Muslims of the present day generally see themselves as the victims of plots and targets of their “enemies” violence. The Quran rejects this theory, saying, ‘And never will God allow non-believers to harm the believers.’ (4:141). Then what is the reason for the Muslims’ present plight? In another verse, the Quran, in response to this question, says: ‘Whatever misfortune befalls you is of your own doing.’ (42:30) The question arises as to the real cause of the problems facing Muslims today. It is the answer given by the Quran: ‘O Prophet, deliver what has been sent down to you by your Lord. You will not have conveyed His message if you do not do so. God will protect you from the people.’ (5:67) This verse of the Quran makes it clear that the issue of the protection of believers is linked to dawah work. If the Muslims perform their dawah duties, they will remain under God’s protection. Whereas, if they neglect dawah work, this divine protection will be taken away. The solution to the problem of Muslims cannot be found either in protests or in confrontation. The only solution to their problem rests in dawah work. No other strategy can be of any avail to the Muslims in this matter: only dawah work guarantees divine protection for the Muslim Ummah.
In the name of God,
The one discussion that is doing rounds both in India and abroad is about the mindset of Muslims. Everyone wants to know about it. Be it in Arabia [where an Arab once raised this question to Maulana about ‘Who we are.’] or the United States, everywhere questions related to Muslim identity are raised.
In yesterday’s English newspaper, [Times of India] Maulana came across an article that reflected the blatant self-contradiction on the part of Muslims. It was written by a Muslim Professor who said that, “the ban forced SIMI to turn radical”. This is a serious case of denial as Muslims earlier used to claim that SIMI had become inoperative and existed no more. But now after it got established that the bomb blasts had the involvement of SIMI and its likes, justification began to flow in for their activities. The biggest blame for not allowing introspection to be carried out amongst Muslims goes to such intellectuals who kill this process before it even begins. They go on justifying one act after another - encounters are called fake, Police is blamed for planting arms in the houses of people and so on and so forth.
Why did SIMI had to become ‘radical’ when there existed many more options for it to pursue. They could have ventured into the field of education or could have engaged themselves in Dawah work. Both of these would have been in line with the system that existed in our country.
However given the mindset of the intellectuals, all they could do was blame the authorities for every thing that happened to them.
What they fail to realize is that Quran does not have the concept of blame ‘others’. It only talks about blaming ‘thyself.’
And the Shaitan shall say after the affair is decided: Surely Allah promised you the promise of truth, and I gave you promises, then failed to keep them to you, and I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you obeyed me, therefore do not blame me but blame yourselves: I cannot be your aider (now) nor can you be my aiders; surely I disbelieved in your associating me with Allah before; surely it is the unjust that shall have the painful punishment. [14:22]
This concept of blaming others – Authority [Government, Police, Administration] came into being since the time of Marx. The struggle started from there. British were blamed for whatever ill happened in India. From the Freedom movement to the Trade Union movement, the Human Rights movement to the Socialist movement, all were based on the same philosophy. Blaming others therefore, became a part of the psyche. Event he media began to popularize the blame-centric propaganda – one where authorities were being blamed. Such an attitude does not allow people to reflect over the errors they have committed and what all they need to do to mend it.
The Deep-rooted Psyche
The depth of the ‘blame others’ psyche can be gauged by taking the example of the procession that was recently staged in the capital [Delhi] in support of people who got caught as terrorists.
One of the banners in the procession read - “Yes, we are mastermind but not terrorists”.
The analysis of this statement however tells us a different story. A ‘mastermind’ is a person of great intelligence. If the Muslims are so intelligent, then why do they not top their colleges and universities? Why do they not get Nobles Prize for achievements? or Why do they not control the media, the science or the industries of the world? Why are they always lagging behind? And, is mastermind a mere ‘word’ written on the paper? Does it hold no meaning?
The explanation of this psyche of Muslims is found in the phenomena called as ‘Paranoia’ or the ‘Delusion of greatness or living in false pride.’
Many years ago, an American Steve Skeler used to visit Maulana. He had accepted Islam after reading Quran and changed his name to Mustafa. He was a very sincere, honest and serious person. So, when he decided to learn Arabic, he traveled to the Arab world and stayed there for 11 years before his Arabic became as fluent as his English was.
The last when he met Maulana, he was full of grief and told Maulana that after spending so many years in the Arab world, he realized that the Muslim generation is a classic case of paranoia. He said that he found a great difference between Islamic scripture and Muslims. In fact he was so sorrowful after seeing Muslims that he even thought of forsaking Islam.
Maulana agrees with this statement and says that all Muslims – Mister or Maulvi, all have become paranoiac. Such a person thinks that others are not seeing his greatness and starts hating them. He fails to understand that this world is about reality and not our illusionary sentiments. So, he lives with the notion that hatred and conspiracy are being hatched against him.
As the world does not feed his self-glory, it sets off a chain reaction of sorts. The hatred does not stay at one point. It does not stop. Just as dirt put in a bucket of water takes no time to spread all over, similarly hatred spreads until it turns into violence. When this violence does not find an outlet due to absence of resources, such people resort to bombing. Therefore, it can be said that SUICIDE BOMBING IS AN EXTREME CASE OF PARANOIA.
It becomes important to understand that the worst role amidst the entire gamut of events is that of Muslim intellectuals. It is in their best interest to follow the modern trend of ‘blaming others’, and therefore they ensure it gets inculcated amongst people. So, for instance, the blame of all the evils that Muslims worldwide go through, it’s the easiest to blame America – world’s superpower, an authority. Even the movements related to human rights, trade union, socialism etc, were all based on ‘blaming the authority.’
The worst thing that such an approach of ‘blame others’ does to people is that they start considering themselves as fault-free and never get an opportunity to carry out introspection for themselves.
Talking about introspection, Maulana cited the following Hadith,
It is narrated that once Ayesha asked Prophet Muhammad that what should one do if one finds the Shab-e-Qadr. He replied that one should say the following dua –
" Allaahumma, innaka afuun, tuhibbul-afva fa'fu annee" (Tirmizi Hadith 84)
[‘Oh! God, You are the Forgiver, You like Forgiveness, Please Forgive Me’].
Elaborating this further, Maulana said that God LIKES PEOPLE WHO FORGIVE. Each one of us has innumerable complaints – small or big – from someone or the other, but in spite of these the one who forgives is held high in the eyes of God. And it is such people who shall become eligible for God’s forgiveness. He cited a verse from the Quran stating how any dua, should be preceded by the same action [that is we should have done that same act to others]. So if we beg God for His forgiveness, prior to that we must have forgiven all those whom we had complaints against.
Whoever desires honor, then to Allah belongs the honor wholly. To Him do ascend the good words; and the good deeds, lift them up, and (as for) those who plan evil deeds, they shall have a severe chastisement; and (as for) their plan, it shall perish.[35: 10]
Therefore, this mindset of blaming and hating needs to be broken. Today’s Muslims are required to do Dawah-work and adopt a caring and friendly attitude towards their mad’u. This is the only solution to their problem.
On Friday, a programme was held in the Parliament Annexe to felicitate Mr. Khushwant Singh. It was being told on the stage that the formula of Mr. Singh’s life was ‘Enjoy Good Things in Life.’ But the literature that the CPS team was distributing amongst those present there talked about ‘The Reality of Life’ Maulana had a unique experience seeing this sight and remembered a verse from the Quran that describes the scene that would be on the Day of Judgement when God shall be the Judge and he will make some people stand and bear witness.
Most surely We help Our messengers, and those who believe, in this world's life and on the day when the witnesses shall stand. [40: 51]
These witnesses or the dai’s will be those people who were well-wishers of mankind and were completely honest in spreading the message of God to mankind [the two traits of Nabis]. These were the ones who strove to make other people aware about the Creation Plan of God, truth and Falsehood, Accountability, Hell and Paradise. Imagine their honour when God shall be pleased with them and say that since you were those who stayed awake when others slept, who ran after spirituality when others ran after materialism, oh! My people I accept you.
And (as for) the foremost, the first of the Muhajirs and the Ansars, and those who followed them in goodness, Allah is well pleased with them and they are well pleased with Him, and He has prepared for them gardens beneath which rivers flow, to abide in them for ever; that is the mighty achievement. [9: 100]
This simply reiterates the importance of Dawah work, which requires us to –
- Spread message of God to the world.
- To help Muslims come out of the delusion they live in.
Low Profile Talk and High-Profile Talk
Maulana recalled how a man almost forty years back, had told him that he will never get popularity amongst Muslims because he talks in low profile whereas today’s Muslims want to listen to only high profile talk When Maulana thought about it, he realized that the reason of this statement lay in the observation that the American Muslim, Steve Skeler had made. It is Paranoia. Because of being such paranoiac characters, Muslims do not like low profile talk. They think the world is theirs, as is God, the Heavens and the Prophet. Everyone else appears to be a mere ‘User’ to them.
All the leaders throughout the Muslim world have been high-profile speakers. To cite an example from India, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar [the propounder of the Khilafat movement] was a very high-profile speaker and had a huge following. Post the First World War, the Pashas had brought the institution of Khilafat to an end in Turkey and nationalism had got established in all countries. Yet, 10 years later Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar began it in India. A famous slogan that did rounds during those days was,
‘Boli amma Muhammad Ali ki, ki jaan beta Khilafat mein de do.’
It was because of being paranoiac, that Muslims could not get the right leadership. It is often said that Muslims do not have a leader, but in reality it is not the leader but his acceptance that is missing amongst Muslims. Because a true leader will always speak in low profile, which is what Muslims, shut their ears to.
Taking the example of Prophet Muhammad, Maulana said that when he got Prophethood in 610 A.D., Prophet called a public meeting at a small hillock, Safa in the Meccan suburb. When people gathered there he told them that they were about to die and that after death, some of them will go to Paradise and some to Hell. Upon listening to this, his own uncle, Abu Lahab, got up, shirking dust from his clothes and said to him that may his whole day may go bad, is this what he had called them there for.
This was because Prophet spoke in low profile and that is why those people could not understand. When reality is that speaking in high profile is dishonesty as it amounts to playing with the emotions of people and exploiting them.
Maulana sums up by saying that our mission is very difficult. However an incident of the disciples [hawareen] of Christ reinforces that it shall have God’s succour at all times. A disciple asked the Christ a similar question to which he replied saying that, the task may be difficult for human beings but it is not so for God. Therefore, we must have the super-conviction that since it is God’s work, His help would be there with us at all times. So, on one hand we have to tell people abut the religion of God [as it is] and that truth is always said in low profile. And on the other hand, take Muslims out of their present delusion and explain to them that political rule is nothing in comparison to Ideology.
May God accept our efforts.
