streets and the pavements, and picking up rubbish with their own hands, with the white-and-green city truck in tow.
You can read elsewhere (www.IslamicSolutions.Com) the reaction and comments of the Oldham City Council representative to that event.
And now it is beautiful Muslim Halifax! According to some estimates, upward of 2000 Muslims attend Jum’ah in one Masjid in Halifax! That means Jum’ah at Halifax is like a mini-convention every week. If the entire event lasts an hour and a half, that is 3000 man-hours, out of which Namaz per se probably takes no more than 15 or 20 minutes. The question is what do we do with 2000 Muslims for the balance of their time – balance left over from an hour and a half or two hours – week after week after week, month after month, year after year, for the past how many long years? Can that time be used to educate them in Islam and in important matters of life and in important events of the week and the day? Can it be used to motivate them to be better Muslims; better human beings; better parents, sons, daughters, husbands and wives; better community members; and better citizens?
This question becomes all the more important since Halifax, like so many other Muslim communities in UK, is in many ways a simmering social cauldron that may bubble and boil over at any time. But not too many people seem to want to lose much sleep over it. The issue some local Muslim leaders seem most concerned with in Halifax – as in some other Muslim communities in that part of the world – is Aqeedah, which boils down to one basic thing: whether or not you are a Bareilvi. Everything else pretty much seems to take a backseat to that all-important consideration.
I am not saying Aqeedah is not an important issue, because clearly it is. Nor do I blame the Muslims or Imams or mosque committees for being careful and cautious on matters of Aqeedah. But we must understand that Islam is a broad tent – a very broad tent indeed. And it is, as Hazrat Baba Farid is said to have put it, a big tree able to provide shade and solace to vast multitudes of humanity. And among those of us who claim to be or pass for Muslims, everyone who is not a Qadiyani or an Ahmadi, and who does not consider Hazrat Ali, Radiallahu Anhu, God or Rasul, can find a place under that tent – under the life-giving shade of that tree.
Of course, like everyone and everything else in this world, some Muslims are going to be better than some others. And those of us who are serious about our Islam must forever critically examine and re-examine our Aqeedah and our Iman – as well as our Amal (our practice) – and continually make Taubah and Istighfar, and endeavor to make ourselves better in every way we can.
But our concern for the purity and protection of our Aqeedah should not drive us into sectarian divisions and partisan fights. It should not close the door for those of us who may disagree with one another on matters of interpretation and detail, to working together for the attainment of larger goals – goals that we all have in common within the broad framework of the fundamental Aqeedah of La Ilaha Illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah.
Hazrat Jibraeel, Alaihis Salam, came to Rasulullah, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and said:
Ya Muhammad, Akhbirnee Anil Islam.
Paraphrased, it means:
Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam),
tell me about Islam.
To which Rasulullah, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, replied:
Al-Islamu An Tash-Hada An La Ilaha
Illallahu wa Anna Muhammadan Rasulullahi.
Paraphrased, it means:
Islam means you should bear witness that there is no
God but Allah and that Muhammad
(Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) is the Rasul of Allah.
That is how Islam is defined at the highest level. It is not defined in terms of someone being a Bareilvi or a Deobandi. For that is how vast and inclusive and accommodating the tent of Islam is and that is how big and shady the tree is that Hazrat Baba Farid talked about to his Murid and Khalifah, Hazrat Khawja Nizamuddin of Delhi.
My Intensive Weekend Qur’an Camp at Halifax offers precisely such a common program for Muslims of the area to work together.
Because its purpose remains to expose and connect the wider Muslim community at Halifax and elsewhere to the Qur’an – to the matchless and priceless book of Allah, Subhanahu wa Ta’ala. That means to teach the Muslims of the area how to read the Qur’an a little better and how to understand it a little more. This is a goal on which all Muslim factions, regardless of their Aqeedah, can and should agree. It is a common platform that should make it possible for the Bareilvis, the Deobandis and all the others – in that big, broad tent of Islam and under the vast shade of that big tree – to work together with a benevolent attitude of mutual tolerance, respect and accommodation.
As a result, the date was set, the venue chosen, arrangements made, publicity done and tickets for air travel to Manchester, UK, purchased and paid for. Initially, the mosque at Halifax, Allah bless that community and those who welcomed me at that time with open arms, was enthusiastic. Flyers were posted and announcements made in Jum’ah. Things were moving along splendidly. The event promised to be a significant success.
But not if Shaitan would have his way, because, as Allah says in the Qur’an, Shaitan is human beings’ open and sworn enemy: Innash-Shaitana Lil-Insani ‘Aduwwun Mubeen (12:5). And Shaitan had taken a solemn vow to leave no stone unturned and no trick untried to keep the children of Adam from coming to the Deen and to the Book of Allah. Shaitan had declared his evil intentions this way:
La Aatiyannahum min baini Aideehim wa Min
Khalfihim wa An Aimanihim and An Shama-ilihim.
Paraphrased, this means:
I shall then attack them from the front and the rear
and from their right and from their left (7:17).
The least this should do is to warn and sensitize Muslims – all brands and stripes of Muslims, no matter what their particular Aqeedah type – about the serious threat they were all facing from Shaitan. As for Shaitan himself, nothing could be simpler than the plan he devised for Muslims: Keep Muslims away from Allah’s book, the Qur’an. That meant so far as Shaitan was concerned, Muslims could do pretty much anything they wanted so long as they stayed away from the Qur’an. So, it would be naïve to think that Shaitan would be thrilled to have a broad-based attempt unfold in Halifax whose purpose was to connect the people of Allah in the area with the book of Allah by teaching them how to read the Qur’an a little better and by making them understand the Qur’an a bit more.
All of a sudden, a nameless flyer hit the streets of Halifax. Don’t let this non-Bareilvi teacher corrupt our community, it said. And then it went on to heap curses and abuses – and La’anat – on everyone and hurl threats at the mosque officials and incite the masses. It ended the onslaught by saying, ask him – meaning me – whether or not he – meaning I – was willing to call Ashraf Ali Thanawi (a Deobandi Alim of a hundred years ago) a Kafir. It all came down to that one little acid test – seemingly so small and simple and yet in fact so consuming and critical in the eyes of those to whom being Bareilvi was the essential definition of being Muslim.
That was to be the litmus test of Islam for a man who all he wanted to do was to run a Qur’an camp in Halifax, in Yorkshire, UK, in 2004. And lo and behold, in a telephone interview soon after, that was the question that was thrown at me. First the Imam of the Masjid asked me that question. And then the president of the mosque committee asked me the same question: Do you or don’t you consider Ashraf Ali Thanawi a Kafir?
I thought of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and Ma’mun Al-Rasheed, the Khalifah of the day. And I thought of the question that was being directed at him: Is or is not the Qur’an part of the creation of Allah? The Khalifah wanted a yes answer to the question. Imam Ahmad was in no mind to oblige. Result was imprisonment and torture for the Imam at the hands of the Muslim ruler.
I said that I would not call Thanawi a Kafir or, for that matter, any other Muslim a Kafir. I was not in the business of calling Muslims Kafir, I told them. I was more in the business of trying to help Muslims – and most of all myself – to become better Muslims. In fact, I was more in the business of trying to persuade non-Muslims to become Muslims, rather than chase Muslims out of Islam.
That was that.
The Imam said he understood where I stood and who I really was, and appropriate decision will be taken at the appropriate time. It sounded ominous. The mosque president was disappointed that in spite of being a fellow from India I pretended not to know the details of this epochal event on the subcontinent – the dispute between Ahmad Raza Bareilvi sahib and Ashraf Ali Thanawi sahib. I was no longer welcome at the Masjid, I was given to understand. I had become, all of a sudden, a persona non grata – in a community that I loved dearly, a community whose children I wanted so much to help.
But on deeper reflection what really is the issue? They say the issue is Aqeedah – my Aqeedah. It may be a legitimate concern on their part. But the real issue is not my Aqeedah but the Qur’an and their attitude to the Qur’an. The issue is their attitude to a serious attempt on the part of a fellow-Muslim to teach Muslims the Qur’an. To me the issue clearly is teaching the Book of Allah in the House of Allah to the People of Allah – the followers of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alaihi was Sallam). That is the real issue and not whether I am a Bareilvi or a Deobandi. So what if I am a Deobandi – which I am not?
Teaching people to read the Qur’an is an issue on which there is room for a lot of Muslim factions, groups, associations, mosques, communities, organizations, Maddhahib, Masaalik, Firaq and individuals to cooperate, as it should be the common cause of all Muslims. This tent – the tent of the Qur’an – is so big that it can easily accommodate the Bareilvis, the Deobandis, the Ahle Hadith, the Tabligh, the Jama’at Islami, the Ikhwan and all the others who share the common agenda of the Qur’an.
And if we perceive mistakes and shortcomings among us, all we need to do is to try and correct them in a spirit of common Islamic brotherhood and Nasihah. Because, Deen after all is Nasihah. At a time when Islam and Muslims are under so much attack from so many different directions, how could we afford to do anything less? When so many of our communities are such simmering cauldrons of social problems, ills, discontent and dysfunction which are brewing among our youth, how can we afford the luxury of 100-year-old squabbles and fights using the most blessed and exalted name of Aqeedah?
I have a number of reasons for not making Kafirization of Muslims a priority item. In the tradition of Hazrath Hasan, Radiallahu Anhu, I try to bring Muslims together, rather than drive them apart. I try to look for an excuse to keep people in, rather than find a pretext to push people out.
And here are some of those reasons:
That is why the most pressing issue to me in Halifax right now is not whether to call Thanawi, or any other Muslim, a Kafir, but to find a way for all Muslim factions and groups to work together for the common good of Islam and Muslims. History of the Muslims is full of Muslims – good Muslims, mind you – calling other Muslims – equally good Muslims – Kafir. There is no need or reason to perpetuate that unfortunate tradition, or to continue to practice it in the present day and age in the West, when so many Muslims seem to be in so much dire trouble all over the world, and when Islam itself is facing so many grave challenges from so many different sides.
Our anti-Bareilvi or anti-Deobandi prejudices of 100 years ago should be safely left behind where they belong – in India and Pakistan. They must not be blindly imported in the West and allowed to stand in the way of all of us joining hands for teaching the Muslims of Halifax and other Muslim communities in the UK the Qur’an – that is, in the way of teaching the Book of Allah in the House of Allah to the People of Allah: the followers of Sayyidina Rasulullah ( Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam).
Therefore, the real question all of us need to ask is this: Isn’t it time for all of us Muslims – of all brands and stripes – to come together on a common platform, as Allah says with regard to the People of the Book:
Ta’alau Ila Kalimatin Sawaa-in
Bainana wa Bainakum? (3:64).
If, according to the Qur’an, a common platform – Kalimah Sawaa’ – could work between Muslims and non-Muslims, why could it not also work between the various Muslim factions and Madhaahib and Masaalik?
Therefore, those of us whom Allah has blessed with power and influence in Muslim communities must work to bring our various communities together on the basis of this Qur’anic formula of Kalimah Sawaa’ and not divide and drive them apart using century-old prejudices. It is time for all of us to renew our faith in the following Aayat of the Qur’an, and to embrace it with all our heart, and make it a source of uniting us and healing our divisions and wounds.
Annal Masaajida Lillah, Falaa Tad’oo
Ma’allahi Ahada! (72:18).
Paraphrase:
Surely, mosques belong to Allah.
So, call no one but Allah!
For, what can be more serious, as the Qur’an (2:114) puts it, than for anyone to stand in the way of someone trying to glorify the name of Allah in a House of Allah?
Wa Man Azlamu Mimman Mana’a
Masaajidallahi An Yudhkara Fihasmuh
(2:114).
I, therefore, hope and pray, the local leaders will re-open their mosque and invite us back for the Intensive Weekend Qur’an Camp on May 29th and 30th at the mosque as it was originally scheduled to take place. I hope and pray they will lend their shoulders to this wheel and help us to make this Qur’an Camp a success. I hope and trust they will understand that while I may not be a Bareilvi, I am still a Muslim, and we are all brothers in the service of Allah’s Deen. Because all I want to do is to teach Qur’an to the Muslims of Halifax, who are in many ways a disadvantaged community.
So, I appeal to the mosque committee president and to the local Imam to reconsider their decision to ban the Qur’an Camp from their mosque. My plea to them is: We are all Muslims, such as we are. Let us help, correct and improve one another. And let us not cry Kafir at each other! But, rather, let us work together to make this event a common success for all of us and for our future generations.
And let us do so in the best interests of our youth, our community, Muslims, Islam, our society and the entire world. For, that is what our youth needs; that is what our community needs; that is what the Muslims of UK need; that is what Muslims everywhere need; and that is also what the world needs. And that indeed is the need of the hour everywhere: connecting the People of Allah to the Book of Allah in the House of Allah. In the words of a Hadith in Sahih Muslim: … Qawmun Fi Baitin Min Buyootillah, Yatloona Kitaballah, wa Yatadaarasoonahu Bainahum…Paraphrase: … people who gather around in a House of Allah, reciting the Book of Allah and working together to teach and learn it …
In the end, let us all, once again, try to bear in mind that most wonderful advice Hazrat Baba Farid is reported to have given his Murid and Khalifah, Hazrat Khawjah Nizamuddin: Be like a big tree under whose vast shade multitudes of humanity can gather to find rest and comfort.
And let us all, with great humility and sincerity, reflect on the Hadith of Sayyidina Rasulullah, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam:
Qultu Ya Rasulallah, Qul Lee Fil Islami
Qawlan La As’alu Anhu Ahadan Ghairak.
Qaala: Qul Aamantu Billahi Thummastaqim
Paraphrased, it means:
I said, says the Sahabi, Radiallahu Anhu:
Ya Rasulallah! Tell me one thing about Islam that will make it unnecessary for me to ever have to ask anyone else about it.
In reply, Rasulullah, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, said:
Just say, “I Believe in Allah!” And then stay firm on it.
Is that a broad enough definition to include all of us under the tent of Islam and in the shade of the great big tree of Iman?
May Allah open our hearts and minds for one another and may he make us all a joint instrument of good in the service of his Deen and his Kitab (book) and his people – and his Khalq, his creation -and in the effort to connect the People of Allah with the Book of Allah in the House of Allah.
Ameen!
END
© 2004 Syed Husain Pasha
Dr. Pasha is an educator and scholar of exceptional
talent, training and experience. He can be reached at DrSyedPasha [at]
AOL [dot] com or www.IslamicSolutions.com.