Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

The worst crime: The denial of Allah (SWT)’s greatest gift

How can a gravely sick man get cured when he ignores the only prescription for the cure? It is the core element of Muslims’ faith that the Holy Qur’an is the only prescription for all moral, social, political, cultural, spiritual, and economic ills of the whole mankind. It is the greatest gift from Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala for the mankind. Any doubt or deviation from that belief is enough to make one a kafir (disbeliever). Such a disbelief leads people to believe in various man-made ideologies, fake religions and concepts. Such deviation from the Qur’anic prescription cum roadmap leads to hellfire.

Iman (belief) of a believer is very inclusive; believing only in Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala, His prophets, His angels and the hereafter (akhera) is not enough. Iman of a man is not true iman if he denies the Holy Qur’an as the only cure for all spiritual, moral and social ills. Iblis became a cursed Shaitan not for disbelieving in the existence of Almighty Lord, His attributes, His angels and the hereafter but for disobeying only one of His commands. The rule of “all or none” works here. A believer has to believe all of Allah Sub’hana Ta’ala’s commands. If he disbelieves in one of His commands, he indeed disbelieves in Him. Hence, any disobedience or betrayal against any of the Qur’anic rules makes one kafir. This is why belief in the Divine prescription -as revealed in the Holy Qur’an works as a litmus test of iman.

On the attributes of the Holy Qur’an, Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala reveals His Own very powerful statement, “Thus, We send down through this Qur’an all that give health (to the soul) and is a mercy for those who believe (in Us); but it only adds to the ruin of the evildoers.” - (Surah Isra, verse 82). The above verse works as the guiding compass for every Muslim. It also makes it clear that the Holy Qur’an doesn’t help those who are disbelievers in the Holy Qur’an and persistent wrongdoers. Hence, unflinching faith in all elements of this Divine prescription must be an integral part of iman of a believer. In the sight of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala, such faith works as a key for acceptance of any of the good deeds. In absence of such faith, rituals like five times prayer, month-long fasting, hajj, and charity go in vain. Moreover, without such inclusive iman, how can one get motivated to invest all of his efforts, energy, intelligence, wealth, and even sacrifice his life for full implementation of the Qur’anic prescription?

Even a perfect prescription can’t help cure a patient if the medicines are not taken as per the doctor’s guidance. Picking up an item as per wish and ignoring the others doesn’t cure the disease. Reciting and kissing the prescription even a thousand times doesn’t help either; rather speeds up the journey towards death. But now, the Muslims are doing the same foolish practice with the Holy Qur’an. They pay respect to this Holy Book but do not follow it. Some people have taken five times prayer, month-long fasting, hajj, and giving zakat as the complete Islam. They have totally disregarded the core mission of Islam like ‘a’maru bil maruf and nehi’anil munkar’ and the establishment of the Islamic state with its obligatory components like sharia, hudud, khilafah, governance by shura, jihad, and the pan-Islamic Muslim brotherhood. Such non-compliance with the Qur’anic prescription is indeed an explicit disrespect of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala who has given this greatest gift for full implementation. Such disrespect for His prescription makes them very dissimilar to early Muslims and far deviated from the path of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Such deviation adds speed only onto a hell-bound path –as mentioned in the above verse. In the Holy Qur’an, the Jews and the Christians have been repeatedly condemned for such deviations from the prophetic path. In surah Fatiha, they have been labelled as duallin (deviant). Muslims are inspired to make supplications in every unit of prayer to get saved from such deviation.  

The most important issue and the failure

While making a journey, the most crucial issue is to know the right roadmap. Without knowing it, no sane man starts moving from his home. The same is true for a journey towards paradise. Only one path –the Qur’anic path takes to paradise; all other paths take only to hellfire. Hence, any failure to take the right roadmap for paradise definitely takes one to the hellfire. This is why nothing is more important in life than rightly knowing the siratul mustaqeem –the Qur’anic roadmap. For that one needs Divine help. Whoever is guided by Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala, is indeed truly guided –this has been revealed so many times in the Holy Qur’an. Therefore, while standing in prayer, the greatest and the most important supplication is not asking the Almighty Lord for any familial, professional, political, and business success, but seeking the right path called siratul mustaqeem. To emphasize this most crucial point in life, the recital of “ih’dinas siratul’mustaqeem” (O Allah! Show me the right path) towards paradise –as embedded in Surah Fatiha, is made obligatory in every raka (unit) of five-time prayer.

After being blessed with the right path from Allah Sub’hana waTa’ala, it becomes obligatory to follow that path. It is also crucial to stay protected even from the slightest deviation towards hellfire. Hence, seeking such protection from the Almighty Lord is also embedded in the same supplication. A man’s most important longing in life indeed gets expressed through his supplication. Truly, by making recitation of Surah Fatiha obligatory in every unit of prayer, Allah Sub’hana waTa’ala guides every believer in setting the highest priority in life. Staying focused on the right path is so crucial that making such a supplication repeatedly is a norm in Muslims’ prayers.

But awfully, such supplication in five-time prayers shows little impact on Muslims’ practical life. It is limited within the rote recitation in prayer rituals. In practice, they are consciously and deliberately following the deviations in every crossroads of political, cultural, social, and economic life. Thye pay little or no attention to seek the right path towards paradise. Whereas, siratul mustaqeem –the Qur’anic roadmap is not hidden from public eyes; it has robust distinctive milestones on the way. Those who have common sense, spiritual insights, Divine knowledge, and familiarity with the history of the early Muslims must not miss those clear milestones in the journey. These are the steps of Qur’anic literacy, obligatory prayers, establishing and protecting an Islamic state, and rule by shura, running judiciary by sharia, dissolution of ethnic and linguistic boundaries, trans-ethnic Muslim brotherhood, and jihad for “a’maru bil ma’ruf and nehi’anil munkar.” Those who ignore these milestones in their journey indeed get deviated from the Qur’anic roadmap.

The Shaitanic path towards the hellfire, too, has its own eye-catching milestones. These are visible in familial, educational, ideological, political, educational, cultural, judicial, and economic arenas. Fake religions and ideologies like idolatry, paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism, tribalism, nationalism, secularism, capitalism, socialism, despotism, monarchism, fascism, and many other non-Islamic faiths are Shaitanic inventions. The political and social institutions like autocratic statecrafts, kufr civil and military infrastructures, kufr judiciary, kufr law, gambling, prostitution, and divisive state boundaries based on ethnic and linguistic differences also display the devilish deviations. The political and military coalition with the kuffar imperialists reinforces such deviation among the Muslims. Whoever has some Islamic knowledge must not fail to figure out such deviation. In fact, those who are spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind (summum, bukmun, um’yun) -as per the Qur’anic narrative) and don’t bother about knowing the siratul mustaqeem, fail to recognize such robust deviations. In fact, these are the people who arrogantly follow the road towards the hellfire.

The most important test of intelligence of a man or woman doesn’t take place in college exams or professional tests, but in figuring out the true path towards paradise from a multitude of hell-bound paths. The test instantly starts in everyone’s life on every crossroads of life while he or she stands face to face with various paths. Such crossroads appear in each personal, familial, social, political, cultural, judicial, economic issue of life. In fact, every decision in life till death –whether in private or public arena, works as important testing outposts. The intellectual ability to identify the Truth from falsehoods and the moral courage to cut off selfish bondages from evil forces are tasted at these crossroads.

For success in any test, it needs knowledge. The test examines one’s ability to figure out the Divine Truth from the falsehood. In order to qualify, one needs an understanding of the Holy Qur’an –the greatest treasure of Divine knowledge. In absence of that specific knowledge, even intellectuals, imams, mullahs, and Nobel Prize-winning scientists may fail the test badly. Such failed people may turn out to be the foot-soldiers of the worst devil on the earth. All horrendous criminal acts like dropping nuclear bombs, chemical bombs, barrel bombs, mother of all bombs and putting people in gas chambers are indeed the works of these intelligent criminals. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and George W. Bush had thousands of them in their armies; hence could occupy countries and slaughter millions of people.

On the other hand, because of the Qur’anic understanding, even a shepherd can pass the test with high marks –as happened in the early days of Islam. The finest and the greatest men and women in the whole span of human history indeed come from this category of people who could pass the moral test. The reward of success in the test is unimaginable. They are awarded with the eternal pleasures in paradise. And failure leads to infinite hellfire. But awfully, a huge number of ulama, mullah, imams, darwish, and sheikhs in the Muslim countries show their dismal failure to take the right path –as happened with the ulama of bani Israel. In the past, the brutal despots like Yazid bin Muwabiah, Hajjaz bin Yousuf and others had a large number of such people in their armies.

Today, the situation is not different either. The ranks and files of the worst tyrants of the Muslim World are heavily empowered by the people who visibly follow the wrong paths. And a very small number of people are seen on siratul mustaqeem. Absence of an Islamic state, divisive walls in the Muslim World, and abolition of sharia in Muslim states give clear testimony to such scarcity of the right people.

The ideological malice

An idolater doesn’t show any distaste for idolatry; he or she feels proud to be a practicing idolator. He or she does feel ashamed to testify that his or her gods and goddesses are cows, snakes and monkeys. And some of them are born out of human wombs. Likewise, a racist, nationalist, fascist, colonialist, or imperialist hasn’t any distaste for his or her ideology that caused so much havoc on the earth. Hence, racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, colonial occupation, or imperialistic ambitions play such a dominant role in their behavior, politics, culture, and warfare. Because of such ideological beliefs, they do not possess any distaste for their criminal practices. Rather the former colonial powers still celebrate their worst crimes committed in the occupied land as great heritage. British colonialism is an example in this regard. The Palestinians are bombed, humiliated, and ethnically cleansed from their ancestral land because of the Balfour Declaration and the illegal creation of Israel.

But the British imperialists still boastfully celebrate such a criminal colonial legacy. This owes to the fact that evil ideologies never die. Therefore, although the old colonial empires have collapsed, colonialism along with its racial supremacism still survives. It survives in the form of neo-imperialism. Hence they get incentives to commit the same crimes of occupational wars and brutalities in weaker countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. And such crimes never get condemned in the imperialists’ club called the UN.

The Muslims’ ignorance of Islam is very huge. Because of ignorance, Muslims now survive only with some religious rituals and cultural practices. Such ignorance runs deeper not only in common Muslims but also in so-called mullahs, imams, sheikhs, ulama, and Muslim intellectuals. They commonly proclaim that Islam means peace and there exists no jihad and Islamic state in Islam. They also say that Islam consists of only five pillars. These are: witnessing the oneness of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala, accepting Muhammad (peace be upon him) as His prophet (shahada), five-time prayer, month-long fasting, hajj, and charity. They also claim that whoever excels in those five pillars will definitely enter Paradise.

Whereas the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught and practiced otherwise. His Islam was not limited only to five pillars; rather has other elements like the Islamic state, propagation of Islam, sharia, hudud, shura, jihad, and pan-Islamic Muslim unity. They rarely tell in their sermons that the Prophet (peace be upon him) was the head of the Islamic state for 10 years. He was also the Commander in Chief and led 19 wars himself. He had multiple swords, shields, and other war weapons in his own residential quarter. How can one be the true follower of the Prophet (peace be upon him) if he defies such prophetic tradition?

Because of deep ignorance, millions of Muslims who offer five times prayers, keep month-long fasting, perform hajj and also take part in the door-to-door campaign of Tablighi Jama’at, show conspicuous compatibility with the most corrupt and criminal rulers of their own countries. The Qur’anic decree like “a’maru bil ma’ruf and nehi’anil munkar” doesn’t inspire their souls to eradicate the forces of evil and implement justice. Nor do they show any interest in the revival of sharia, hudud, shura, khilafah, trans-ethnic Muslim unity, and jihad in Muslims’ life. So they defy the Prophet (peace be upon him)’s legacy. As a result, Islam and its code of law and mode of governance stand defeated in Muslim lands. And ideologies like nationationism, tribalism, secularism, civil or military fascism got the victory.

Because of detachment from Qur’anic Islam, such de-Islamised Muslims didn’t face any moral bar to work as mercenaries of the known enemies of Islam. They vote for the enemies, fight for the enemies and even die for the enemies. The enemies they serve can be foreign or native. Their service to the foreign enemies has been very catastrophic for the whole ummah. More than a million Muslims of Arab and Indian origin fought in the First World War as mercenaries in the European armies to dismantle Osmania Khilafah, They didn’t hesitate to kill the Muslim soldiers of Khalifa’s Army and occupy the Muslim lands to hand over that to the kuffar. Thus they collaborated with the enemies to disintegrate the heartland of Islam –the Middle East. The creation of Israel indeed owes to their crime against Islam and Muslims. Awfully, such crime still continues. 

The conceptual framework for the downfall

Most of the mercenaries who joined the enemy were not disbelievers in Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala and His prophet (peace be upon him). Many of them offer five-time prayers, keep month-long fasting, and perform hajj. But, such beliefs and religious practices did not stop them from doing the most heinous crimes against Islam and Muslims. It owes to the worst inadequacy in their iman. They even fail to understand the full implication of iman.

Islam doesn’t allow a believer to side with the known enemies. It is an obligation to stay committed always to the agenda of Islam. Only those who have no love for Islam and its agenda can align with the enemy`s agenda. But the number of so-called Muslims without any commitment to Islamic cause is huge in the Muslim World. Because of them, the enemies find it easy to recruit millions of native collaborators in civil and military fields to execute their crimes in Muslim lands.

The toxic enmity of these home-grown enemies gets exposed in politics. Their congruity with the kuffar is so complete that they too -like the worst kuffar enemy stand against Islam and Islamists. In August 2012, the Egyptian Army showed its venom. The Army rolled tanks on the streets against the unarmed protestors and killed more than 12 hundred Islamists in the Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo. On 5 May 2013, under the fascist rule of Hasina, the Bangladesh Army massacred hundreds of innocent Islamist protesters in Shapla Square in Dhaka.  In Pakistan in July 2007, the Army stormed Red Mosque and the adjoining Al-Hafsa women’s Madrasa in Islamabad and killed more than 150 female students in the compound. Because of these de-Islamised homegrown enemies, the colonialists, the imperialists, the nationalist fascists, the autocratic despots, and even the Hindu idolaters do not find difficulties to recruit a large number of mercenaries in the Muslim land. That was seen in 1917 in the Middle East, in 1971 in East Pakistan,  in 2001 in Afghanistan, and in 2003 in Iraq. In the early days of Islam, such alignment with the kuffar enemies was unthinkable.

In Islam, the implementation of full Islam in all segments of private and public life is crucial. No space in life, in societies, and in states should be kept outside the rule of Islam. Such space never stays empty, rather works as the breeding ground for the enemies. A Muslim needs to be a full Muslim not only in faith and rituals, but also in deeds, education, culture, politics, trade, and warfare. The Qur’anic command “udkhulu fis`silmi ka’ffa” makes it obligatory for the full submission to every rule of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala. No domain of life, state or society is kept out of His rule.

If judiciary, geo-politics, administration, education, culture, banking, and warfare stay outside the domain of Qur’anic prescription –as is the case in almost every Muslim country, how can one show his or her full submission to Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala? This is indeed the de facto huge disbelief. It is very surprising that with such failed or incomplete submission, people still loudly claim to be Muslim. Such loud claims never make one a true Muslim. In fact, such a failed or incomplete submission of the most Muslims could indeed work as the perfect conceptual and geo-political framework for the ongoing downfall. The state of current disunity, subjugation and moral failure of the Muslim Ummah gives immense testimony to that. (The writer is a writer, columnist and a consultant physician).