Look at his statement, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, {The nations will gather against you just as people gather together to eat from one dish.} They said, ‘Will we be few in number at that time, O Messenger of Allah?’ He replied, {No. You will be many, but you will be foam like foam on a river. Allah will remove the fear of you from the hearts of your enemies and throw wahn[1] into your hearts.} They said, ‘What is wahn, O Messenger of Allah?’ He replied, {Love for this worldly life and hatred of death.}[2]
Come and look at the advice that the Commander of the Believers, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, gave to Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ when he was setting off for the Battle of Qādisiyyah. He warned him and those with him against falling into the consequences of this weighty divine standard practice. He called upon him to keep his army away from the deviations and slips that would make them liable to fall into the grip of oppressors. Part of what he said was:
‘O Saʿd, the son of Umm Saʿd, do not let yourself be deceived because they call you the paternal uncle of the Messenger of Allah, for indeed Allah does not replace evil with evil but rather He replaces evil with good. There is no connection between Allah and any individual except through obedience to Him. I command you and those with you to be warier of yourselves than of your enemy, for the sins of the army are a greater threat to them than their actual enemy. The Muslims are only given victory because of their enemy’s disobedience of Allah. If that were not the case, we would have no power against them, because our numbers are not like their numbers and our equipment is not like their equipment. If we are equal in disobedience, then they have power that is superior to ours. If we are not victorious over them because of our merit, we will never get the better of them because of our power. Do not say that our enemy is worse than us, and thus they will never be granted authority over us, for it is often the case that a people are put under the authority of someone worse than them. For example, when the Children of Israel committed disobedience, Allah put them under the authority of the disbelieving Magians, who entered the innermost part of their homes and it was a promise that was fulfilled.’
The purpose behind surveying these texts is so that you can clearly see the difference between being given honour and distinction and being given authority, and so that you understand that the West having the upper hand with its civilization, its power and its vigour over the Islamic Ummah is similar to the upper hand of a punisher holding a stick and using it to punish someone and make an example of them. It is not, under any circumstance, the upper hand of distinction and honour.
This means that what people imagine to be the flourishment of Western civilization is actually a reflection of the backwardness of Islamic civilization. The decline of the Islamic Ummah, in relation to its moral and social level, gives the impression that Western civilization is firmly established at the peak.
When the Muslims stop straying from the knowledge of their essence and become convinced of the meanings of their slavehood to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and then turn towards dealing with the life that they enjoy and the world that surrounds them according to the approach that Allah has outlined for them in His Book, motivated by desire for His reward and fear of His punishment, it will then be possible for them to look and see Western civilization for what it truly is, for it will have changed and gone down in their estimation. They will see how its authority over them has contracted and that they have been liberated and freed from its orbit and gravitational pull.
However, you must know that regardless of how often this standard divine practice imposes itself upon people and nations, in different ages and eras, and however much the veracity of its application is manifest in the words that we have mentioned, having certainty in it cannot be complete unless it follows certainty in the existence of Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He, i.e. scientific, conscious certainty. It must also follow certainty that the Qurʾān, around whose axis our discussion has revolved, is nothing but the speech of Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He.
Whoever is lacking this certainty will not be convinced by anything we have said about this universal standard practice.
Who would affirm–from amongst those who do not believe in Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He, with true conscious faith–that the flourishment of Western civilization today, in our eyes, and the Islamic Ummah’s attraction to it is nothing but a manifestation of the humiliation that has surrounded this Ummah on account of its hypocrisy, which has worsened over time, and its abandonment of the responsibilities that Allah has imposed upon its neck, along with its claim–despite the aforementioned–that it believes in Allah and the Last Day and that it possesses the nobility of this civilizational heritage and boasts of its true connection to it?
There is no doubt that in everything we have discussed so far, we have only addressed those who have this certainty in Allah and have already looked into the matter of Allah being the Creator of the universe and that it is impossible for there to be a universe without a creator or an organized system without an organizer. As for those who do not yet have this, they must not waste their time discussing that which will not benefit them, regarding anything that we have finished elucidating. Rather, if they want to treat this matter seriously, they must go back and look at their conception of the universal structure from its foundations as well as of the greater issue, the foundation and starting point of the entire matter, which is none other than the issue of Allah’s existence and oneness, and His being the Creator of this universe. They must investigate and examine these matters impartially and devoid of whims and biases.
Come and look at the advice that the Commander of the Believers, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, gave to Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ when he was setting off for the Battle of Qādisiyyah. He warned him and those with him against falling into the consequences of this weighty divine standard practice. He called upon him to keep his army away from the deviations and slips that would make them liable to fall into the grip of oppressors. Part of what he said was:
‘O Saʿd, the son of Umm Saʿd, do not let yourself be deceived because they call you the paternal uncle of the Messenger of Allah, for indeed Allah does not replace evil with evil but rather He replaces evil with good. There is no connection between Allah and any individual except through obedience to Him. I command you and those with you to be warier of yourselves than of your enemy, for the sins of the army are a greater threat to them than their actual enemy. The Muslims are only given victory because of their enemy’s disobedience of Allah. If that were not the case, we would have no power against them, because our numbers are not like their numbers and our equipment is not like their equipment. If we are equal in disobedience, then they have power that is superior to ours. If we are not victorious over them because of our merit, we will never get the better of them because of our power. Do not say that our enemy is worse than us, and thus they will never be granted authority over us, for it is often the case that a people are put under the authority of someone worse than them. For example, when the Children of Israel committed disobedience, Allah put them under the authority of the disbelieving Magians, who entered the innermost part of their homes and it was a promise that was fulfilled.’
The purpose behind surveying these texts is so that you can clearly see the difference between being given honour and distinction and being given authority, and so that you understand that the West having the upper hand with its civilization, its power and its vigour over the Islamic Ummah is similar to the upper hand of a punisher holding a stick and using it to punish someone and make an example of them. It is not, under any circumstance, the upper hand of distinction and honour.
This means that what people imagine to be the flourishment of Western civilization is actually a reflection of the backwardness of Islamic civilization. The decline of the Islamic Ummah, in relation to its moral and social level, gives the impression that Western civilization is firmly established at the peak.
When the Muslims stop straying from the knowledge of their essence and become convinced of the meanings of their slavehood to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and then turn towards dealing with the life that they enjoy and the world that surrounds them according to the approach that Allah has outlined for them in His Book, motivated by desire for His reward and fear of His punishment, it will then be possible for them to look and see Western civilization for what it truly is, for it will have changed and gone down in their estimation. They will see how its authority over them has contracted and that they have been liberated and freed from its orbit and gravitational pull.
However, you must know that regardless of how often this standard divine practice imposes itself upon people and nations, in different ages and eras, and however much the veracity of its application is manifest in the words that we have mentioned, having certainty in it cannot be complete unless it follows certainty in the existence of Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He, i.e. scientific, conscious certainty. It must also follow certainty that the Qurʾān, around whose axis our discussion has revolved, is nothing but the speech of Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He.
Whoever is lacking this certainty will not be convinced by anything we have said about this universal standard practice.
Who would affirm–from amongst those who do not believe in Allah, Mighty and Majestic is He, with true conscious faith–that the flourishment of Western civilization today, in our eyes, and the Islamic Ummah’s attraction to it is nothing but a manifestation of the humiliation that has surrounded this Ummah on account of its hypocrisy, which has worsened over time, and its abandonment of the responsibilities that Allah has imposed upon its neck, along with its claim–despite the aforementioned–that it believes in Allah and the Last Day and that it possesses the nobility of this civilizational heritage and boasts of its true connection to it?
There is no doubt that in everything we have discussed so far, we have only addressed those who have this certainty in Allah and have already looked into the matter of Allah being the Creator of the universe and that it is impossible for there to be a universe without a creator or an organized system without an organizer. As for those who do not yet have this, they must not waste their time discussing that which will not benefit them, regarding anything that we have finished elucidating. Rather, if they want to treat this matter seriously, they must go back and look at their conception of the universal structure from its foundations as well as of the greater issue, the foundation and starting point of the entire matter, which is none other than the issue of Allah’s existence and oneness, and His being the Creator of this universe. They must investigate and examine these matters impartially and devoid of whims and biases.
***
It remains for us to ask: how can the Muslims return to their praiseworthy state?
If Allah grants us success, this is what we will explain in the next chapter, which is the chapter that concludes this book’s issues and discussions.
If Allah grants us success, this is what we will explain in the next chapter, which is the chapter that concludes this book’s issues and discussions.
______________
[1] (tn): i.e. weakness
[2] Related by Abū Dāwūd and Aḥmad
[Translated from Minhāj al-Ḥaḍārah al-Insāniyyah fil Qurʾān (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2009) p.157-159]
This advice is also found in the imam's book Man and Allah's Justice on Earth, the translation of which will also be published soon, if Allah so wills.
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