Letter by Dr. Firdaus -

Sent: 12 Dec 2007

Assalaamu Alaikum

Alhamdulillah Tabaarakallah

May Allah bless all of you and your families.

Allahu Akbar! Yes! Absolutely Dr. Pasha. It’s amazing how Allah works.

While I was writing the email to Radiance, many of those thoughts crossed my mind. Actually it has been a bit worrisome to me for some time. Writing styles, content, themes, global appeal, direct confrontational approach etc are all issues that I fully agree that Radiance needs to look at. And then the grand question, the one that most people simply do not want to consider – what are you doing and why?

Everybody has something to say it would seem and yet to put it bluntly they have nothing to say. We have a saying in construction that not everyone who picks up a hammer is a carpenter and not everyone who picks up a trowel is a mason. But everyone these days who picks up a pen, goes on a computer suddenly becomes a commentator/a writer/an author. Never mind it would seem what they are saying, whether it makes sense or not, whether there is a point or not. If you have a pen, then just write. If you have a voice then just speak. I think there is a hadith that says to the effect that if you have nothing good to say then its better to stay quiet. Allahu Akbar. Rasoolallah salllahu alaihi wasallam addressed this issue oh 1400 years ago. What a man!!! The question has to be 'write about what?’, 'speak about what?’. Whatever we do or don’t do should be motivated from a perspective and an objective. For a Muslim the perspective must be why you are here in this world in the first place. If we are to make the world a better place – paraphrase of Khalifatul Ard – then our very thoughts and ideas, our attitudes and our actions must be consistent with this.

Muslims are amazing people, Allah bless them as you always say Dr Pasha. It seems that they wanted a religion so they invented one and yet they called it Islam. At least their actions tell you that. It is now the month of Zhul Hijja – and by the way Brothers and Sister congratulations on the month of Dhul Hijja and may Allah make it easy for you to do your Qurbani and may he accept it – but it is amazing how the Muslims (the good ones at that) are falling over to get information about the 1st 10 days of Dhul Hijja and what they should do or not do during this time. These are Sunnah acts and by no means am I trying to undervalue the importance or of these things or negatively comment on them, but Allahu Akbar, what about the Fard? How come we aren’t falling over and lining up to find out what we need to do to make this world a better place, about taking the Qur’an to every home and heart, about inviting others to Islam, about reaching out, about doing good to the whole list of people that Allah enumerated etc. etc?

I heard some people who are making the Hajj for 4th or 5th time claiming how fortunate they have been that Allah has blessed them to be making the Hajj again and again. But when it comes to a sponsorship of a program that has a global reach, a program unlike any, a program that’s committed to saying good things and clarifying things about Islam, Muslims and the World - a Dawah program in every sense of the word – people are not interested. Allah bless them. I am not complaining, these are Allah’s chosen people. But if you want to show gratitude to Allah, shouldn’t we do the primary things that we are required to first and then whatever? Hajj is about Labaik Allahumma Labaik, not so? So does it end with Hajj or does it start with Hajj? How do we leave out the primary things that we are required to do and then say Labaik Allah? If you were to continuously fail to take care of your primary duties at work, you fail to deliver the report, you fail to teach the students, you fail to get the project done etc, but then you say to your employer at the company’s annual retreat, “I am here for you. Your wish is my command. I will wash your car and feed your dog and get you your newspaper, massage your back etc” what would the response be? I know I would say “Oh really?” and few other things too. I am not sure we would be employed for not doing our work, by any employer. But Allah, Allahu Akbar, we give him the priority list. May Allah forgive us.

But counting blessings, that’s what we do best and Jannah is what we are striving for, but when it comes to taking care of Allah’s earth, our home, we are as Dr. Pasha says, absent without leave. So much is wrong with the people of the world. So many things need to be addressed. Humanity is in peril. Dr. Pasha said in his Plantation speeches that earth is burning (Tahir I will, Insha Allah dig up some of Dr. Pasha’s speeches in Trinidad and Khutbahs and upload them for you Insha Allah). The world is heating up – scientists are now forecasting a greater than 2°C increase in global temperatures, hunger, deprivation and poverty across the world, freedoms are being restricted, food production is at a low, crime is a global problem, diseases are crippling so many, etc. etc. and where are the Muslims? What are our issues?

There is only one voice that I know who articulates concern for any of these things and that is the voice of PHI, Dr. Pasha. The voice of Payaam-e-Maghrib. The voice of the e-letters. That voice is addressing all of the world contemporary issues in a manner that is not only incisive but by getting to the core of the problems and trying to build from there outwards. Not by scratching the surface and deal with superfluous issues which are in themselves symptomatic of the real malaise that confronts us as a people. As in the issue of Salaam. The world needs Allah’s Salaam. It does not exist without it. Don’t we get it! So Salaam needs to be understood and repeated as many times as required until we get it. In mathematics we speak about something/an independent variable 'tending’ to something, say zero or infinity, then the dependent variable which is a function of the independent variable tends to something too. Sorry about the technicalities, but if human life is so constructed and lived to tend to Salaam, then the world becomes a place of Salaam – safe, secure, comfortable, peaceful, loving, at ease, in harmony etc. etc.. At least that’s the math of it if Allah wants it. What a wonderful world it would be indeed. In 'Four words that changed the world’, Dr Pasha gave a beautiful definition/description of what the world would be like when people lives are influenced by these 4 words. Allahu Akbar. What kind of world do want to live in?

But while those are the real issues which occupy so many others of the world, yet the Muslims want a religion – say this and recite this and pay this and do that and you will be absolved, even as you ignore the cries and pain of the world, the cries and pain of Allah’s world. Dr. Pasha in a speech in Bamboo said that a Muslim is one who feels the pain of others, of the world. Even as we are pained and hurt, we are the ones doing it. “Wa maa asaabakum min museebatin fabemaa kasabat aideekum” (I hope I transliterated this correctly).

So Allahu Akbar, how do I face Allah to give an account about my time in this world?

So Dr. Pasha, absolutely, those points need to be made and you have done it in a more profound manner than any of us could. So thank you and Allah bless you. Yes I would like my name associated with it.

May Allah bless you all and your families.

Salaams

Firdaus

END

Dr. Kamalodeen is an engineer and a developer. 
To read more of his articles please visit www.IslamicSolutions.Com.