Ridiculing And Belittling The Prophet's Sunnah - Calling People unto Allah

Ridiculing And Belittling The Prophet’s Sunnah

Before proceeding further, I want to draw your attention to the utter mockery which is prevalent in our society in the garb of ‘the holy duty of religious preaching and propagation.’ 

As you know, every religious sect or party has enlisted a group of people who can quite appropriately be called the “civil service” of that particular group or sect, who on payment deliver fiery and polemic speeches on minor controversial points in villages and towns. These sermons and speeches hardly bear any fruit except that of throwing the audience of that very particular sect into momentary ecstasy and convicting and cajoling them to the belief that their own standpoint on those controversial points is the right one. 

Quite understandably, such preachers do not have the courage to say clearly and directly to their listeners that they have such and such shortcomings and omissions. They cannot admonish them on un-Islamic practices, viz; business  and  trade  based  on  interest,  keeping of  wrong  accounts,  illegal  gratification, tax evasion, ostentatious living, etc,. Even if some oblique reference is made to those practices, it is generally of no avail because these meetings themselves are financed by the donations of people indulging in all sorts of illegal and un-Islamic practices. 

Majority of the listeners may for a short while enjoy the truthfulness of their preachers without realizing the practical implications of those imperatives. On the other hand, the big businessmen and moneyed people remain content with a silent, sarcastic smile on their own life and behaviour without any resolve to really discontinue their evil deeds. In fact they manage to take revenge on these preachers for feeling of  bad  conscience  by  maliciously  narrating  the  private  lives  and  practices  of  these  very preachers which are usually worse than their own. And this entire activity is known as the preaching and propagation of the Deen.

Gentlemen, I most warmly and sincerely invite you to ponder over this whole issue very very seriously. Is it not tantamount to ridicule and derision of the most emphatic and continuous Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (SAW)? And are we not in this way scoffing at, and making fun of, the personality of the Prophet? Does it not indirectly bring disgrace and bad name to our beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW) with whom the pulpit of the mosque is associated? For God’s sake try to think over this issue candidly. 

To be sure, to work for religion on payment is not prohibited. But the fact should be borne in mind clearly that a paid worker can at best be a teacher or mentor but not a preacher with a missionary spirit, and an ‘inviter to Allah’ in the real sense of the word. Indeed the very first condition that a true preacher must fulfill is that his work should have no motive other than a concern and a sincere wish for people’s salvation and success. He should openly declare that he is disseminating and propagating the Divine religion selflessly and in the spirit described in the Qur’anic verse thus:

And ask of you no reward for it. My reward is only with the Lord of the worlds.  (26:109)

Source: Calling People unto Allah (A Book by Dr Israr Ahmad)

To be continued....

Stages And Levels Of Islamic Da'wah - Calling People unto Allah

Stages And Levels Of Islamic Da’wah

Inviting people to Deen or “Call them to Allah” is by no mean a simple or single-phased action. Rather it involves a plurality of variegated steps and progressive stages. Beginning from the very person of an individual Muslim and his family:

Save yourself and your family from the hell - fire  (66:6)

it extends to kith and kin, and tribe or the groups, and further:

and warn your nearest kinsmen  (26:214)

and still further it goes to one’s total social group or polity:

0 people, worship Allah  (11:50),

and finally at the widest possible level it relates to the whole of humanity:

….so that you may be witness for mankind (2:143)

Again in its initial stages, the obligation of propagating Islam and inviting people to Allah consists only in admonishing and warning people against the grave consequences of their wrong beliefs and evil deeds:

0 you who are clothed! Arise and warn  (74: 1-2)

but its ultimate goal is to proclaim and establish the supreme greatness and sovereignty of the Lord in the whole of universe:

And your Lord do magnify  (74:3)

Considered from the point of content and approach, the Da’wah work admits of several types and levels according to the taste and competence of the audience it is addressed to. For example, if call people to Allah is sounded out to highly educated people and intellectuals, it must necessarily be made in strictly academic and rationally cogent manner. Otherwise it will have no impact on them, as the Quran says:

Call people to the way of your Lord with wisdom (16:125)

And if the occasion demands, it might be couched in simple and plain phraseology. In other words, it might consist in a sort of exhortation or sermon delivered in a heart - moving tone:

…and with goodly exhortation  (16:125)

Again, a preacher during the course of his work may come across an obstinate and fussy person. There he has to resort to debate and logical argument as the Qur’an says:

…and argue with them in a way that is the best (16: 125)

That is to say, even in dialectical argument or debate the Qur’an enjoins one to be nice and polite, and not harsh and foul-mouthed. And, finally, if the need arises, a holy war also becomes the highest stage of the religious obligation of “calling people to Allah”:

And fight with them until there is no persecution and total religion freely professed for Allah.  (8:39)

so that Almighty Allah’s word is exalted, only His orders reign supreme in the world and people act with justice and equity:

…so that people act with justice  (57:25)

In today’s discourse I shall not discuss these higher stages of Da’wah which necessitate collective effort on the part of Ummah, and which, as an essential aspect of the Universal prophethood of Muhammad (SAW), is undoubtedly an obligation to be fulfilled by the Ummah as  a  whole. Nor shall I  concern myself with the total social and religious revival and re- awakening of all Muslims which cannot be accomplished without organized and sustained efforts of well - organized groups working for this noble cause. Rather, I shall today concentrate on those initial and basic stages and levels of Islamic Da’wah which are both obligatory as well as possible for each Muslim in his individual capacity.

Source: Calling People unto Allah (A Book by Dr Israr Ahmad)

To be continued....

The Foremost Sunnah Of The Holy Prophet (PBUH) - Calling People unto Allah

The Foremost Sunnah Of The Holy Prophet (Saw)

The second reason why I have chosen this particular topic for today’s talk is that this gathering consists of such people who love the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (SAW) and are eager to put in practice his example of conduct and character. Blessed are you indeed who really have a strong desire to follow the Prophet’s Sunnah. You try to learn and remember as many of Prophet’s teachings and practices as possible and act upon them with great zeal. 

Not only this, on the basis of minor differences in details you even quarrel with each other. But what a pity that you have totally renounced and forgotten the greatest Sunnah of the Prophet, an action which he persistently performed from the very first moment of his Divine Call to the last moment of his earthly life, viz, the Sunnah of Islamic Da’wah - calling people to Allah. 

Who can deny that preaching and propagating the word of Allah were the most emphasized Sunnah of the Holly Prophet (SAW)? Who can say that the Prophet has been involved all his life more in anything else than spreading and disseminating the message of Allah and turning people toward Almighty Allah? Now if Sunnah is constituted by the behavioural pattern and actions of the Prophet, then for God’s sake, ponder a little over the question: What is his most important Sunnah? Please think over the emphatic injunction of the Prophet:

“Convey from me/on my behalf”

and realize how much he has generalized and widened this order by adding:

“even if it is a single verse”.

‘Rafa Yadain’ (raising two hands in prayers) and ‘Ameen-bil-jahar’ (to say Ameen aloud in the prayers) and many other practices of the Prophet (SAW) are often debated violently among the rival sects of Muslims. But surely even those who observe these practices in prayers cannot say that the Holy Prophet (SAW) acted on these throughout his life without break. 

On the other hand, however, was the act of preaching and propagating the Islamic faith and its fundamental principles  -  calling  people  to  Allah,  and  worship  Him  alone.  This  was  an  act  which  he performed continuously, persistently and zealously throughout his prophetic mission. For twenty three long years he was ceaselessly engaged with all his mind and soul in this most vitally important activity. It means that the work of Da’wah, on the one hand, according to the Quran is the very objective and aim of the existence of Muslim Ummah. On the other hand, it is the most persistent and emphasized practice of our beloved Prophet (SAW). I shall, therefore, take this opportunity to make a few observations on this theme.

Source: Calling People unto Allah (A Book by Dr Israr Ahmad)

To be continued....

History - Calling People unto Allah

History is a witness to the fact that so long as the Islamic community as a whole discharged its divinely ordained duty, it was itself exalted and honoured along with the Truth it stood for. But when it turned a blind eye to its very raison d’etre and became only a nation like other nations pursuing worldly riches and comforts, it became the target of Divine wrath in the same way as the children of Israel had become earlier. In the beginning the punishment was confined to-

“And if you turn your backs He will bring in your stead a people other than you” (48: 38)

That is, the leadership of the Islamic world was taken away from the “children of Ismael” (i.e. the Arabs) and was entrusted to the Kurds and Saljukes. And when they did not take a lesson even from this, the more severe warning of Divine wrath overtook them in the form of Tatar onslaught and thus providing an exemplification of a state depicted in the Qur’an in these words:

“We sent against you Our servants, of mighty prowess, so they went to and fro among the houses ruining them completely.” (17:5)

Historians surmise in vain as to why the Tatars marched straight down to Baghdad and did not turn toward India even though the Indians very much anticipated their attack. The answer to this enigma is not far to look. The nucleus of the Islamic Ummah at that time was constituted by the Children of Ismael (Bani lsmael) and Baghdad was then the political centre of their government. And it was God’s will to punish them severely for their misdeeds. 

It is an historical fact that the groups of people who gained ascendancy afterwards in the Ummah were not from the ‘Children of Ismael’. Rather they hailed from other people - ‘akhereen’ in the Quranic terminology, viz; Moghuls in India and Turks in Asia Minor who also ultimately held the  Ummah-wide  religio-political  leadership  of  ‘Khilafat-i-lslami’.  

In  this  way  the  vestigial religious superiority of the ‘Children of Ismael’ vanished completely and made them the subject and tax-payer of the Turks. It was only in the early part of this century that they came out from the subjugation of the Turks and were later dominated by the European Imperialists. In the middle of the century they however gradually got freedom from them and heaved a sigh of relief. 

A quarter century after this occurs the most painful chapter of this story. Even after having political freedom after a long spell of subjugation, they did not learn a lesson from their history. They turned their backs to the ‘Deen’ and adopted westernized luxurious and lavish way of living, and indulged in mental and behavioural vagrancy. Instead of promoting the global unity of the Muslim Ummah, they took to racial and territorial nationalism. They completely repudiated the fundamental teachings of Islam and oppressed the advocates of the true religion. Until at last to the extent of the ‘Children of Ismael the “second warning” of Allah (SWT) was also fulfilled at the hands of a Divinely proclaimed damned nation (i.e. the Jews) they suffered a terribly disgraceful defeat in 1967.

As a result of the recent Arab-Israel war, no doubt the entire Muslim Ummah has been disgraced and the stigma has been shared by all Muslims. But surely the Arabs are the worst hit as the Qur’an says:

“Who took on himself the lead among them, will be given a grievous punishment”. (24:11)

Religious and moral decadence is undoubtedly visible in the whole of Muslim Ummah, but the fact is that in this some Arab countries are far ahead of other Muslim nations. It is, therefore no wonder that they got the lion’s share in the disgrace and humiliation. As the Arabs were historically top most in honour and respect, quite logically they should now have the largest share in humiliation and disgrace.

To cut the long story short the sole aim of this Ummah is to invite people to the call of Allah. And not only its honour and respect, its very survival rests on the fulfillment of this aim.

There is only one way, both for the ‘ummiyyeen’ (unlettered people i.e. the Arabs) and ‘akhereen’ (other non-Arab nations) taking inspirations from the happy tidings contained in the Qur’an:

“It may be that your Lord will have mercy on you” (17:8)

they should build up their morale and pay heed to the Divine warning:

“....and if you again return (to disobedience) We too will return (to punishment).”(17:8)

They should get up to discharge their duties honestly and sincerely. These repeated warnings are for us only to remind that there is no way for we Muslims but to turn to Allah (SWT). And that not only for regaining the past grandeur and glory but also for the guarantee of our survival, there is no programme of action for us except turning ourselves and inviting others to Allah (SWT).

Source: Calling People unto Allah (A Book by Dr Israr Ahmad)

To be continued....