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In
Sura Hadeed Allah swt says:
"It
is He who sends down manifest signs to His servant that He may
take you out of darkness (infidelity) into light (faith) and
verily Allah is most kind and merciful to you."
57:9
Indeed [even aforetime] did We send forth Our apostles with
all evidence of [this] truth;
And through them We bestowed revelation from on high,
And [thus gave you] a balance [wherewith to weigh right and
wrong] so that men might behave with equity,
And He revealed Iron, wherein is mighty power and [many] uses
for mankind,
And that Allah may know him who helpeth Him and His
messengers, through unseen.
Lo! Allah is Strong Almighty.
57:25
The
purpose of Allah's message is that all should live peacefully
in harmony, no one should be wronged, no one should be
deprived, no one should go hungry, no one should remain
uneducated, no one should be homeless. This is possible if all
behave in an equitable manner.
Allah swt sent down Messengers with proof and arguments and
these Messengers explained in detail to the people of their
time what the deen (religion is not the correct
translation of "deen") encompassed and what
was expected out of the people. Remember that all the
Messengers came with one single purpose and that was to awaken
the consciousness of men, to develop an awareness of being
just with a sense of responsibility so that there remains no
inequity and injustice ("zulm").
Only when the conscious is awake can "zulm" and
atrocities be eradicated.
Why do we organise majalis?
Yes, to commemorate the martyrdom of our third Imam a.s.
But why did this
martyrdom, the shahadat occur?
Our Imam did not go to conquer the land.
His mission was to awaken the dead conscious of the people.
Muslims who are living in North America or Europe are worried
about their future, but in a non Islamic country you have
Freedom of Speech, you can express yourself. The second thing
that you should be grateful for is that there is awareness
here.
If you are aware yourself then no one can harm you. Only when
you are aware can you make the other person understand your
beliefs and your point of view. Are we presenting, portraying
the correct Islam to the people who know little about our
Deen?
Philosophical
Pivots
All
great religions have a pivot around which its philosophy
revolves.
Christianity is Mercy based, so they have this tremendous
desire of serving humanity. Christian missionaries travel to
remote villages in India, Pakistan,
Africa
they live with the people in those inhuman conditions and
serve them with the result that their love and compassion has
converted entire villages to Christianity.
Hazrat Isa ('a) came as a Mercy from Allah but our beloved
Prophet came as Mercy for all the aalimeens. He ('s)
is Rahmat al lil Alameen. Yet the behaviour of his
followers is totally devoid of Mercy. I went for Haj this year
and there were 3 million people there but you should have seen
the attitude and chaos. Whereas in
Allahabad
,
India
they have the Kub ka Mela where 30 million people come
together and not one person is crushed to death.
I was in London once reciting a majlis at the Acton
Town Hall after the majlis I was talking to one of the
organisers and we overstayed our time, the caretaker
came and without saying a word just stood near us which was
enough of an indication to us that he had to close the doors
etc. In contrast at the Masjid e Nabawi a friend's wife was
praying and it was time for closing the Haram, so this man who
had a broom in his hand starting to pat her with the broom as
she was in Sajdah, this was a man in the Haram of the Rahmat
al lilaalameen.
So Christianity is Mercy based, Hinduism is Meditation based.
Islam has 2 focal points. If you do not have these two within
you, you can keep praying the entire night and keep fasting
the entire day and kill yourself with rituals nothing is going
to make a difference.
The 2 points.
1.
Nothing is to be done against reasoning
2.
Nothing against Justice
If your attitude, your word, your mannerism has caused an eye
to shed a tear, a heart to become heavy. If you have ridiculed
anyone, then you can forget about all the Ibadaats. Nothing in
Islam will make sense until and unless you remember to stay
within the sphere of Justice and reasoning.
War in Islam
A young man just asked me a question which is "can we
join the Canadian Army".
You cannot join any army blindly, be it Canadian, Iranian,
Pakistani or any other. You cannot join an army where you are
required to take an oath that you will defend the land.
You can only take an oath which says that wherever this flag
will be for the cause of Justice, I will defend the flag
War in Islam is only permitted when it is to establish
justice.
We pray for the Zuhoor of our 12th Imam a.s. We pray that we
join his army. What will his army do? His army will be to
crush injustice.
To join the army of the 12th Imam there will be only one
condition but this condition is such that it will eliminate
99.9% of the people
The condition is that you will be qualified to join his army
only if you have never done zulm in your life, you have
not caused hurt or harm to anyone
You have not usurped the rights of anyone.
You can fight injustice only when you are not unjust yourself.
We
have a responsibility, everyone present here has a
responsibility, the responsibility being spreading the true
Islam, the Islam that has reached us through the family of the
Holy Prophet ('s)
The Prophet ('s) sent Imam Ali ('a) to Yemen. Imam Ali ('a) was
the greatest warrior of his time but his character was
greater, he explained Islam with such logic to the people that
they entire city converted to Islam. This is the Islam that we
need to preach.
Before leaving this world the Holy Prophet ('s) said that I am
leaving with you two things, with one had grasp tightly to the
Holy Quran and with the other hold on to my family. But what
did the people do they let go of the family and instead took
the sword in the hand and started to shed blood, and did not
stop. The Bani Ummayads the Banu Abbas, conquered by killing
is that called conquer?
We
have made Jews our enemies, we have made Christians our
enemies
And now we are paying the price of our own atrocities.
The guidance contained in the Quran was to ensure that there
remains no "zulm" or "mazloom" on
earth but the Qur'an itself became the biggest mazloom.
Instead of seeking Guidance from the Qur'an the use of the
Qur'an has been very well captured by a poet from Hyderabad
who says:
"Hoshyar tho leithe nahi Qur'an sey sabaq
Behosh ko Qur'an kee hawa deitey hain"
Is this the purpose of the Qur'an? This is a question that we
all need to ask ourselves!
The Qur'an came to help us progress, to develop our
capabilities, the Qur'an tells us of our enormous capabilities
and how to develop these, the Qur'an tells us to conquer the
skies, it tells us that every created thing is within our
grasp, the tremendous potential of our intellect, the Qur'an
encourages us to study the various sciences, advance
technologically, the galaxies, the planets the stars are all
within our reach. BUT instead of reaching the stars
controlling the stars what did man do, gave control to the
stars, foolishly sitting with horoscopes, giving in to
superstitions. The Qur'an is telling us to use our intellect
and reasoning and we are firmly embedded in superstitious
which is totally against reasoning.
Please read history, one of the indications that a
civilization is headed for a downfall is when its people
give in to superstitions. Superstitions, believing in black magic, Taweez etc all
stem from no faith in Allah (swt) and lack of self confidence.
Have you ever thought about the people whom you approach for taweez
etc and hope that they will help you overcome all your
problems, how come they do not have the power to remove their
own problems. If you have faith in Allah (swt) and the Qur'an
then please stop these practices. Try and understand Allah (swt)
and try and understand yourself. We are Allah's superior most
creation, even angels do not come up to the level at which
Allah (swt) has created human beings.
In Sura At Tin Allah (swt) says "...We
created man in the best conformation i.e endowed with all
the positive qualities, physical as well as mental. Which
means that each human being is endowed with the ability to
make the best possible use of his/her inborn qualities and of
the environment to which he/she is exposed.
The elephant is such a huge animal yet the little man sitting
on it directs this animal by nudging this enormous creature
with his little toe. So please use
your AQL, think rationally and do not give in to
superstitious practices or things which makes no sense.
Purpose of the Prophets
And remember that the one single purpose of the Prophets was
to remove injustice (atrocities) from this world.
In
my previous lecture I mentioned that I am not in favour of
Tableegh being done only in prisons. Please do not
misunderstand me I am not against any race or colour but what
I am trying to say is why not gear our efforts of tableegh
towards the scholars, the colleges, the universities. I
was rather disturbed when I read in the the Wall Street
Journal in which a convert by the name of Waris Din Omar who
calls himself Imam Waris Din Omar has given a statement
justifying the 9/11 episode by quoting the Quran stating that
the Holy Book permits the killing of innocent people. Now this
is the kind of disfavour to Islam that I am referring to when
Islam is not propagated amongst the learned, the scholars.
Islam's View on Terrorism
To look at Islam's view on terrorism, go into history when
Muawiyaah established the first terrorist government in Damascus.
After the battle of Siffin, his army had adopted the policy
of plundering little villages, killing the people and looting
their belongings.
Kumayl
Ibn e Ziad who was a Governor of Imam Ali ('a) asked Imam Ali
('a) if they should do the same to Muawiyah, the Imam replied:
"Two
wrongs do not make a right,
Muawiyah has no mission,
he is a person of temptation,
but we have a mission and our
mission is to establish a just society"
Sura Maida tells us that if a nation has treated you unjustly
that does not mean that you treat them unjustly too.
I had said earlier that Islam has two focal points
-
Nothing against
reasoning
-
Nothing against
Justice
Let me give you an example of reasoning and how place and time
has to be considered in the Shariah.
Suppose you give me $100 for charity and I go to
Lucknow
and give it to a prostitute, a thief or a rich person. You
will not be too happy when you learn of this. But listen
carefully, the Prophet ('s) gave a large amount of money to
Imam Ali ('a) for distribution to the needy. There were some
people who were constantly keeping an eye on Imam Ali's
activities hoping to find something wrong. Some of these found
out that Imam Ali ('a) had given a large portion of that money
to a prostitute, and to a thief and to a very wealthy man (who
was a known miser), so they complained to the Prophet ('s). The
Prophet ('s) asked Imam Ali ('a) to explain to these people the
reason for his action and the Imam explained that the
prostitute was driven to prostitution because of acute poverty
the same was for the thief. When the prostitute received this
money she repented and would now spend the rest of her days as
a decent pious woman. The thief on receiving the money started
some kind of business as for the wealthy man , he became so
ashamed upon receiving charity that he vowed to spend his
wealth on the less fortunate.
The lesson here being that Islam does not have hard and fast
rules we have to constantly use our AQL in every
situation.
Islam has a problem with crime not with the criminal.
There is rational and justice behind each Islamic rule.
Why was Imam Ali ('a) killed ? Because the people
of that time could not bear his
fairness and Justice. And even his assassin when questioned by
Imam Ali ('a) as to whether he had treated him fairly was
forced to reply in the affirmative.
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