A Practical Guide to Human Rights in Islam

Haqooq ul Ibad

 

 
 Chapter 39

We need to prepare our new syllabus

 

We were talking about the involvement of elders in the community affairs.  Their involvement will solve many problems, since they still are respected in our culture.  They can easily put in action the projects that we were discussing for the children, youth and elderly and on this depends the revival of Islam.  With their intelligence, time and experience they can put the things in their proper place.  Until we have separate multipurpose halls, they can use the mosque premises, with the permission of the management, as Sunday school when they prayers are not being performed.  Apart from this many people have started discussion groups in their homes, and I think this a commendable effort.  This way they can socialize as well as think about their faith.  Learning about Islam in this way can be started by anyone in the family, and they can develop their own syllabus because learning about Quran and Hadith may be difficult to do in a short time.  One can choose the topics to study within the group.  Reciting Quran, though virtuous, may not be enough and understanding what is being said and practicing it is the essence of learning.  Allah gave us the Quran in twenty-three years so that we could gradually understand and more importantly practice its teachings.  I lead one of such groups in the Richmond Mosque of Greater Vancouver area and we have completed reading Quran with explanations and it took us 20 years to complete this.  So, for this very reason, I suggest that an easy syllabus should be developed with specific objectives, which should bring visible results.  First of all we should try to instill piety in the students, which is the essence of our faith, and then they themselves would want to know more.   

Let us now ponder upon such a syllabus.  In Islam two Arabic words “Laa” and “Fee”.  Laa is negation of yourself and Fee is acceptance.  Laa is used for negation of yourself and Fee is used for acceptance and total submission to Allah.  If we negate ourselves the only thing left in this equation will be Allah.  By this argument, we do not control and posses any thing but what Allah has given us.  We are only trustees of what has been given to us by Allah.  We can use these things for our self and for the benefit of humanity.  This way we will understand that we do not posses anything and every thing belongs to Allah.  This will deflate our false ego, which hinders our development as good human beings.  This false ego keeps us from being pious; neither can we preach to others about Islam.

Big ego does not impress anybody, however modesty and humbleness does.  Rather, the big ego is cause of hatred, while humbleness creates love.

I will tell you an interesting story here.  Once Ashraf Ali Thanvi wrote to his teacher his name was Hazrat Immdad ullah (ra) and was great saint of the time that I can not get rid of my big ego, what should I do?  He wrote back that in any gathering go to the gate of the building and straighten the shoes of whosoever comes there (this is considered a humble servant’s duty).  You might wonder who was this Ashraf Ali Thanvi to deserve a mention in here.  Well, he was a very accomplished scholar of Islam and was well respected by his piers and contemporaries.  So this is how he learned humility. 

 

Negation of your ego is the first requirement of learning and self-development.  So the people, who say that they know it all, actually stop their learning and development right then and there and in actuality just fool themselves.   

Let us now move on to the positive.  First of all we need to ascertain that Allah is one and is omnipresent.   Now we are talking about the first Kalima, what it means and how does it make us Muslims.  Few people understand its significance and responsibility falls on us.  This acceptance that Allah is omnipotent and His guidance is mandatory for us. This is the first part of it (there is no god but one God).  Now let us go on to the second half of it, which says that Muhammad (pbuh) is His prophet.  When you accept this second half, you are committing to that you have accepted Quran and prophet’s teachings and will practice accordingly.  Thus the prophet (pbuh) said that no one is a true Muslim until he loves Allah and me ( pbuh)more then every thing, and this should not be only a lip service.  When we accept the prophet (pbuh), we accept that what he (pbuh) said and do that. Also  we learned the acceptance of past prophets (pubt), angels and Allah and our faith in them became mandatory.   

This was basic requirement and responsibilities of Kalima.  It is said that whosoever is committed to this acceptance will go to paradise.  The underlying meaning of this is that whosoever accepted this in practice would go to paradise.  When you accept this, it also means that by obeying Allah you are accepting His command of respecting the human rights, which have been written in Quran and Hadith.   

In your basic syllabus you will need to understand some special chapters and verses of Quran.  Some among these are; “Sura Ikhlas”, “Ayt-ul-Kursi” and third is verse 144 of “Sura Baqr”.  From “Sura Ikhlas” we learn about the singularity of ALLAH. This is a very important chapter and some traditions of the prophet (pbuh) tell us that, this has been considered as one third of Quran.  All scholars of Islam accept this that no other verse defines singularity of Allah better than this one.  However this does not mean that you do not read rest of the Quran. 

 

Send questions or comments to M. Rafiq & S. Pervaiz