Ease in Difficulty
A Quranic principle is that with every problem, there are opportunities. Had the Ulama applied this to Western political dominance, they would have found the new and powerful opportunities of engaging in conveying God’s message to people and avail of them.
The most significant damage caused by the unnecessary dominance of politics and the quest for political power on the thinking of the Ulama was that in the new age, the Ulama could only see oppression, conspiracies and problems all around. They were wholly unaware of the possibilities and opportunities that the new age provided. People who fail to see the positive possibilities that a situation offers naturally fail to tap the available opportunities. This is precisely the case of the Ulama in this period.
The Quran informs us that it is a fundamental law of God that ease is present with every difficulty in this world. With every problem, there are positive opportunities. The Quran (94:5-6) says:
So, surely with every hardship there is ease; surely, with every hardship there is ease.
The classical Quranic commentators suggest that the Arabic مَعَ (ma’a) that appears in this verse indicates ‘along with’. Thus, Ibn Kathir, in his commentary, says that through this verse, God tells us that ease is found along with difficulty. However, the Ulama of the modern period were so obsessed with the problems that they failed to understand this reality. Every disadvantage also brings along with it an advantage. This principle applied to Western culture and Western imperialism just as it did to other affairs. These developments struck the Muslim world as a major tragedy. However, at the same time and along with this, they possessed many favourable possibilities that the Muslims could have used. The most substantial such possibility was new and powerful opportunities to engage in conveying God’s message to people. These opportunities were hitherto unavailable. Had the Ulama understood this point and availed of these opportunities in the right way, they could have transformed the tragic modern history of the ummah into a very positive one. However, due to the particular mentality that they had developed, they failed to do so.
