Obligations to God - The Second Pre-Requisite – To Join an Organization / Party

The Second Pre-Requisite – To Join an Organization/Party

In addition to Jihad, another pre-requisite for fulfilling our Islamic duties is that one should join an organization that is working towards the establishment of Islam.  No one can dare claim that fulfilling the three duties completely is possible by individual or personal struggle alone.  It is beyond any doubt that these duties can be performed only provided there is an organized movement. Since worshipping God, obeying Him, acting as witnesses unto mankind, enjoining good and forbidding evil, enforcing Islam and making the obedience wholly for God’s sake is obligatory, the pre-requisites are equally obligatory.  Whatever is required for performing an Islamic duty is an equally important duty in itself.  

For example, offering the prayer is a duty and performing wudu is its pre-requisite, as described earlier in the beginning of this segment of our discussion.  Just like wudu becomes a duty in order to fulfill the obligation of prayer, being in an organized collective endeavor becomes a duty in order to fulfill the obligation of establishing Islam.  Another instance is of the Ihram for performing Hajj and Umrah, which is elevated into the genre of duties being the pre-requisite of religious obligations.  Thus, if we agree in the overall framework of religious duties presented in this treatise, it is obligatory on each of us to join an appropriate group for discharging them.  On the authority of Harith Al `Ashari (RAA), it is reported that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said: 

I declare obligatory upon you five things.  They are: organization, listening, obeying, making Hijrah, and making Jihad for the cause of Allah.

 Hijrah, in essence, is to leave everything that is not approved by God. This is mentioned in one of the Hadith of the Prophet (SAW):

Once the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was asked as to which form of Hijrah is most excellent, to which he replied: “That you give up whatever displeases your Lord.”  

Hence, one is obliged to leave all habits and practices that are disliked by his Lord, to the point of leaving his home and country of origin, which will then represent the highest degree of Hijrah, in the same sense as fighting in Allah’s cause stands for the highest degree of Jihad.  As for Jihad, we have already taken note of the point that Jihad in God’s cause commences with the fighting against one’s self and culminates with the actual fighting in the battlefield.  According to the above Hadith, both Hijrah and Jihad are obligatory on every believer, and it is apparent from the wordings in the narration that these must be performed not only as individuals but in an organized and collective manner.  It is for every individual to assess whether he is a member of an organized collective effort working towards establishing Islam and taking its message to all of mankind.  If one is a member of an organization working for public welfare, social service, mass education or professional interests, it does not qualify as an organization in the above sense, for Islam demands that Muslims join a group working actively and specifically for the ascendancy of Islam.  As Iqbal says:

                We live so that thy name remain in the land

                  How can the cup remain without the cup-bearer?

And,

The aim of my life is the dominance of Your Religion

For this I’m a Muslim, for this I’m one who prays

 Let it also be realized that this organization should run on the Islamic principles of obedience to the leader, a point eloquently made in the above-quoted Prophetic saying.  If one is not a member of such an organization, I must say that he betrays lack of concern for fulfilling his religious duties.  Let it be pointed out that if one is not able to place his confidence in any group or leader because he finds none worthy of such a claim, it by no means absolves him of his obligations to God.  He must, then, make a call to others to join hands with him in the grand task of establishing Islam and taking its light to all peoples.  If he does not find himself worthy or qualified to make such a call, then there is no justification for him to live in society, since ultimately his obedience will be of a system that is not in obedience to the Divine.  This is a difficult point to swallow, but it is the only logical conclusion to what I have come across by way of the teachings of Islam, and it conforms to a Hadith in which the

Prophet (SAW) advises those who do not find an appropriate organization with a leader to leave civilization and live the rest of their lives without participating in the institutions of society.

Source: Obligations to God (Book by Dr Israr Ahmad)