By Saeed Qureshi
I am not an Islamic scholar but I can quote three Suras from
Quran that explicitly emphasize Muslims all over the world as one united and
monolithic fraternity. In one Sura it is stated that “all the Muslim believers
are brothers”
In another Ayah it is ordained to “hold fast to the rope of
Allah and not to fall into divisions or sects”. Yet in another Ayah it is
decreed that to kill a human being is to kill the entire humanity. There should
be another one that stipulates that a Muslim cannot kill a fellow Muslim
believer.
The above quoted Suras and their contents look frivolous and
useless when we delve into the history of Muslims and also look around us in
the present times. Ever since the demise of the holy prophet Muhammad (SAWS)
some 1475 years ago, the Muslims have been killing fellow Muslims on racial,
regional and sectarian grounds. Banu Hashim the clans of Prophet Muhammad were
sidelined by the shrewder Umayyads who took the reins of the caliphate barely
after 30 years or so. Three caliphs died at the hand of the assassins.
Two wars were fought between the son-in-law of the prophet and
the third caliph Hazrat Ali on one side and prophet’s youngest wife Hazrat Aisha
(RA) on the other. Another civil war (6 years) between Hazrat Ali and the Umayyad
governor of Syria Amir Muawiyya entailed a huge number of causalities. The
Omayyad under Amir Muawiyya snatched power from Banu Hashim Clan through a ruse
of arbitration. Later Abbasid through an
uprising snatched the caliphate from the Ummayd in 750 AD. The Ommyads dynasty
was established in Spain in 756 A.D. by Abdul Al Rehman who absconded following
the onset of the Abbasids’’ rule in Baghdad.
In between the tragic massacre of Imam Hussain, the grandson of
prophet and his companions happened at Karbala. The Omayyad dynasty in Spain
and that of Abbasid in Iraq and Syria were bitter and irreconcilable enemies
although both professed the same faith. Scores of governors appointed by
Abbasid in the Berber areas were killed by the Umayyad rulers of Spain and
their heads returned.
The successive Islamic dynasties were not even remotely models
of the state or society as Islam ordains. From Omayyad to Ottomans in the
Middle East and Central Asia, Africa, Maghreb and India the more ruthless
powerful Muslim invaders occupied the land and territories already being ruled
by Muslim rulers.
The Tulunids, Fatimid, Ayubi, Mamluk, Seljuk and Ottoman
dynasties were all Islamic yet they seized the power from their Muslim
predecessors by sword and bloodshed. In India the Muslim invaders from the
north deposed the already established Islamic states by use of force and
intrigues.
Did you ever ponder that the Muslims are the most rigid in
observance of their religious rituals yet they are the most backward and downgraded?
Presently the Muslims are the most miserable people on earth. All over in
Islamic world, there is an unrelenting turmoil with raging civil wars prompted
by race, region and divergent faiths.
Is this the way of God or observance of the injunctions given in
Muslims guiding book holy Quran? The argument by the religious zealots that the
Muslims will have good life in paradise is least convincing. Why can’t Muslims
have a happy life here in this world? I am also not ready to buy the argument
that God is annoyed with Muslims for their sins and negligence toward
observance of religious obligations and thus the Muslims are suffering.
If we Muslims believe that our God is beneficent and merciful
and we are his preferred people in comparison to non-Muslims then God with
infinite compassion and mercy can shower his blessings on the Muslims and they
should be the most prosperous and dignified nations. But the tormenting fact is
that the Muslims are primitive and poor while the bounties of God descend
preferably on non-Muslims.
As stated above it is a convoluted logic that since we are
sinful therefore, God is not kind to us and that the devout Muslims would be
rewarded in the hereafter and not in this material world. According to our
faith man with innumerable drawbacks and infirmities is like a lamb for the
Satan to prey upon. According to scriptures has infinite powers to misguide us
every moment while God simply watches from the heavens and does not stop him to
save the poor humans especially Muslims from his wicked machinations.
If Satan can defy and argue with God at the time of the creation
of Adam, is he not in a position to hoodwink and misguide the weak humans? Even
if the humans ward off the Satan’s evil intrigues with constant praying,
fasting and fulfilling other religious obligations, no one is still certain if
we would still earn the reward on the Day of Judgment unless the watchful
angels sitting on out two shoulders as well as our limbs would not favorably
testify for our righteousness.
Would a God who runs the atoms at a terrific speed of 196000
miles per second and keeps the earth rotating in its track around the Sun at
66000 miles per hour and not to move a fraction of a centimeter from its orbit
would need physical witnesses to reward or punish a faithful who would already
be roasted in the sweltering heat of the dooms day. On that horrific day
each person would be handed over judgment by God himself. Isn’t like the court
of a king although the courts of the worldly kings have always been cozy,
comfortable and cool. There should be billions of recipients till the judgment
day arrives.
Yet God would administer his indictment or reward while sitting
on a couch in an open ground while the sun would be above only by the length of
a pole. Scientifically, if the sun comes down by a fraction of a millimeter the
earth and all the heavenly bodies revolving around it would burn.
A lord of the universe administering the universe on immaculate
scientific principles could have devised a system by which the good or bad
deeds would be automatically recorded and a person after the death immediately
goes to heavens or the hell. The humans have devised computers that store the
limitless information and data in seconds.
The fact is that the religions were evolved at times in the
human history when societies were very primitive and lacking in rational or
scientific explanations for this huge phenomenon that is mind boggling and is
an eloquent testimony to the power and intelligence of its creator or the
system.
Yet our religious demagogues want us to believe God in the image
of a human being who is extremely sensitive and gets annoyed or pleased every
moment by our each and every action or movement and maintains a record of that
through two angels sitting on our shoulders.
The stark fact is that Islam as an enlightened religion has
always been a captive in the hands of biased and ignorant religious guides and
preachers. They keep emphasizing the fear and enticement dimensions of religion
and binding the ordinary Muslims in more suffocating rituals and obligations.
It all depends on the nature of the interpretations of Islamic
injunctions according to one’s liking to inculcate fear or allurement as
personified by hell and heaven. And that has led to the divisions of Islam into
countless sects hampering and undermining its doctrinal unity. One such glaring
division is between Sunnis and Shias.
The Shia- Sunni conflict has cost the Muslims grievous harm,
incurable instability and persistent chaos down the centuries and which
unfortunately is still wrecking the Muslims societies. This conflict can be
resolved if all the Shias die or all the Sunnis become non- existent which
either way is not possible. As such the coexistence between them is the only
way-out.
The western societies have separated the role of religion from the
state and society. Religion in those societies is now a personal obligation of
an individual which a citizen may fulfill or not. The Muslims societies
should follow the way the western societies brought about a rapprochement and
reconciliation between the irreconcilable Catholics and Protestants. The Church
with countless denominations is independent in religious domain but remains out
of the state affairs.
Let us take a look at the Muslim Spain (756-1492) where there
has been laudable peaceful coexistence not only among the Muslims sects but
between Muslims, Christians, Jews and other minorities. They all contributed
towards shaping Spain into one of the most progressive and civilized Islamic
state in those times.
Instead of fighting for a radical Islamic system in Islamic
lands and also throwing challenges to the non-Muslim societies through a kind
of crusade as ISIS and Al-Qaeda are waging, the Muslims should give utmost
priority to excel and delve in scientific and technological fields.
They should follow the advanced societies in matters of good
governance, galore of civic and social amenities, establishment of democratic
order, flowering of a secular culture, freedom and openness for building up
modern and progressive states with tolerant Islam as its religion.
By sticking to the past and reviving it in the primitive and
orthodox form cannot work or succeed in an enlightened world of today that is
drastically different from those of the past. Islam allows modifications and
changes as needed by the changing times.
The American constitution drafted in 1776 is a beacon of
guidance for countries like Pakistan towards ensuring human rights, personal
liberties and human dignity. It incorporates a solid system of checks and
balance, accountability and separation of powers.
It is time for a giant leap for Pakistan and other Muslim
polities to emerge as nation states so that our coming generations can stand
side by side with the people of modern, prosperous and intellectually advanced
societies. We have a lot of human talent that needs to be unfurled. I
wonder if this miracle can happen. For that the initial breakthrough would be
tolerance, secular outlook, equality and eliminating the religious fanaticism and
factionalism, which is a recipe for disaster and backwardness for any country
worth the name. Muslims have to reinterpret the Islamic injunctions in the
light and in accordance with the needs and imperatives of the current times and
conditions. They should make Islam compatible with the needs and contours of
the modern enlightened societies. If the Muslims excel in scientific domain,
allow religious freedom for all sects, remove poverty and illiteracy, they
would prevail.
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