Muslims must concentrate on
establishing micro-Islamic communities wherever they can. But let me at once
enter into the record my admiration for the effort made by Br. Nazim Mohammed
in establishing a Muslim Village at the Boos Settlement Jama’at in Rio Claro,
Trinidad. I visited the Muslim Village and found to my happiness that he
succeeded in bringing the races together in a racial fraternity. This essay is
written for the specific purpose of encouraging readers to take the initiative
in establishing wherever possible multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual
villages that would be united in the fraternity of faith in Islam.
If an authentic Muslim Village is to
be established, and if it is to provide Muslims with the means of preserving
their faith in today’s increasingly godless world, then, in addition to
abstaining from voting in elections of the modern secular state, it must
fulfill the following conditions:
• The public life of the Muslim
Village must be established on the firm foundations of the Qur’an and Sunnah.
Whatever is not based on the Qur’an and Sunnah cannot be recognized as essential
for survival. If a Muslim religious practice cannot be so established then,
regardless of how beneficial it may be, or how long Muslims may have observed
it, it should not be brought into the Masjid and into the public life of the
Muslim Village, nor should it be allowed to become the grounds for division and
conflict between Muslims. Only thus would the Muslim Village survive the
sinister contemporary effort directed at purging Muslim communities of all
practices (both harmless and harmful) that are not based on the Qur’an and
Sunnah and the way of the Aslaf (plural of Salaf, i.e., early Muslims). One
implication of the above would be that the Halaqa of Zikr of the Qaderiyyah
Sufi Order to which I belong, or other such Sufi Orders, would be held in private
locations within the village.
• The Muslim Village must be
self-sufficient in food production and in energy. Surah al-Kahf of the Qur’an
points to solar energy as the solution for energy. The Surah also warns
concerning absolute purity in food, hence abstinence from chemical
fertilizers, genetically re-engineered food, hormones in milk and meat, etc.
Surplus production of this organic food of the Muslim Village can be marketed
out of the Village and this would form part of the foundation of the Village
economy. An effective marketing strategy can include, for example, an
explanation of the link between food, sexuality and sexual virility. In the
process of producing food that is pure and healthy, the Muslim Village would be
demonstrating a capacity to do that which the rest of the people are
increasingly incapable of doing. The same would be true for the capacity of the
Muslim Village to cure alcoholism and drug addiction, to reverse the decline in
sexual morality, to preserve the family unit at a time when it is collapsing
around the world, to establish peace and security and thus eliminate violence
and crime, etc. All of these achievements would make an effective political
impact upon the politics of Trinidad and Tobago in the sense that they would demonstrate
Islam’s capacity to solve problems that governments and secular political
parties cannot solve.
• The Muslim Village would also have
to establish a micro-market which would be independent from the macro-market,
and which would use real money (i.e. gold and silver) rather than the
artificial paper money of the macro-market. In this way the micro-market would
survive when the fraudulent international monetary system based on paper money
collapses. I expect the international monetary system based on paper money to
collapse at that time when Israel wages her great war of territorial expansion
to occupy the entire area from ‘the river of Egypt’ (Nile?) to the river
‘Euphrates’ in Iraq. That war is likely to take place very soon.
One of the most important
characteristics of the micro-market of the Muslim Village is that it would
ensure that wealth circulates throughout the village economy. So the poor of
the village would not remain permanently poor and the rich would not remain
permanently rich. Since all forms of Riba would be prohibited in the village —
both ‘front door’ and ‘back door’ — the Muslim Credit Union would not be
allowed to do business in the Muslim Village.
• The Muslim Village would have to
make a determined effort to pursue al-Ihsan (or Tasawwuf) in order to achieve
internal spiritual insight. Thus the village life would have to be one of great
simplicity, austerity and piety. There will have to be a strict enforcement of
the Shariah. In addition, the Muslim Village would have to ensure that it takes
complete control over education. The Qur’an must remain at the center of the
system of education throughout all stages of education. The Muslim school in
the Muslim Village would have one great advantage over the Muslim school
located outside. The children of such a Muslim school would be supported by a
Muslim community that would be living Islam! Only such children can truly be
trained and educated as Muslims!
• All those Muslims who reside in the
Muslim Village must collectively constitute One Jama’at under the leadership of
One Amir. The Amir must be someone who knows the Din (religion) and lives the
Din. He must also know the world today. Regardless of whether he is African or
Indian or ‘Dougla’, etc., he must enforce the Din on the members of the Jama’at
and they must respond with as-Sam’u wa at-Ta’atu (listening and obeying). This
will preserve the internal integrity and discipline of the Muslim Village. It
will also bring the races of Trinidad and Tobago together in a racial fraternity
and in so doing it would make an eloquent political statement to a racially
polarized Trinidad and Tobago as well as to a racially polarized world.
• The Muslim Village cannot be, and
must not be, a stepping-stone for the eventual control over the state. The only
purpose of the Muslim Village is to preserve the faith of the believers. Thus,
the Village would not be armed except with the weapons needed to defend it
against robbers, rapists and thieves! It would have no capacity to defend
itself if attacked by the state or by enemies of Islam. In addition, the
Village would encourage Hindus, Christians and others to reside with Muslims in
the Village on the condition that they are not hostile to Islam and they agree
to abide by the public norms of conduct of the Village. In this way,
non-Muslims would themselves be able to dispel the rumor-monger and the
‘doubting Thomas’ concerning the peaceful nonthreatening nature of the Muslim
Village. But the Muslim Village, despite not being armed, would still have to develop
the means of ensuring the safety and collective security of all villagers. This
cannot be a Village in which people have to live like prisoners with iron bars
on every window of their homes, and with expensive security and burglar-alarm
systems installed in every home. Security in the Village should be such that
even a woman can walk in and around the Village at night in complete safety and
security. This security of the Muslim Village would make a tremendous political
statement to the rest of the beleaguered nation.
• The entire guidance which emerges
from the Qur’an and Sunnah and which must be applied to the task of
establishing the micro-Muslim communities in Muslim Villages, needs to be
extracted and classified. And this is precisely the task that Maulana Dr.
Ansari has accomplished in his magnificent work entitled ‘The Qur’anic
Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society’. He has also articulated the
concept of Islamic spirituality with great care and with quite some detail, and
in so doing he has answered critics who had not even emerged at the time that
the book was written. But ‘spirituality’ cannot be achieved unless there is a
prior moral struggle for purity. One of the major achievements of his book is
its detailed exposition and classification of the Islamic moral code and the
beautiful explanation and guidance that it provides of the methodology of
Tazkiyah (i.e., moral purification) and of Zikr (i.e., the fragrance which only
true love can deliver when it embraces the heart and provokes, in the privacy
of the heart, a constant remembrance of the beloved).
• “The Qur’anic Foundations and
Structure of Muslim Society” constitutes a textbook, workbook and a veritable
manual for the survival of Muslims of the present age. I intend to use this
book as my manual for establishing the authentic Muslim community in Muslim
Villages wherever I can. I pray that the reader will also be inspired to do the
same. Amin!
Before this essay ends there is a
warning that must be entered into the record. It is this. The secular state and
secular political system that Muslims have inherited from Britain and Europe is
one which requires an essential homogeneity of godlessness in the polity in
order for it to work. European civilization achieved that homogeneity in the
emergence of an essentially godless secular way of life. The rest of the world
does not yet possess that essential homogeneity. And so it was hardly
surprising that racially and tribally divisive politics should have plagued
non-European polities from the very beginning of self-rule. Indeed it has now
reached dead-end and there is a distinct possibility that it can lead to racial
riots. If Muslims remain a part of the system of electoral politics and
identify themselves politically with the party of their race, they will remain
the most vulnerable of all groups to be targeted when racial riots begin. When
they raise their hands in prayer at that time of bloodshed and killing, and
find to their dismay that they receive no help from above, they may then understand
the verse of the Qur’an which warns that Allah will not change the condition of
a people until they (the people) take the initiative, using Allah’s guidance,
to change their own condition (Qur’an, ar-R’ad, 13:11). That is the basic
function this essay seeks to perform.
CONCLUSION
