The Need
for Reassessment
Speaking about something which one does not intend to perform is an example of hypocrisy, which is indeed a great sin.
Recently, A person approached me to discuss about the controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie. In my monthly journal Al-Risala I had spoken strongly against those who had issued fatwas demanding Rushdie’s death. This gentleman who came to me contended that Rushdie deserved death and should be promptly assassinated. He complained that in not endorsing this opinion, I was advocating cowardice in my stance on the matter.
I explained to him: “Had you been true to your words, you would have been present in London at this moment to accomplish the task you are championing with such fervour.” Innumerable Muslims zealously displayed slogans on the streets demanding that Rushdie be put to death, but did any one among them have the sincerity to travel all the way to London to put his words into effect? These people only tried to ‘kill’ Rushdie in their fiery speeches. None among the lot who clamoured for murdering Rushdie went to London to search for the writer and devise a way to kill him, or at the least get arrested in the performance of this act. These people ‘killed’ Rushdie only in their impassioned appeals delivered from stage or expressed in their journals. Such people have been addressed in the Quran in these words: “Why do you say one thing and do another? It is most hateful to God that you say what you do not do.” (61:2-3)
Speaking about something which one does not intend to perform is an example of hypocrisy, which is indeed a great sin. I am of course not arguing that Rushdie be put to death. Here, my point is that we Muslims must initiate a process of rethinking. We must commence with reassessing the ideas and notions we have come to acquire.
As I pointed out above, our educational progress has slackened because of our erroneous belief that we cannot send our children to schools that have Christian teachers. If we had critically evaluated this mindset, we would have realized that in the early history of Islam even the service of those hostile to Muslims was utilized for instructing Muslim children. We should have readily adopted this principle and not committed the blunder of obstructing our children from receiving education in modern secular schools. A mistake of this proportion happened because we have not drawn wisdom from the life of the Prophet.
