Anyone who wishes to understand how the world has lost its war against
ignorance, injustice and inequality, he should look into how the world
treated Muhammad and his message during the last 1400 years.
Muhammad
received the call from God around the age 40, called the people in and
around Makka to answer His call, and was forced to leave his hometown
at the age of 53 with a handful of his companions. They believed in his
message despite extremely repressive measures used by his opponents,
and had decided to make Islam the only priority of their life. Seven
years later Makka fell to him without shedding a drop of blood. When he
died at the age of 63, Islamic community had extended to the far
corners of Arabia. In the next 50 years, Islam's borders extended to
the three known continents, and Muslims had established a civilization
that dazzled the world for the next thousand years. Despite all their
deficiencies, Muslims adhered to Muhammad's ideals and led the world
till they relegated Islam to a few rituals. Europe learned from the
Islamic ideals, and slowly captured the Muslim lands in the last two
hundred years. With the ascendancy of the West came the quest for the
'final ideology'. Crusades had closed the western mind to Islam
Fever pitch
9/11
provided the Islam-bashers a long stick to hit the Muslims, Islam, the
Qur'an and Muhammad. Appalling hate speeches and remarks about Islam
and Mohammad have become commonplace among some Christian pastors,
radio talk shows, media pundits and on the Internet. Two leading
American conservative writers, Paul Weyrich and William Lind in their
new booklet titled "Why Islam Is a Threat to America and the West?"
quip: "Islam is, quite simply, a religion of war", American Muslims are
a "fifth column in this country" and "they should be encouraged (?) to
leave." Ann Coulter suggested that the only way to remove the 'Islamic
threat' is that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders
and convert them to Christianity." Rev. Jerry Vines, of the Southern
Baptist Convention called Muhammad a "demon-obsessed pedophile."
This
is part of how the West has tried to preserve its flock for fourteen
hundred years from looking into what Islam really is, and how
Mohammad's message changed the human history in just eleven years. One
finds immense mass of derogatory material claiming that the Qur'an
spawns terrorism, Islam is the religion of sword, Muslims repress women
and minorities, and resist all the "goodies" of the modern culture. The
refrain is that Muhammad's religion is untrue because of his so-called
'moral deficiencies'.
One is often puzzled by these gibes. They
are coming from those who wish to convince the world about a human
being as the "God", a "Messiah, the son of Living God", as Peter is
quoted. Joining the chorus are those who claim exclusive rights on God
for a chosen race, or worship everything from a mouse to a monkey and
an elephant as their God, and so on. The secular humanists join the
flock by projecting Islam as antiquated. They don't want to admit that
the most comprehensive laws and extensive sermonizing about ethical
behavior has failed to motivate human beings to refrain from
misconduct, or control the strong urges to exploit for unlawful gains.
A SIMPLE Intelligence test
Muhammad
did not claim that he is "God", or God's son. Muslims don't believe
that he is an incarnation of God on earth. He believed in ONE God,
worshipped him and practiced God's culture - total obedience to Him.
During
his early life till he was almost 40 years old he was known for his
integrity, honesty and intelligence. He told the poor, illiterate and
uncivilized tribesmen of Makka: Believe in God, and you will reach the
pinnacle of glory and attain the success in both the worlds. When he
asked his own people to give up idol-worship and accept Islam - God's
culture as their way of life, they refused. They laughed at him, and
rebuked him for giving up the religion of his forefathers. When he
showed no inclination to compromise they finally banished him.
He
took refuge in a distant city at the age 53. During the next six years
he endured exile, hunger and wily conspiracies to annihilate his small
group of followers numbering only in hundreds. His unflinching
conviction about Islam sustained him in extremely adverse circumstances
and gained a large following. He returned to his hometown seven years
later. He could easily avenge years of abuse and ill treatment. But he
forgave everyone, including the person who chewed the heart of his
uncle after killing him only five years back. Those who were baying for
his blood for years and had assembled a grand alliance by Machiavellian
machinations to erase the Muslims just two years ago were amazed to see
him declare unconditional amnesty, despite pressure from his army
commanders. The number of all those killed in wars against him did not
exceed even hundreds. In the last four years of his life he was the
undisputed 'king of Arabia' but when he died he left nothing valuable
in his household.
How could an imposter endure extreme
hardships, and for what? Who would give up the comfortable life of a
merchant to starve in Makka's barren hills? How could a morally corrupt
person resist the joys of power, status and wealth that came with
success? Why would he not devour the fruits of a long struggle after
gaining total control on the lives and property of millions? How could
he gather a staunch following?
Mohammad stands alone among the
world leaders who did not seek nor accepted a reward. Instead, he
established a model human society that lived by God's words, and vowed
to continue his mission. What did Muhammad stand for?
Equality, justice and happiness
Fifteen
hundred years later the world is still struggling to achieve what
Muhammad accomplished within a short span of twenty-three years. On
receiving the call from God he told us that:
1.
There is only One God (none shares an iota of Godhead with Him, as a son or His incarnation.
2.
Only He is worthy of worship, and obedience, and none else.
3.
We will appear before God, and give an account to Him alone of whatever we said or did.
4.
All are created equal and have equal rights to enjoy God's bounties.
5.
We should try to establish God's kingdom on earth (a just society)
using God-given resources and human faculties. If we believe in God
(Allah is just an Arabic term for 'the God') and accept that He created
us on this earth for a purpose, then what else could God repeatedly
tell to make our life fulfilling and peaceful on earth? This is the
eternal truth. And God appointed Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and
thousands more in every corner of the globe, in every human settlement
to remind us of His message.
As long as the humanity was
scattered into small cantons, separated by space and time and
communication was extremely limited, God's message was lost or
distorted soon after the death of a messenger and his early disciples.
But it was the same message all along. Muhammad just cleared the thick
dust that had covered it over the centuries.
Mohammad's genius
was in establishing a just society in his lifetime. He showed us that
what God was expecting from human beings was not a utopia. They could
easily translate God's words into a living reality, a thriving human
community, a "kingdom of God" on earth, if they decided to live by it.
The
Muslims took this powerful message and raced to the known reaches of
the inhabited world, from distant islands in the Pacific to the
unfathomed Atlantic. Within fifty years of Muhammad's death Muslim
civilization spread from Spain to Malacca and the world's two
superpowers vanished in thin air. For the next thousand years
Muhammad's ideals dominated the world.
Slowly, the Muslims lost
the vigor of his ideals and rituals replaced the conviction. Now they
are 1/5 of the world population. They were assigned the duty to take
God's message to the rest, but 4/5 of the world does not know Mohammad
or his message, and Muslims are doing very little to tell. When will
the Muslims showcase a real Islmic society for the modern world?
Muhammad's
message, and not his sword, overpowered the two most powerful and
dominant cultures of his time. The Roman Empire and the Iranian
monarchy could not impede the fast-moving ideological flood. Muhammad
changed the way mankind perceived God-Human relationship. Muslims not
only recited: "We worship God" in ritual prayers all day long but put
it into practice every minute of their life. Islam's interpretation of
the monotheistic faith in God is most unique and has its own genius.
Belief in God acts as the strong motivating force as well a controlling
mechanism of human behavior. Nothing else, neither education nor
legislation and strict enforcement may have the same impact on human
society as much as God-consciousness - loving Him and accepting human
accountability to Him alone.
End of history?
Fukuyama
in his book 'The End of History' states: The Capitalist system is the
eternal salvation for man on earth. Islam, despite its weakness and
disintegration, threatens this new victorious way of life." But
Fukuyama's dream society based on capitalism is cracking under its own
weight. The breakdown of the civil society in America is quite evident
to every keen observer. Lack of a purpose in life has destroyed
individual integrity. The family - the bedrock of every civilization
has disintegrated. Religious rituals make no sense as God is thrown out
of the window, or confined to Sunday mass. Moral values have lost their
significance in the deluge of the pop culture. Business ethics did not
stop Enron, WorldCom and other giants from collapse. A secular
democratic society built on the shaky grounds of information and law
enforcement is showing the symptoms of collapse. The truth is that the
western civilization is facing perhaps its greatest test.
ISLAM ATTRACTING MORE
In
post 9/11 era when the "war on terrorism" has closed many minds to
anything associated with Islam it is puzzling to many that Muhammad's
ideals are attracting new adherents everywhere.
There is no
dearth of newsroom commentators and political strategists who, day in
and day out, proclaim: "Islam has been at war with the West, indeed the
entire Non-Muslim world, ever since the days of Muhammad." Huntington
tried to define the struggle in terms of "clash of civilizations".
Despite
all this ho hum, nobody could clearly identify what is attracting young
affluent white Americans and poor, hungry Hutus alike to Islam. Nicolas
D. Kristof (NYT, July 9, 2002) acknowledged that Islam "is spreading
rapidly" and has "admirable qualities" like a profound egalitarianism
and lack of hierarchy that confers dignity and self-respect among
believers, greater hospitality, an institutionalized system of charity,
Zakat, to provide for the poor, etc (though he is worried about the
implications of the spread of Islam for the status of women and for the
genital mutilations of the girls, as if it is what Islam stands for).
He pointed out that "focusing on the moral deficiencies of other people
simply underscores our own."
Islam is winning because it
logically fulfils human desire to have faith in God, longing for a
fulfilling life on earth, and provides a human model Muhammad - to
follow in everyday life. Those who malign Muhammad and Islam should
look to what the new converts are saying.
الإثنين أغسطس 25, 2014 10:10 pm من طرف أبو أحمد
اليومية
البلد
