June 18, 2009
Whither Indian Muslims – Part Two
Section: WRITINGS | 156 reads
A Culture Called Truth
Hence Islam’s emphasis on truth, whether you call it Sidq, which in some ways you may consider to be small, everyday, even conversational and verifiable truth at a more human and worldly level. Or you call it Haqq, the big and all-inclusive transcendental truth that ultimately ends in God Almighty himself.
As the Qur’an says, Annallaha huwal haqqul mubeen: God Almighty, he is indeed the clear and open truth!
What a statement! What an assertion! What an aayat! What a miracle! What an amazing proof that this Qur’an is indeed from God Almighty!
Regardless of which one of the two expressions you use, Sidq or Haqq, truth is the panacea Islam proposes to heal the many ailments that plague humanity, including all that may be wrong with the Muslim situation. For example, Islam enjoins truth as the basis for all dealings among all human beings, whether that is among neighbors; among friends; or among members of a household including husband-wife and parent-child duos.
Islam also requires that Muslims make truth the foundation of all their dealings with their fellow-Muslims in general – from speech to behavior: speak to them and deal with them truthfully and honestly. And do so all the time and with regard to everything.
So also Islam makes it clear that truth must form the basis of all dealings and interactions – personal, professional, social and business – between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Allahu Akbar, it is mind-boggling, this emphasis that Islam places on truth in every aspect of human life. And in many ways that is what sets Islam apart from many other systems of thought, belief and behavior that are out there in this world.
Furthermore, Islam makes it clear that the only conversation or relationship between God and human beings that has any merit is one that is based on truth. That means it is a relationship in which one’s mind, body and soul are all in synch with one another and where all three are completely grounded in and buttressed by truth.
That means the only human cry God pays attention to is the one that comes from the depths of your heart, not the one that issues merely from your lips.
This alone is proof that Islam is a divine and not a man-made system. For, systems of thought and action pieced together by human beings would tend to place greater emphasis on the ritualistic and conformist aspect of a deed, things that human beings can watch, observe and monitor, whereas in Islam almost the entire emphasis is on the true nature of the feelings, motives and thoughts from which that deed springs.
“Innamal a’amaalu binniyyaat,” is the very first item in that most amazing compilation of Hadith – verbatim first-person accounts of the sayings and doings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam – compiled by the 9th Century scholar, Al-Bukhari, may Allah bless him.
And who but God can know what the hearts conceal? And what lies buried deep within the recesses of the human mind.
Man-made thought- and life-systems generally fear and shun truth, whether they are political, economic or so-called religious systems. To divine systems, on the other hand, truth is mother’s milk. Truth is the since qua non – the absolute requirement – of all systems with any claim to have a divine origin.
In fact, truth is so fundamental to human life and to reality in general that you separate truth from happenings in this world and from reality, what is left is garbage, rubbish, trash.
This holds true whether in science or in so-called religion. For, the basis of science is unending search for truth. So also, the foundation of anything claiming to have a divine origin or connection in any form or fashion must also be truth.
That is what sets the Qur’an apart from all the other so-called religious claimants of any kind. It is something that conclusively proves, as much as it is possible for anything in this world to be given the status of absolute and unshakable “proof,” the fact that the Qur’an is indeed from God: the Qur’an’s preoccupation with “truth” or Haqq.
Can you believe it that the Qur’an uses that expression “Truth” or Haqq well over 200 times?
Therefore, truth also is the only remedy for all human problems, including Muslim problems. For, some of these problems are so big and so entrenched that their roots run deep in the human and Muslim psyche through centuries of neglect.
That is precisely the reason why those who have no real connection with God fear truth the way they do. These individuals and groups include those who claim to profess various forms of so-called religion, but would not risk a truthful and sincere encounter with or evaluation of their beliefs and behaviors.
And it also includes hordes of modern-day politicians and media professionals. Even though many of them pay lip service to truth, their real relationship with truth is that of water and fire. Truth to them is often anathema, for, all too often the houses of cards they erect in their religious places as well as in their media such as newspapers, radio and television are a tissue of lies, distortion and fabrication.
It makes no difference whether the lies the media tell are deliberate or merely a product of expediency. What matters is that they are lies. And it explains at least in part why some of their facts, statements and commentary are directly antithetical to the Qur’an.
The reason is because the Qur’an, and by extension Islam and to a lesser extent even the Muslim story, are all based on truth. And media’s tall tales are all too often just that: tall tales with their home in falsehood of various kinds and degrees.
Whereas media people’s values, agendas and interests shape and drive their alienation from truth, God Almighty’s concern with the wellbeing of the entire human family emerges in the form of an overwhelming preoccupation of the Qur’an with truth.
Thus does the Qur’an seek to foster in this world a culture of truth for not only Muslims but also for the whole world. For only a culture of truth can save humanity from the peril it faces. And only truth can set Muslims free from their many ailments, which is essentially the statement attributed to Hazrat Jesus in the Bible: “…you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
This also shows why those who want to deny humanity, or significant sections thereof, freedom and liberty shall also deny them access to truth and why they themselves fear, abhor and shun truth in their own pronouncements and actions. For, truth means freedom for people, whereas falsehood is an elaborate methodology to keep humanity in bondage.
Hijrat Is Truth, Colonization Is Lies
And that is also why Islam considers truth to be the critical difference between Islam and non-Islam: Haqq. Islam is all about truth, not only in terms of finding it, but also in terms of using it as the means to salvation and success right here in this world as well as in the next world.
In Islam the path to Paradise is not paved with falsehoods and trickery. As a Muslim, you cannot lie and deceive to make the world believe the way you do and come to Allah, even if you had all sorts of guarantees from all kinds of experts that your lies and deceptions will work.
That is not how Islam works. Islam is truth – Haqq – and it only permits the most honest and honorable of means to be used in its service. How can it be otherwise when God himself is Truth – Haqq? Therefore, the farther you go from truth, the farther you get from God.
This is a lesson the Western culture and civilization, and their adherents and practitioners in the world, including many Christian thinkers and scholars, never learned. They often operated under the assumption that the ends somehow would justify the means.
Muslims Are One Nation
As we explained earlier when we were talking about the concept of Hijrat in Islam, Muslims are an Ummah – one nation under God. They are a composite nation that incorporates and shelters under its big tent all racial and ethnic differences. This nation then molds and shapes them all into a single human family whose striving in this world is identical and whose destiny in the next world is also identical.
They are all truly of a body. They are all one single body whose parts are organically welded to one another. And Hijrat is the Islamic process that creates, fosters and nurtures this dynamic new unified identity of the Ummah.
Therefore, when Muslims set out on Hijrat, the new unknown lands and unchartered seas become their home and all they have from the familiar old landscape is their fading memories. The migrating Muslims thus plant themselves, body, soul and mind, in their Newfoundland and strike root. They become part and parcel of the new land and environment.
They intermarry and procreate and they produce children and form families that are part native and part immigrant and wholly bonded and welded together. What a beautiful vocabulary has emerged from this natural fusion of the locals with the incoming outsiders: Ansaar and Muhajirs.
Thus do the Muhajirs and Ansar together bring into this world a whole new breed of people, truly a breed apart. They spawn a whole new culture and civilization. And in the process they build a whole new world. A world and culture that are inclusive of all – immigrants as well as natives.
Thus, they eradicate that curse that has plagued this world forever: the curse of dividing people, places and objects into US and THEM and doing everything to build the US and denigrate and destroy the THEM.
But Muslims generally forgot this all-important lesson of history and of their Deen. They forgot that they were part of the process of Hijrah and not of Colonization. As we explained earlier, these two concepts are diametrically opposed to each other.
And they have very different objectives and methodologies. And they produce very different consequences and outcomes, for themselves as well as for the native lands and peoples that they visit. Hijrat liberates, uplifts and elevates the locals. Colonization, on the other hand, enslaves, dominates, denigrates, exploits and plunders the locals and their wealth and resources.
So, many of the Westward bound Muslims of the second half of the 20th Century forgot this important lesson Hijrat. Furthermore, some of them became so bewitched by the dazzle of their new home that it went to their head. They could barely handle the freedom and opportunity that greeted them, coming as many of them did from lands that generally lacked both.
While some of them went about doing Allah’s work in whatever form they could, some others got power-drunk, ran amuck and did pretty much what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it without much regard for logic or rationality or for Islamic principles or practical imperatives.
This was pretty much the same thing that happened to them earlier on – several centuries ago. At that time, they gave the world education and themselves decided to lag behind. They lost the spirit of innovation and they lost their creativity. As a result, they also forgot that they were a unified nation, more united in their belief and behavior than any other group of people on earth.
As a result, they quarreled among themselves. They conspired against each other. And they betrayed and fought each other. Their life became an unending saga of internecine warfare, a generalized Muslim fratricide. They forgot that these were the very things Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, had warned them against.
In a word, they lost their Islamic character. And they lost all other qualities that truly make a winning and successful character in this world.
Lost Character Leads to Slavery and Bondage
For the Muslims, with the loss of character – and of course education – came the loss of leadership in the world. In fact, leadership gave way to slavery and bondage: economic, military, political, and of every other kind. Non-Muslims from the East and the West then conquered, colonized, pillaged, plundered and enslaved them, often with help and connivance from their own so-called Muslim people, who betrayed and sold them out to their enemies for money, land, power or position.
This was not very different from the way things are happening in our own time – with the same results and consequences.
The downhill slide on the education front continued and got worse. Instead of acquiring all kinds of education even if it were in China, as Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, is reported to have ordered them to do, they sat around arguing and hairsplitting endlessly about what kind of education was Islamic and what kind was not.
I know, because I am a victim of that same abortive debate. I have personal and painful knowledge and memories of it.
As a result of all this, Muslim leadership passed in the hands of all kinds of tyrants and dictators, some hereditary and some temporary, who paid homage to their often foreign masters and duped and fooled Muslim masses using the sweet name of Islam as a Talisman, for which they often employed hordes of so-called Muslim scholars and preachers who were ready to do the bidding of the hand that fed them.
Ulama’ Soo’ – Mullahs for hire or scholars without conscience or character is a well-known concept of Islamic history. And they have been a bane of Muslim life, liberty and progress forever.
For the longest time, the mission and specialty of these Bad Ulama’ have been to deliver the Muslim masses, as well as the truly God-fearing and smart Islamic leaders and scholars, bound hand, foot and mouth to the princes, dictators and tyrants who greased their palms and conferred upon them land, power and honor.
And yet, in spite of all this, whenever the Muslim masses tried to get away, and whenever truly devoted, courageous, noble and wise leadership sprang new shoots among them, and appeared likely to liberate the Muslims and usher upon them a new era of personal, social and political liberty and economic self-determination and independence, their domestic masters, often with active assistance from their own foreign mentors and masters, crushed them ruthlessly and returned them to their yoke.
Examples are too numerous to count here. One such example is what happened to Muslims in Algeria who won the first round of elections fair and square in 1991 before the army stepped in and cancelled the election. Years of Muslim bloodbath and torture followed.
Muslims of Algeria are still paying the price in blood and money of that betrayal by the so-called Muslims in the Algerian army at the behest of their foreign masters and minders who never stop mouthing clichés about liberty and opportunity for all. But their profession of these noble – and in fact Islamic – ideals is a bald-faced lie when it comes to extending them to the Muslim peoples and societies of the world.
Next Article: Whither Indian Muslims – Third and Last Part
Previous Article: Whither Indian Muslims – Part One
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