De-Compartmentalised Heart, Treatment of Others, Integration & Loyalty
Issue 342 » September 2, 2005 - Rajab 27, 1426
General
| Living the Quran |
Al-Baqara
(The Cow) De-compartmentalising the Heart
The Quran states that true taqwa cannot be attained until all your actions in life are done exclusively to earn the pleasure of Allah. Your qalb (heart) cannot be compartmentalised. You cannot dedicate one piece of it to Allah and another to some other god, like wealth, status, career, spouse and so on. There is a beautiful verse in the Quran which throws light on the absurdity of such a situation. It tells about some of the mushrikin or idol worshippers who sacrifice animals and then say that one part of the animal is for Allah and another is for their idols. The verse then states quite clearly that whatever is assigned to Allah is also, in reality, assigned to the idols, for Allah does not accept something divided between Him and others. He is One, indivisible and wants the human being to be undivided in service to Him. So long as our heart lies in a hundred places, so long as our eyes are set in a hundred directions, so long as we have many loyalties, we shall never be able to achieve that condition of 'holding onto Allah'. Why should we allow divided loyalties to capture parts of our heart? Nothing in this world is going to be of use to us when we breathe our last, however hard we may have striven for it and however valuable it may seem to us. We must recognise that the prizes we seek are not the worldly possessions received from human beings like ourselves. It is only our Creator who can put a real value on our striving and bestow on us a real reward. Source: |
| Understanding the Prophet's Life |
| Treatment of the Non-Muslims Every Muslim has been made responsible to employ good manners in dealing with all the citizens of the land unhesitatingly. For every Muslim it is necessary that he should be truthful in dealing with the Non-Muslims. Similarly good qualities like charities keeping one's promise, tolerance, decency, generosity, co-operation, etc. are to be brought into play while dealing with Muslims and Non-Muslims alike. It is a famous incident of the biography of the Prophet that he owed something to a Jew, The Jew demanded repayment and in a very harsh tone said: “O Sons of Abdul Muttalib! You people unnecessarily delay the repayment of your loans.” At that place Hazrat Umar bin AI-Khattab was also present. He decided to teach the Jew, who insulted the Prophet, good manners, and drew his sword from the scabbard. But the Messenger of Allah silenced Umar saying: “I and he deserve better treatment, Teach him to demand his money in a better way and advise me to repay it in a refined manner.” Islam has commanded to deal justly and fairly even if the opponent may be a wrongdoer or an infidel. Allah’s Messenger has said: “The prayer of the oppressed is answered, If he is wicked and wrongdoer, its ill effects will go against him.” (Ahmed) In another Hadith it is stated: “Even if the oppressed person is an infidel, there is no obstruction between his prayer and its answer.” In the light of these authorities and the commands, Islam has advised its followers not to mal-treat their ideological and religious opponents. Similarly Islam has ordered that its followers should be kind to their relatives, even though they may have rejected this religion, which they have made their own. Source: |
| Blindspot! |
| Integration & Loyalty Integration is a concept used with different meanings in different countries. In France, integration is much closer to assimilation. You are integrated the very moment you think like us, dress like us, and are invisible. It is not exactly the same in the UK, where you can integrate and stay who you are. But you can stay who you are amongst people who are like you. Although multiculturalism as we speak about it in the UK is good, it is not good if we mean by it a patchwork of communities not living together but living next to each other. And this is the problem. We have an ideal of multiculturalism but very often British ‘indigenous’ citizens don’t mix with Muslim and culturally Pakistani-British citizens, or those of Bengali or Indian cultures of origin. Integration should mean stay who you are, live with your multiple identities and live with the other. It’s about how we tackle the visibility of differences and the psychology of knowing that we live with people who are not like us in the name of our common society, within the same legislation and with mutual respect. This is not easy. There is no mutual or reciprocal integration without knowledge, education, and taking the time to know more about the ‘other’. You cannot have integration or a multicultural society built on mutual ignorance. The real integration within western societies is to mix, to be selective, and to promote the critical mind. Our loyalty is often questioned when we speak about the morality of consumerism or individualism. But here we need a critical loyalty. It’s important for Muslims to understand that they should not be so scared as to present a blind loyalty, because of the psychological pressure that they are facing today. And we have people like that. During colonisation, there were some people who were totally absorbed and invisible within the perceived dominant culture. As western Muslims, it’s really important to say that we integrate from western culture everything that is good, but that we’re going to be self-critical and critical towards anything that is wrong according to our values and principles. And this is the true loyalty, one based on a critical assessment of what we’re doing and on consistency. It’s very easy to say we are promoting democracy, promoting freedom. But the key question for each civilisation is how to achieve consistency between the values it proclaims and the policies it implements. This is what we have to ask for, and what Muslims should also ask for when they have to deal with the Islamic majority countries. Source: |
