I think this is a very welcome development. However, it needs to be done in a more organized way. What many of these institutions lack are good teachers motivated by missionary zeal. It won’t do to have just professional tutors. I strongly feel that more important than the curriculum are the teachers. In my days in the Madrasa tul-Islah in Azamgarh, we had teachers who worked with missionary passion.
They instilled in us the spirit of inquiry, which is the mother of all knowledge and without which you cannot progress. This tradition must be revived. Presently, we have no institutes for training madrasa teachers. They need to be trained in pedagogical techniques, child development, and so on. I think this is one issue that Muslim organizations must focus on.
Source: Spirit of Islam April 2014
No, I am not saying this at all. What I am suggesting is that separate institutions can be established where some madrasa graduates can later enroll to learn ‘modern’ subjects, particularly different languages such as English. I myself received a traditional madrasa education and learned English and ‘modern’ subjects on my own after I graduated. I feel that if madrasa students are forced to study ‘modern’ subjects in addition to the subjects in the existing madrasa curriculum, it would be too much of a load for them to bear. It might destroy the very fabric of the madrasas'.
Source: Spirit of Islam April 2014
Unlike some others, I am not critical of or opposed to the madrasas as such. Muslims need both types of education—religious as well as secular. Muslim children should have knowledge of both their religion as well as secular subjects. There is, of course, no need for all Muslim children to go to full-time madrasas to train to become ulema. However, some children must do so in order that the tradition of religious learning can be carried on. We need madrasa-trained ulema who have knowledge of the Quran, Hadith, Islamic jurisprudence, and Arabic.
As far as the question of madrasa ‘reforms’ is concerned, I really don’t believe in this talk of ‘modernisation’. You certainly cannot ‘modernise’ the Quran and the Hadith. So, I think the word ‘modernisation’ in this context is uncalled for.
While on this subject of ‘reforms’, I must say that the ‘modern’ schools and universities are also in urgent need of reform, a point often neglected by vociferous advocates of madrasa ‘reform’. Some people argue that madrasas teach some outdated centuries-old texts on Greek philosophy and logic and hold that against them. But we must also note that departments of English in universities also teach English classics, written centuries ago, which have no value in the outside world. For me, these texts are a minor issue. The basic issue is the need for good, committed teachers.
Source: Spirit of Islam April 2014
Following the Islamic commandments, I advise the Ulama to completely dissociate from practical politics, develop the spirit of tolerance, accept open criticism, understand the positive contribution of the modern age, engage in scholarship after a deep understanding of modern thought, reform the minds of the Muslim ummah on positive lines and convey God’s message to humanity using the opportunities presented by the modern age.
Religious scholars are charged with being eternal guardians of people’s mental fabric, their way of thinking, attitude, and behaviour. To perform this role of intellectual leadership, they must possess a deeper understanding of the times and the capacity to engage in ijtihad, creative interpretation of Islamic sources, and their application in changed circumstances. Then they will be able to engage in scholarship, reform the minds of the Muslim ummah towards right thinking and undertake dawah work, conveying God’s message to people.
The task of inviting people to God is so essential that if it is abandoned, the whole Muslim community will lose all value in God’s eyes. The Western civilisation has brought in powerful opportunities to convey God’s message to people. From the ideological point of view, the scientific revolution has opened a new door for human beings to realise the Creator through direct study and observation of creation. Through this scientific revolution, the divine signs revealed to man have made possible the achievement of a high degree of divine realisation.
From the material point of view, the discoveries of the West have led to many inventions that can be used to convey God’s message to all of humanity, especially the modern means of travel and communication. In this way, modern science became a robust academic and material tool in the hands of those who were engaged in conveying God’s message to people and sharing the message of Islam with them.
I advise all the Ulama to completely dissociate from practical politics, develop the spirit of tolerance, accept open criticism, understand the positive contribution of the modern age, engage in scholarship after a deep understanding of modern thought, reform the minds of the Muslim ummah on positive lines and convey God’s message to mankind using the opportunities presented by the modern age.
The Ulama are eternal guardians of people’s way of thinking. Their task is to set right the mindset of people in every age, guiding them on to the right path while leaving the task of governance to the politicians.
A healthy society must observe this distinction of roles, tasks, and responsibilities. Ignoring this distinction is bound to lead to severe disruption. People need proper guidance to develop the right mindset because the proper system of government results from the right human mindset. Conversely, if people’s mindset is corrupt or debased, the system of government will follow suit. This division of work resulted in a glorious history of scholarship and dawah work, which is the most precious legacy of the Muslim community.
Had all the people been engaged in jihad and other such defense-related activities, then certainly a vacuum would have been created in Islam, never to be filled again till Doomsday.
In the two generations that followed the Companions of the Prophet, this division of spheres of activity was maintained. People were engaged in various fields of knowledge, and there came to be the Quran reciters, Hadith scholars (muhaddithin), jurists (fuqaha), ulama, dayees (those who conveyed God’s message to people), and sufis. All of them focused on their respective spheres of activity. This pattern continued for around a thousand years.
This guidance received at the very beginning of Islam set the course for future activities of the Muslim community. During the first phase, one group of the Prophet’s Companions engaged in activities such as defense. While the other group, for instance, Abdullah ibn Masud Abdullah ibn Umar, devoted themselves to academic and dawah (conveying God’s message to people) fields.
In life, people’s mental fabric in terms of thought, attitude, and behaviour is far more important than societal or political leadership. The former’s position is of base or foundation, while the latter’s is of superstructure resting on this base. Those who judge by appearance often mistakenly perceive this upper structure as more important than the base. In reality, however, the base is much more important. That is why the position or status of religious leaders is loftier than that of political leaders.
There are a number of traditions in the books of the Hadith which expressly command Muslims not to, under any circumstances, opt for a collision course with their rulers, however much perversion has set in in them. If they think that something needs to be done to rectify matters, they should advise the leaders of this in private. Such movements should never be aimed at confrontation with the rulers.
This policy of non-confrontation does not mean surrender. It means to remain strictly peaceful and continue to strive to educate people in non-political spheres. This allows time for decisions to be taken about what action is necessary, if any when it becomes evident that political perversion has taken place. Efforts to resolve the problem without resorting to confrontation should be continued till conditions improve to the extent that the desired change can be effected peacefully.
The policy of Islam in all matters is based on result-oriented action, that is to take only that action that yields positive results. Only if the result of an action is going to be positive should one go ahead; if the result is likely to be counterproductive, one had better opt for the way of peaceful reform, keeping oneself totally away from politics. With the adoption of this method, peace will necessarily prevail, whereas going against this method will inevitably result in war and violence.
Source: The Prophet of Peace
According to the Islamic principle, Shariah law is not a matter of imposition, rather it is a matter of following as per an individual’s capacity without creating conflict. A companion of the Prophet, Ibn 'Umar narrated: "We used to pledge to the Messenger of God to hear and obey." So he would say to us: "As much as you are able." (Jami` at-Tirmidhi, Hadith No. 1593). Today, there are fifty-seven Muslim countries, in every one of which Muslim leaders have launched a movement for the enforcement of the Shariah. But even after a long struggle, these movements have failed to achieve their goal. All they have succeeded in doing is creating traditions of violence and coercion.
In this regard, Muslim countries can be divided into two groups. One group consists of those where violent confrontation is going on between the ruler and the ruled, and the other consists of those where an oppressive, coercive system has been put in place. The latter are the countries where the rulers have suppressed these movements and established their rule by the use of force. Obviously, both these situations are undesirable from the Islamic viewpoint.
Had the Muslims in question followed the method of the Prophet, they would have learned that the right way of working was for their leaders to begin their work from the non-political field. By imparting peaceful training, these leaders could have reformed the mind and character of the people. While doing this, they could have opted for the way of status-quoism regarding the political system of the country. They could have subordinated matters of politics and government to the democratic process. They could have given the people the opportunity to elect their representatives by the peaceful, democratic procedure of voting, thus giving them their share in governance.
Had the Muslim leaders opted for this path of wisdom, certainly the conditions would gradually have changed. In these countries, first of all, a revolution in terms of thinking and character would have been brought about and then gradually politics and government too would have been revolutionized. But because of their blindness to prophetic wisdom, the leaders have not only failed to achieve their objective, but they have also incurred great losses within Muslim society.
Source: The Prophet of Peace
In present times, movements to impose Shariah law have been launched in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, and Pakistan. In all these countries, we find almost the same state of affairs. Muslims are divided into two groups—the ruler and the ruled. These two groups have gone on a collision course, resulting in great harm. It has ultimately proved impossible to impose the Shariah law, and these movements have only brought hatred, violence, and coercion in their wake.
Why did these movements to impose Islamic law prove to be counterproductive? The reason is that everywhere the watchword was the enforcement of Shariah law, where the example of introducing change by a gradual process as set by the Prophet of Islam was not followed.
The Prophet of Islam lived as a prophet in this world for a period of twenty-three years. One part of his mission was to enforce Islamic law in Arabia, and he succeeded in doing so. But in that period, we do not find Muslims in Arabia dividing themselves into groups and fighting in the name of the enforcement of the Shariah, like the Muslims of today.
A tradition of the Prophet narrated by Aisha, the Prophet's wife, sheds light on the nature of this problem. She says:
‘First of all, those verses were revealed in the Quran which deal with God and the Hereafter. It was only when people had come within the fold of Islam, and minds had been prepared, that the commands concerning what was lawful and unlawful were revealed. If the commands regarding the prohibition of wine and adultery had been revealed first, people would certainly have said, “We will never stop drinking and we will never stop committing adultery.”’ (Sahih, Al-Bukhari, Kitab Fazail Al Quran, Ch. ‘Talif al-Quran’)
According to a tradition, everyone is born a child of nature. But then, under the influence of the environment, he or she gradually turns away from the natural state. This is known as perversion. The act of forming a good society begins with the rectifying of this perversion—that is, bringing the state of perversion to an end and causing people to revert to their original state. (Sahih, Al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 1385) This process of rectification may be categorized as de-conditioning.
According to the tradition narrated by Aisha, the way of Prophet Muhammad was first to de-condition people and then bring them back to their original state. The successful completion of this process engenders in members of society the capacity to readily accept the commandments concerned. And it is only then that the task of enforcing shariah law can be properly performed. According to the method of the Prophet of Islam, the enforcement of shariah law begins in any society with intellectual purification, rather than with the practical enforcement of the law.
Source: The Prophet of Peace
According to the Quran, there are two major parts of Islam—religion (din) and the law (Shariah). Din or al-din is basic and absolute, always remaining the same, without the slightest change. It is obligatory for all believers, whatever the circumstances, and entails belief in the One God, and the worship of Him alone. The Shariah, on the other hand, may differ, depending on times and places. The task in reality is not synonymous with bringing about a change in the shariah but it is only a reapplication of the shariah in terms of altered circumstances. The task of effecting such reapplication, which was undertaken in the past, will, in like manner, continue to be carried out in the future. It is this process of continual adjustment that helps to keep Islam permanently updated.
Source: The Shariah and its Application
The word fatwa does not in any way mean a judicial verdict; it is simply a personal opinion. If a believer wants to know about his personal behaviour, for example, he wants to know about his way of worship or his dress, then, he may visit an Islamic scholar and put this personal question to him. And, that scholar may give him his opinion according to his knowledge of Islam. That is fatwa.
Establishing Darul Qaza or Darul Ifta is the institutionalisation of fatwa, which did not exist during the age of the Sahaba (Companions of the Prophet) and the Tabi’een (Companions of the Companions). It was an innovation of the later period of Islamic history.
Darul Qaza and Darul Ifta are not illegal, but a condition attaches to them. If the national tradition and the constitutional system of a country allow the establishment of such institutions, then there is no harm in it. Otherwise, establishing such institutions must be avoided. The word ‘Islam’ has a connotation of peace. So, ‘Muslim’ means a peaceful person. All Islamic teachings are based on the concept of peace. Muslims are asked to live as law-abiding members of every society, whether they are living as a minority community or a majority community, and whether they enjoy political power or not. In every situation, they must keep the peace and avoid all kinds of confrontation. There is a Hadith which says:
“By God, that person will never enter Paradise, who creates a nuisance for his neighbours.” (Sahih Muslim, Hadith No. 46)
A nuisance is not only that which you think is a nuisance but also anything that your neighbour considers to be troublesome. So, Muslims must adopt that kind of behaviour which is acceptable to their neighbours. Anything that is not acceptable to their neighbours is a nuisance. In this matter, the neighbour’s opinion must prevail and not that of Muslims.
Muslims are asked to live as law-abiding members of every society, whether they are living as a minority community or a majority community, and whether they enjoy political power or not. There are different kinds of nuisance. It is also a nuisance that the Muslim community insists on implementing its religious law in India, although the majority of Indian people and the system of India take it to be an unwanted initiative. Thus, Muslims must refrain from such behaviour as it creates a nuisance for their neighbours.
Source: Spirit of Islam August 2014
Shariah, in fact, is a non-political concept. This means that anyone who wants to follow the Islamic way of life in his personal affairs must refer to Shariah. It is only a matter of personal following; no institution or state is involved in this. In Chapter 5 of the Quran, there is a verse regarding this issue. It says:
“To every one of you, We have ordained a law and a way.” (5:48)
In this verse, the words shari’a and minhaj are used for personal behaviour. They have nothing to do with politics or the state.
This verse declares that the ummah (followers) of all the prophets were given a Shariah. And it is established by the Quran that no previous ummah, except the ummah Muhammadiyyah (Muslim community) was able to establish a state. Therefore, we will have to take the word Shariah in the sense that can be commonly applied to all the ummahs. This aspect of prophetic history is enough to believe that the word shari’a or Shariah is used in the sense of personal behaviour. Because the ummah of all the prophets were common in the matter of personal behaviour and not in political affairs. It was everyone’s need to know the religious teaching regarding his personal life. But as far as political teachings are concerned, they were not required because no government was established by these prophets.
Shira’a or Shariah literally means ‘method’. It is not equivalent to law or political injunction. Even when there is only one believer, he needs to follow the Shariah in his private life, way of worship, ethical behaviour, and personal dealings with other fellowmen. This is Shariah. And, in this sense, the word Shariah has no political connotation at all.
Source: Spirit of Islam August 2014
Ingrained in man’s subconscious is the search for an ideal realm or Paradise where there has to be a certain standard of honesty in society. The problem is that in this present world, the accepted aim of life for a great many people is the attainment of material prosperity. Such people live a self-centred life, instead of a God-centered one. The insatiable lust for self-fulfillment leads to innumerable social evils, such as fornication, robbery, looting, fraudulence, kidnapping, treachery, terrorism, murder and, ultimately, war, which are the result of people pursuing the urgings of the ego. Inevitably, society pays the price for this. The fact that materialism has given rise to such conflict between individual aims and social purposes clearly indicates that the true purpose of human life is quite other than material pursuit.
Rather than aiming at worldly attainments, man should set himself to earning the approval of his Creator while he lives in this world of test, for this is what man’s purpose in life truly is. If he were to adopt this course, the individual and society will progress in harmony with one another.
A deep-rooted malaise of modern society is that although science and technology are progressing by leaps and bounds and are contributing magnificently to the physical well-being of man, there is a disastrously negative aspect to them in that they deny or are silent on the existence of God. While man’s body receives more and more nourishment, his soul is gradually being killed. Materially, he is pampered; spiritually, he is starved. It is this dichotomy that has proved to be the undoing of modern man. Spiritual starvation has reduced man to his present state of mental turmoil, in which he constantly seeks to satisfy his desires. Man is in conflict with himself, and the resulting disasters are plain for all to see.
The solution is for man to turn to God and to realise the true purpose of human life. For this, man needs to hold fast to belief in a Supreme Intelligence, the love of God, and the brotherhood of man, lifting himself closer to God by doing His will and accepting the responsibility of believing that we are, as God’s creation, worthy of His care. Man must live a God-oriented life, in consonance with the Creation Plan of God. He can then hope to live in eternal Paradise in the world hereafter if he is found deserving of this based on the record of his deeds.
Source: God Arises
The first question about man’s search for truth stems from an instinctive human consciousness of a Lord and Creator. The idea of a Lord and Creator Who watches over and sustains creation is imbedded in every human being. Ingrained in the subconscious of every human being lies the thought: “God is my Lord; I am His servant.” Everyone implicitly makes this covenant before coming into the world.
Subconsciously being aware of God, man wants more than anything to reach God. Above all else, he desires to firmly hold on to the Lord he knows in his heart he cannot do without. But the God he instinctively is aware of has yet to appear before him. Only by entering into spiritual communion with God can this longing be truly satisfied. Every human being needs someone to turn to, someone to whom he can dedicate the finest feelings that he has to offer. By their nature, every person wants to discover God and become His servant. Those who fail to find God give expression to their emotions before some other, false god. Hearts that have not found God experience unease in this world and eternal affliction in the Hereafter.
Source: God Arises
To prove the existence of the Hereafter, we need to study its reality from a scientific point of view. Religion postulates that after death, human beings will leave this present, ephemeral world, and, on the Day of Judgment, will enter another world, which will be eternal. The present world is but a place of trial, where man, throughout his short stay, is on probation at every moment. When the time comes for the Last Reckoning, God will destroy this world and replace it with another world, created on an entirely different pattern. All human beings will then be resurrected and brought before the Almighty to be judged according to their deeds on this earth.
The greatest proof of the life hereafter is our present life, in which we must obviously believe, even if we do not accept that there is an afterlife. We should accept that if life is possible on one occasion, it is perfectly possible for it to come into existence a second time. There would be nothing very strange about the recurrence of our present experience of life. It is irrational to admit to a present occurrence of life and at the same time reject the probability of its recurrence in the future.
The advent of the life hereafter assumes a high degree of credibility when we find, astonishingly, that the actions of every human being are being instantaneously recorded at all times. The human personality manifests itself in three ways: thoughts, words, and actions. All three manifestations are being preserved in their entirety, being imprinted on a cosmic screen in such a manner as to make their precise reproduction an instant possibility. In the Hereafter, every detail of one’s life on Earth will be revealed, when the record of all our thoughts, words, and actions will be presented before God to show who opted for the path of God and who opted to follow Satan, who drew their inspiration from the angels and who trod the ways of evil. This makes life hereafter vital to the establishment of a just and equitable order. The life hereafter then becomes the greatest and most universal of all truths. When one seriously considers the fact that one will be made to stand before God Almighty on the Day of Reckoning and that God, having kept a watch over everyone, will sit in judgment then, one will become firm in one’s resolve to perform only good and right actions and to eschew all evil, in order to win God’s pleasure.
Man, by his very nature, desires a perfect world in fulfillment of his desires where he can live eternally. Paradise is the ultimate answer to this human quest. It is a vast, zero-defect, evil-free eternal universe, complete in itself. Paradise is the answer to all these problems. The concept of Paradise shows that man will find a place in the Hereafter where his desires will be fulfilled if he shows himself deserving of inhabiting it through the record of his life on Earth.
Paradise is the answer to all these problems. The concept of Paradise shows that man too will find everything that the rest of the universe has found. So while the rest of the universe is receiving what it wants today in this world itself, man will receive what he wants tomorrow in Paradise.
This scientific analysis of the Hereafter and Paradise leads one to accept them as religious truths.
Source: God Arises
It is through reason that man justifies his faith. Rational justification strengthens his convictions. Rational argument is thus an intellectual need of every believer. Without this, he would not be able to stand firmly by his faith. It is reason which transforms blind faith into a matter of intellectual choice.
Reason and faith are now standing on the same ground. In fact, no one can legitimately reject faith as something irrational, unless one is ready to reject the rationality of scientific theories as well.
Religion, or faith, relates to issues such as the existence of God, something intangible and unobservable, unlike non-religious things like the sun, which has a tangible and observable existence. Therefore, it came to be held that only non-religious matters might be established by direct argument, while it is only indirect or inferential argument that can be used to prove religious propositions.
It was believed, therefore, that rational argument was possible only in non-religious matters, and so far as religious matters were concerned, the rational argument was not applicable at all. That is to say, it was only in non-religious areas that primary rationalism was possible, while in religion only secondary rationalism was applicable.
So far, science had been based on the proposition that all the things it believed in, like the atom, could be directly explained. But when the atom, the smallest part of an element, was smashed, it was revealed that it was not a material entity, but just another name for unobservable waves of electrons.
This discovery demonstrated how a scientist could only see the effect of a thing and not the thing itself. For instance, the atom, after being split, produces energy that can be converted into electricity. Electricity runs along a wire in the form of a current, yet this event is not observable even by a scientist. But when such an event produces an effect, for instance, lighting up a bulb or setting a motor in motion, this effect comes under a scientist’s observation. Similarly, the waves from an X-ray machine, are not observable by a scientist, but when they produce the image of a human body on a plate, then it becomes observable.
After reaching this stage of rational argument the difference between religious argument and scientific argument ceases to exist. The problem faced earlier was that religious realities, such as the existence of God, could be proved only by inference or indirect argument. For instance, the existence of God, as a designer (cause) was presumed to exist because His design (effect) could be seen to exist. But now the same method of indirect argument has been generally held to be valid in the world of science.
Reason and faith are now standing on the same ground. In fact, no one can legitimately reject faith as something irrational, unless one is ready to reject the rationality of scientific theories as well. For, all the modern scientific theories are accepted as proven on the basis of the same rational criterion by which a matter of faith could be equally proved true. After the river of knowledge has reached this stage, there has remained no logical difference between the two.
Source: Spirit of Islam October 2016
The concept of ‘Where there is design, there is a designer’ is the greatest evidence of God, as where there is design—the universe, which is God’s creation—there has to be a Designer—God Almighty.
Nature proclaims the fact that there is one God Who, in the infinity of His Wisdom, has created and continues to sustain this universe. The very existence of the universe, with its superb organisation and immeasurable meaningfulness, is inexplicable except as having been brought into existence by a Creator—a Being with infinite intelligence—rather than by blind force.
Throughout the universe, there are countless examples of superb organisation, far surpassing even the most advanced systems of man-made machines. It is simply unthinkable that the formidably complicated system of the universe could have come into existence without a Creative Intelligence being behind it. There is something utterly irrational in refusing to believe in the Organiser of an organised universe. The human mind has thus no rational grounds for denying the existence of God. We have to concede that there is a formidable array of facts in the universe that cannot be explained unless we admit the role of a superior Mind or God Almighty.
Therefore, the choice before us is not between the universe with God and the universe without God. Rather, the real choice before us is between the universe with God and no universe at all. As we cannot opt for the proposition “No universe at all”, we are compelled to opt for the proposition, “The universe with God.”
Source: God Arises
The only practicable basis of nation-building is patriotism. That is, the feeling on the part of the individual or group that their future is linked with one country and one country alone; that individual success is inextricably linked with the progress of the country; that the interests of the country must be held supreme, and that if sacrifices are required for the safety or advancement of the country, they must be made willingly. Without such feelings of patriotism, as are defined here, no country can be run successfully.
If the task of constructing the nation is to be successfully accomplished, we must rid ourselves of our obsession with such impracticable concepts as the unity of religion, history, and culture, and should forge ahead on the same lines as Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Britain, France, and America.
Individual success is inextricably linked with the progress of the country. Our prime target should be generating patriotism in every citizen of our country. The only way to do this is to instill in each and every individual a deep-rooted love of his country. If we set ourselves sedulously to such tasks as these, we should, within the span of one generation, be able to create for ourselves the ideal nation.
Source: Spirit of Islam August 2014
National character is the capacity and the will to hold the interests of the nation supreme in every sphere. Whenever there is a clash between individual and national interests, it means individual concerns are subordinated to the greater good of the nation. Whenever a nation has made any progress, it has been due to this spirit of nationalism. Without such a spirit, no nation can advance itself either internally or externally.
Now, the question that arises is why, during this same period, many other countries such as Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, and Japan, etc have succeeded in fostering a strong, national spirit in their people, and now stand alongside developed countries, while India still lags far behind.
There is one basic reason for this: attempting to achieve the possible by means which are impossible. Producing national spirit or character in India is certainly possible. It is just that we have set off on the wrong track, and once on it, it is difficult to retrace our steps and get on to the right track.
Source: Spirit of Islam August 2014
Some Indian Muslim leaders declared nationalism to be un-Islamic. It is this wrong understanding which has led to such erroneous beliefs. Similarly, some extremist Western thinkers of the early 20th century had expanded the notion of nationalism so much that they presented it in the form of a complete religion by itself. But when this notion had to contend with practical realities, it broke into smithereens.
From the aforementioned points, it is quite clear that Islam considers nationalism to be part of human nature.
Methodology as Presented by the Prophet’s Teachings It is individual temperament which plays the most crucial role in the making of a nation. It is important for nation-building in the same manner that individual bricks are important in the construction of a building.
The growth and development of a nation is a lengthy affair. There has to be tremendous input at both the individual and national levels before it finally blooms and finds the position of honour and glory that it merits in world affairs. The work of nation-building is like nurturing an orchard. If instead of nurturing the orchard with care and skill, people come out onto the streets and launch a protest campaign in the name of trees, or gather in some open place or march through the streets shouting slogans about it, they will never possess even a single tree, far less own an orchard.
A nation cannot fortify itself by working miracles only in the field of politics. One can make impassioned speeches and attract great crowds. But real results can be achieved only by long-term planning and unflagging dedicated effort. Needless to say, the two great virtues which are indispensable in the struggle are patience and fortitude. These two virtues are promised the highest rewards by Islam, as can be seen in the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad.
Source: Spirit of Islam August 2021
What is national character? It is the capacity and the will to hold the interests of the nation supreme in every sphere. Whenever a nation has made any progress, it has been due to this spirit of nationalism. Without such a spirit, no nation can progress internally or externally. No personal gain of any kind and magnitude will ever make such a person disloyal to his country. Activities like spying, giving away secrets of the country, and helping the enemies of the country to perpetrate violent acts against the country are the most heinous crimes according to Islam. A true believer will know and strongly believe that such acts are going to make him deserving of God’s punishment and deprive him of Paradise.
In his teachings, the Prophet of Islam laid the foundation of a duty-conscious society, not a rights-conscious society. The Prophet said, “A believer should be duty conscious, and as far as his rights are concerned, he should ask of them from God.” The best society is a duty-conscious society. The duty of one person is the right of another. If each one of us took care of our duties, the rights of all would be taken care of. But if each one of us were to be only demanding and protesting for the fulfillment of our rights, nothing would be accomplished. Performing one’s duties instead of demanding rights, is the strongest foundation for building a prosperous nation.
The Prophet once remarked, “By God he is not a believer, he is not a believer, he is not a believer, whose neighbour is not safe from his evil.” As such, a true believer—one who follows the pristine teachings of Islam—will be involved in progressive work for the neighbourhood, city, nation, and humanity. It will be an unthinkable contradiction for him to be engaged in something harmful to society, not only to human society but also to the environment.
Source: Spirit of Islam August 2021
