New Literature for a New Era

Whither Indian Muslims
- Part Two

Dr. Pasha

Education and Character: A Twin Approach to Changing Muslims and Changing the World

Question: So, how do we change the condition of Indian Muslims then? And how do we change the world?

Answer: Take all the things I suggested above and pour them into two simple categories: Education and Character.

And then watch the results. You will have automatically, and without fail, changed the condition of Indian Muslims. And changed the world.

Inshallah al-Musta’aan!

That means, absolutely, most assuredly and without a doubt. That is what Inshallah means – God Willing. It is your passport to the future. It is your key to the unknown. It is your lifeboat to cross the ocean of uncertainty as you set sail for the future.

So don’t leave home without it as they say. Don’t leave your present and plunge into your future without it.

So, give Muslims and the world education and character and see how everything changes. It is as simple as that. And it is most eminently doable

Change character and you will change individuals, groups, nations and societies. Open the doors to education for all and your will change the world and change the course of history. You will then write your own history.

That is precisely how Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, did it. He changed Allah’s world, even as Allah’s world stood around and watched. And he changed it in the blink of historic time. In about two decades or less.

And he built a whole new world in its place that has already lasted a millennium and a half. A world that is built on his image; on the image of his God; and based on the plan that his God laid down in the noble and wise book that his God gave him: the Qur’an.

Or “Our Holy Book,” as Muslims loosely refer to it – or libel and slander it in fact. For, God does not call his book “Muslims’ Holy Book.” He calls it “The Book” – or “That Book” in fact.

So, that is the book Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, used as blueprint to change the world during his time. And that is the book that we need to use as blueprint to change the world – and of course change the Muslims in India and elsewhere – now during our own time.

And that is the world in which we live today. It is the world that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, built and left behind – using the Qur’an as his blueprint and model. But it is a world that Muslims have allowed to deteriorate over all these centuries and come to its present sad and dilapidated state.

Yes, it is the fault of the world that it ended up where it did. But make no mistake it is also the fault of the Muslims that they allowed this to happen. And the Muslims did this by neglecting the twin-pillars of success and civilized living on earth: character and education. Both for themselves and for the world.

Nature of this World

At the same time, we should not forget that this is the world that fought Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, every step of the way, as he tried to change it and continues to do so to this today. That is how the world is. That is the nature of this world. That is how it was then; that is how it is now; and that is how it will continue to be in the foreseeable future.

Maybe it is more accurate to call it the non-Muslim world. And this non-Muslim world, even as it was fighting him and his teachings, nevertheless often turned to his teachings and methods and embraced them. And it did so often grudgingly and only when it was left with no other alternative for escape or survival.

It is a world that, even then, embraced his teachings only reluctantly and half-heartedly. And often did so without attribution and without giving him or the book he brought from God any credit. Nor did this reluctant world give his followers any credit. And yet this world took his teachings and used them at will when doing so suited its purposes. And often it did so when it was left with no other alternative and when it had tried everything else – and failed.

But still it is this same world that took his universal call “Read!” and turned it into its own personal passport to worldly success. It is a world that took his clarion call to universal education – Ta’aleem – and made it its own battle cry in the war against hunger and poverty.

And yet it is a world that approached his call for universal character reform – Tazkiyah – only warily and with considerable reluctance, reservation and trepidation. This world in some selected ways did embrace the notion of truth – Haqq and Sidq – that he used to guide his actions and pronouncements, not because it was the right thing to do but mostly because it found honesty to be the “best policy.”

Because honesty paid dividends in the long run.

Thus, this world adopted a policy of honesty and truthfulness mainly because it thought such a policy would turn out to be profitable in the long run. Similarly, this world was also forced to turn to abstinence outside of marriage, not because that was the divine command, (remember the Bible and the Ten Commandments: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery?) but mostly because it was frightened of deadly diseases such as AIDS and other sex-related diseases such as Syphilis and Gonorrhea.

The world was forced to concede a smidgeon of human rights and civilized treatment to prisoners of war because it was frightened of the possibility of what might happen to its own prisoners in enemy hands if it did not. Even then it threw those concessions aside – many of them generally lumped under the label of Geneva Conventions – whenever it thought doing so would better suit its purposes.

And then this world set about inventing the most bizarre, corrupt and foolish rationalizations and justifications for doing so and the flimsiest of fig leaves to cover its utter moral and spiritual nakedness and bankruptcy in this regard.

That is the kind of mixed up world it is in which we live today.

Allah bless Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, his progeny and his noble and glorious Companions, as he liked to called them for the blessed and most wonderful change they brought into this world. What a change that was in itself: calling your most devoted, obedient and ardent followers with the exalted title of “Companions,” not “Followers,” as everyone else did and does.

Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his Companions changed the world using the twin-message and the bi-variate model of the Qur’an: Education and character.

While those whose heads overflow with ignorance and or whose hearts are brimming with hate, anger, malice and prejudice insist that he spread his message with the sword, those who are blessed by God Almighty with even an iota of honesty and decency know that he did it using not the sword but the pen – using the twin formula of character and education.

Let me repeat those words: Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, totally and thoroughly transformed the world using the twin formula of universal education and character building, and not through coercion or force.

Lies and Propaganda

The charge that Islam was spread by the sword is part of a malicious and hate-filled propaganda that was let loose against Islam, Muslims and Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, by all sorts of enemies, including, sadly, the Christian Church and Western governments. The list included the Orientalists. These were people like Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Bernard Lewis and others who studied Islam mainly to uncover what they perceived to be its weaknesses and publicize and attack them.

The Qur’an itself anticipated the lies, propaganda, hate and hostility that the worshippers of money, power, race, religion, country and self-interest would direct at the truth that the Qur’an embodied and which Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, practiced, preached and used to change the world.

It is “The Pen” – al-Qalam – and education that will teach and change the world, the Qur’an proclaimed, through gentle persuasion and reasoned discourse, and not through coercion or force symbolized by the sword. And yet the enemies of Islam and Muslims, and the enemies or truth and honesty, never noticed this teaching of the Qur’an. They were busy inventing the lies they did to malign Islam and its teachings as well as to deny and diminish its many glorious accomplishments throughout history.

Said the Qur’an about God Almighty that he was the one who used “The Pen” to teach the world: Alladhee ‘allama bil-Qalam! There simply is no parallel to this in the annals of human discourse.

So that is the message of the Qur’an, and that was also the tested and tried method of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam: universal education on the one hand and the most thoroughgoing character training and transformation on the other hand.

Universal education and character training! That is the message and that is the method. The Qur’an refers to the education part as Ta’aleem. And it calls the character part Tazkiyah.

Using these two divine tools that God gave him, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, single-handedly, gave the world a most comprehensive and thorough-going education on every physical and spiritual front. And thus did he pluck the world from the Dark Ages of Jahiliyyah – compound and calamitous ignorance and backwardness that surrounded the world on every topic from God to his creation – and propel it to a new era of lasting enlightenment and progress on every count and in every way.

And, believe it or not, he did all this in about 20 years or so.

The Mission of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam

Hear the Qur’an provide a sketch of the glorious mission, the goals and purposes, for the accomplishment of which Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, was sent in this world: Wa Yu’allimuhumul kitaaba wal hikmata wa yuzakkeehim.

Here is a paraphrase:

1. He educates “The People”; he teaches them; he imparts to them knowledge: Yu’allimuhum.
2. He teaches them all things theoretical, abstract and from the book: Al-kitaab.
3. He trains them in all things practical, useful and pragmatic: Al-hikmah.
4. He molds and shapes their character in the most pure, perfect and productive manner: Yuzakkeehim.

To sum up: Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, thus, teaches people the knowledge of the Book and all the wisdom required to translate the principles and teachings of that Book into practical, operational models of everyday living.

That means, mark you, all things, pertaining to this world as well as to the next world. It is not just this world or just the next world, but both worlds: Dunya as well as Aakhirah.

So, knowledge of Kitaab and Hikmah plus Tazkiyah is what changed the world then. And it is precisely this combination that can and will change the world again.

And it is, believe it or not, precisely this combination and this formula that can and will reshape, recreate and regenerate the world in every age and in every place. For every people, nation and society on earth for as long as the world lives.

Ever since the passing of the Great Dark Ages of Jahiliyyah, the Arabs reached an age of unparalleled enlightenment using this formula. The Egyptians did it. The Spanish Muslims did it. Iraq and Syria did it. Indian, Chinese and Russian Muslims did it. The Turks did it.

The great societies of Mali, Timbuktu and other places in Africa did it. And everyone, everywhere did it.

Even those who were not Muslims such as those in Europe, America, Japan and other places, made progress and transformed their lives, cultures and societies using the teachings and methodologies of the Qur’an and the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. Even though they did so only piecemeal and partially and without giving any credit or acknowledging any debt to the Qur’an or the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. Or the Muslims.

As a result, even as these non-Muslim societies made phenomenal strides on the path of knowledge using the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam – and eventually on the path of progress and development – they also could not help letting loose a reign of oppression, exploitation, conquest, terror and plunder on God’s world, including the Muslim world, that is probably quite unprecedented in human history.

That is because, generally speaking, their knowledge was not accompanied by appropriate character education and reform. That is, their Ta’aleem was not wedded to Tazkiyah. It was not built on the foundation of the moral values that the Qur’an teaches to go along with education. Values that Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, embodied in his own life and on which he raised a generation of 10,000 saint-like followers as the Bible calls them.

The character of Europeans simply could not keep pace with the knowledge and education they rapidly acquired following the Islamic model. As a result, they gave rise to a New Dark Age of Neo-Jahilliyyat as it were, that in many ways rivals and puts to shame the earlier Pre-Islamic Paleo-Jahiliyyah.

Next Article: Whither Indian Muslims – Third and Last Part

Previous Article: Whither Indian Muslims – Part One

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