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.
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