The Only Path

As he became utterly desperate and angry, my friend said to me, "How come we stumble and drag our feet, and we are saved from a catastrophe only to fall into a similar or deeper one? I was about to start to consider that weakness, backwardness and decadence to be our distinctive characteristics, not just passing inconveniences. I almost do not believe what I read and heard about our glorious past, and our time-honored grandeur. Why are we like the bull in the canal who turns around and around and ends where he started?" I said, "Do you know what the reason behind that is? The reason is that we cure our chronic ills with provisional pain killers, not with the appropriate medicines. That is why we cure one ill by creating another and we close one door of evil to open two or more. We solve our economic problems at the expense of our moral problems and we favour materialistic progress over moral progress. We do everything to free ourselves from the western block in order to become prey to the eastern block. We try to align ourselves with the west, and thus take from it what is useful and what is harmful to us, what it likes and what it dislikes, and what is praiseworthy and what is blameworthy. We do not distinguish between what is useful to us and what is not, and what should be and what should not be. We forget that the west itself is suffering from deep internal sicknesses, which have almost led to its death. It is also suffering from human problems which have almost led its civilisation to collapse. Thus the rules that we take for our rebirth and reform lead us to be like the one who cures an illness with another one, or like the one who pays old debts with new ones. In the past, a poet said:

If you pay one debt with another, it is as if you have
not paid your debt but it is a loss upon a loss

Another poet said:

If you cure yourself from an illness by another
Then kill what has made you ill not what has cured you.

My friend said: "Then what is the solution in our situation?" I said: "The solution is that we find out about our own situation. We have to establish our identity and know who we are in this universe, what our message is and what we want to be. If we want to be Muslims, we have to treat ourselves and other people on this basis, and seek cures for our illnesses in the medicine and treatment of Islam. If we do not want to be Muslims, we should proclaim that frankly and define our stand with regard to ourselves and other people on this basis".

My friend said: "Do we have any possibility other than being Muslims? Islam is without doubt our religion, we were born Muslims, and have lived as Muslims and we will live as Muslims and die as Muslims, "And whoso seeketh as religion other than the surrender (to Allah) it will not be accepted from him " (. Surah 3, Verse 85.).

I said: "Our problem is that as individuals we pretend to be Muslims, and Islam is the official religion of some of our countries whose constitutions state that, but we do not want to be Muslims. We are Muslim by name, by our birth certificates, and through some rites which link some of us with our religion. We are officially and geographically Muslims on account of our being in the land of Islam. The reality is that our life is not Islamic, it is an incompatible mixture of Islam, materialism, paganism, and moral and emotional alignment."

My friend said: "What is it that is required for us to be true Muslims?" I said, "If we know what Islam actually is, we would know what we are lacking to be true Muslims. If it is necessary to classify the instructions of Islam, they can be divided into four elements:

1 - Faith: Including faith in Allah, His angels, books, messengers and the day of reckoning.

2 - Worship: Including prayers, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage, recitation of the Qur'an, invocation and repentance.

3 - Morals and values: Including virtue and integrity, justice and charity, kindness, compassion, truthfulness, loyalty, courage, generosity, reliability, shame, enjoining right conduct and forbidding indecency, patience, being generous with one's money to relatives, orphans, the poor, the homeless, and endurance in good and bad times and so forth from what the Qur'an and the Prophet's Tradition have listed including the morality of Islam, and all the aspects of faith and the ranks of good deeds.

4 - Regulations and legislation: upon which the Islamic jurisprudence was based, and the section on the legal relations among people as groups and as individuals, families and groups and countries.

Then, by your God, tell me, have we followed the instructions of Islam in these four elements and have we applied them and based our lives upon them?" My friend said, "We do some and we don't others", I said "What we don't apply is much larger than what we do. Most of the time we take the peels and leave the meat, and we take the image and discard the reality. For heavens' sake, what is left of our Islam if we import ideas and values, literature and traditions and regulations and laws to replace our own ideas, convictions literature and systems?"

My friend said: "But we always hear that Islam is doing wel1", I replied, "Yes, it is doing well indeed in the hearts of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim populations, because it is an authentic part of their mental, psychological and civilisational essence. They are convinced that they cannot stand without it, and that there is no glory for them with anything other than Islam. There is no happiness in this world or in the Hereafter for them if they do not hold onto its reliable tie and its ideal instructions."

My friend said: "So how did they stray from it, leave it aside and leave it behind them as if they did not know'?" I said, "The reality is that Islam was pushed outside the life of its people, and was prevented from guiding their society, without their will or choice. That was imposed on them as an intruding, malicious and wicked enemy." My friend said, "But this wicked enemy and colonialist has taken away its stick and moved away from the Islamic countries".

I said: "Only its armies and soldiers have moved away. Its intellectual, psychological, legal and social monuments and influences are still in use and still monitoring Muslims. They defy the religion and legislation of Islam. Its stepsons and disciples who have fed on the milks of its culture, ate from the dishes of its thought, and were raised within the confines of its schools, under the supervision of its advocates and missionaries, are still spread in our countries, and are in charge of intellectual, political and administrative leadership and guidance. This has led to a situation whereby religion is consulted only in matters that have to do with ablutions, prayers, breastfeeding, divorce and such matters. As to the policies of government, the social and economic systems, the methods of instruction and education, and constitutional and legal matters Islam is no longer given a say, except to approve, bless and wish the governors victory. More than that, the imported materialistic ideas do their best to chase the faith of 'There is no deity but Allah' away from the conscience of Muslims and to chase its influence from their lives."

My friend said, "So, what is the solution?", I replied, "Continuous work with objectivity and loyalty to take Muslims back to true Islam, and all Islam including its faith, legislation, morals, and total and distinctive civilisation. That is the way and there is no way other than that."