A Practical Guide to Human Rights in Islam

Haqooq ul Ibad

 

 
 Chapter 11

 Un-Islamic attitude

In the previous chapter we were saying that apart from Zakat there is another charity called Sadqah,  which is not mandatory like Zakat, however it

Is part of essence of Islam.    Here one incident may not be out of order.   A European scholar was traveling around the world to find truth, during which, in Libya, he met an Arab traveler.   When it was meal time, his companion, took out the only one bread he had and offered half of it to the European traveler.   The action made him think of the religion that teaches to share the one bread that one has.   This thought provoking action helped him to convert to Islam and by grace of ALLAH; today he is one of the leading preachers of Islam.   Now did you see the magic of half bread?   It is the practice that impresses the people and not merely talk.

Each one of us is an ambassador of Islam.  If you do not express the teachings of Islam with your actions and etiquettes, you can not expect any positive results either.   For this very reason The Qur'an says that “Do not preach what you do not practice”.  On the contrary, these days our situation is such that we talk a lot but do not practice it or not enough.  Do we have such etiquettes, sincerity or sense of sacrifice within us?   Let me and you think about it and we will find the answer.  We have been shirking from teachings of Islam due to our economic slavery and so-called open mindedness.   We do not want to practice Islam neither for our lives nor in our country.  

We do say that Qur’an has the answer to all our problems, however when asked about which of the Islamic countries have established the Islam, then we do not have any answer.  Even if some of the Islamic principles are established in a country, the heads of these states are usually exempt from these and these are considered only for the common people.   It is written in various countries’ constitution that sovereignty lies with Allah.

If the chief governance is by Allah then how can any body else be exempt from accountability and presence in the court of ALLAH?  We have various examples of our reverend leaders of Islamic state (Khulfa-e- Rashidin) that they themselves were brought to justice and they had to prove their innocence.   However in Umayyad and Abbasid periods, they were khalifa in name only and were autocrats except Omar bin Abdul Aziz (RA).  We have still a few examples of such excellence and these have become parts of our history.  

In actuality we brag a lot but practice very little.  What I mean to say is that we cannot change a community without changing its individuals. We are wrong if we think that we can gain power to bring about change.  Our prophet (PBUH), first of all, presented his own character as an example and only then he changed the character of people around him before he established the Islamic government at Medina.

If the establishers of a system first do not have belief in it and do not practice it themselves, they cannot have its impact on others.  A machine cannot work if its essential parts are not in place.  Let us come back to the Ideals of goodness presented and practiced by our prophet (PUBH).   You have all heard that once a companion of his came and complained that her son eats too many sweets.  He told her to come back the next day, and she did that.

Then the next day he (pubh) told the child “son do not eat this much sweets”.  This took that lady aback and she asked the prophet (PUBH) that he could have given this advice to the boy on the first day.  Prophet told her that he himself used to like sweets till then.  First I quit eating sweets too much myself and then gave the advice to the boy to do that.  Crux of the story is that if you do not practice it yourself giving advice to others is of no use.  We have done this time and again.  In spite of governing for centuries we could not make any difference, rather things got worse.   We established Islamic governments; however we could not establish the spirit of Islam there.  We gave opportunity to others to taunt us and caused bad name to Islam.

At times our elders got tangled in local traditions.  For example we adopted the practice of discrimination in India.  The untouchables remained untouchable in spite of converting to Islam.  We also abstained from eating with them and marrying them.  So much so that even in a mosque we made them to stand in the back rows.  In Shahjahanpur there were Muslim janitors who were called Halal Khoor, and were made to pray separately.   In Punjab there is a group of new Muslims called Mussallies with whom no Muslim even shares meals, what to talk of intermarrying with them.  Even now our preachers do not like to mingle with the new Muslims or like to eat with the untouchables.   Do we share their grief?  If not then why would they like to join people with such mannerism?  When they convert, usually there own kin disown them. 

 

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