Unlocking the
Gates to Success
The guest struggled desperately to open the lock, and as he went on and on twisting and twisting and turning the key, and trying to jerk the lock open, his vexation finally turned to fury. “This lock is defective!” he shouted to anyone who cared to listen. Then he muttered under his breath that his host had been a fool to buy such a lock. The next to have his wrath vented on it was the lock-making industry, which produced worthless goods, not caring whether they worked or not and not caring whether people were put to trouble or not. Their business was only to make money out of unsuspecting consumers! By this time, he was at the end of his tether and had decided he was going to break it open with a hammer. Just then, his host arrived and tried the key in the lock himself. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed. “I quite forgot I had changed this lock, but I just momentarily forgot, and gave you the wrong key.” He then produced the right key and the lock opened instantly. So, the guest’s ire had been quite misdirected, and he had ultimately achieved nothing by it except reduce himself to a state of utter exhaustion.
How many latter-day Muslims find themselves in this sorry predicament, faced as they are with one impasse after another, finding areas which they urgently need to enter, difficult of access, nay, impenetrable, because the way is barred by locks to which they have the wrong keys. This modern age has changed the locks to life’s doors, but we still carry the same old keys around with us, hopefully fitting them here and there, staring in incomprehension when locks do not snap open for us, and then frittering away our energies in senseless rage. We curse first of all the lock-makers, then the environment. But it is all to no avail, because you just cannot unlock new locks with old keys.
Our leaders, in their frustration, have thought fit to identify certain “enemies of Islam” and to trace all their woes to them—as if they were the sole purveyors of these impregnable locks. But in this world of God, there is no attitude more insensate than this. Here, if we feel deprived and thwarted, it is because we are already suffering the punishments for our own negligence and shortcomings. In this world, most of our afflictions are due to our failure to live up to the standard of the times. The day we realize how much we are out of step with modernity, we shall be in a position to remove all obstacles from our path. We must fit the right keys to the locks on life’s gates, and all avenues will open before us.
