STUDENTS’ VOICE
DECEMBER 17, 1952
By: Khurshid Ahmad
All thinking minds are faced with a bewildering riddle, there are more than 400 million Muslims in the world but there is not a single square inch of land where the law of Islam in its entirety holds the sway and the Islamic way of life blooms. If so many specks of dust get together, they become a formidable desert; if so many drops of water are gathered, the flow into oceans. But it is an irony of fate that crores of believers in the Sovereignty of God dwell upon this earth, but nowhere is the kingdom of God existent. What is the clue to the riddle? Everybody asks.
The study of history shows that never in the long range of the by—gone had mere adherence to any ideology become a vital force. Lip-service has never rendered any tangible good to mankind. Verbal professions have never been conducive to the betterment of the human folk. Rather, the periods of doom have been the periods in which an unbridgeable gulf yawned between profession and practice, between belief and action. When people take a “happy-go lucky” view of life, when they begin to shirk responsibility, when they disavow the logical stipulations of this belief and give a deaf ear to the call of their faith, the day of their doom steps into the fore and disintegration sets in. The tragic sloth that is the lot of Muslim life in the contemporary world, can easily be understood if this fundamental reality is carefully grasped.
This trouble is not confined to the Muslim lands alone. It is common throughout the length and breadth of the world. One may be startled to know that even in Europe 70% believe in God. The Universal History of the World on the basis of census arranged by “The Nation” and “The Daily News” says:
“The belief in orthodox Christianity is still prevalent among the great mass of English people. There is roughly a 70 per cent majority of believers in a personal God, personal immortality, the divinity of Christ and the divine inspiration of the Bible.”
But inspite of this fact, we find that their mode of life is profoundly irreligious. They do not look for guidance towards Divine Revelation. They have purged God from everyday life. And this is simply because of their wrong conception of God and wrong attitude towards Him, Christianity in its twisted form stood for the separation of powers between God and Caesar. Leaders of the Western thought during few centuries have driven God from the rough and tumble of life and have imprisoned Him in the valley of heavens. A brief idea can be had from what Dr. Edwin A. Burtt has said about Newtonian Theodicy:
“God, now the Chief Mechanic of the Universe, has become the cosmic conservative. His aim is to maintain the status quo. The day of novelty is all in the past, there is no further advance in Time. Periodic reformations when necessary, by the addition of the indicated masses at the points of space required, but no new creative activity to this routine, of temporal housekeeping is the Deity at present confined.
From the trend of thought it automatically ensued that God has nothing to do with the affairs of our life. We are free to shape our destiny as we like. Religion is only a fable of antiquity. And this resulted in the rise of Secularism.
This line of thinking made inroads in the Muslim mind after the political victory of the Western nations over the Muslim World. As it became the ideology of the ruling power, no body paused to challenge its credentials. But I have not the least shadow of doubt that this attitude towards God is a mere absurdity. Either God is the Creator, the King, the Almighty Ruler, the Fountain head of all Reason and Knowledge or He is not.
There can be no via media. Then, if He is not the real Creator, and the King, it is absurd and futile to call him “King of heavens”, “the comic conservative” or God. Reject the idea outright and make no quibbles about it. But, if He is the Creator and the King—a conclusion for which everything in the universe bears testimony and a belief endorsed both by intellect and intuition, then it is the height of absurdity and a culmination of idiocy to outlaw God from the political, social and economic affairs of life and imprison Him in the “valley of heaven,” and make any differentiation between the temporal and spiritual, and to “give unto God that belongs to God and unto Caeser that belongs to Caeser.” It entails that He must be obeyed in private and in public. His word must be upheld in the Mosque and in the Parliament. His will must prevail on the earth as it prevails in heavens. To confine his domain to the ivory tower of “personal life” or “Kingdom of heaven” is nothing short of idiocy. No reasonable man can sanction it.
But, alas, this is simply what Muslims under the influence of Western thought are today stupidly doing. They have succumbed to this irrational and fatalist creed. And they have lost all their dignity and power and now they do not have any place under the sun where they could live like true Muslims, obeying the laws of Allah in all their walks of life.
It is time that we realise the folly to which we have naively succumbed. If we believe in Allah, we must believe in Him in the way He should be believed. We should be conscious to what this belief entails. We must fulfil the requirements and demands of the faith. For what God demands of us is not any verbal recognition about His existence (even the “Mushrikeen” of Mecca did not deny His Existence!). He asks us to pursue the Right Path, He has revealed; to obey Him and none else and to establish the way of life, He has chosen for us.
Allah says:
وما أمروا الا لیعبد الله مخلصین له الدین حنفاء
and that:
ادخلو افی السلم کا فه ولا تتبعوا خطوات الشیطان
Belief in Allah is not a cold convention. It is a dynamic reality. It is an invincible force. it must change the very pattern human life. It must fill the believers with an unconquerable faith and indomitable will to make the word of Allah prevail. It must weld them into a dynamic force and make them the salt of the earth.
Effects of Belief in Allah
Then that should be the effects of belief in Allah on one’s life? In a word, the whole of our life should become the life of a Muslim for Muslim means one who surrenders or submits himself to Allah. But just to elucidate a little we may say.
Firstly, belief in Allah makes it crystal clear that life is not a mere chance. It is not a purposeless venture. It is not an empty joke, to be laughed off. It is endowed with meaning It has a purpose. It is given by Allah; it must be lived according to His Will. It must be a life of obedience to Allah alone. It must be freed from the spell of all false Gods may those be of nation, or race. or class or power or prejudice. It must be a life of truth and piety. Purpose serves as the bridle that controls, the passions and the light that guides the steps in every walk of life.
Secondly, belief in Allah means that life is not an irresponsible pursuit. It is to be accounted for. The Creator will ask. How have you lived it? The question has to be answered. The answer must be prepared in this life. On that answer depends the final judgement about eternal bliss or unending tribulation. Life must be endowed with responsibility and should bear its mark on every facet of it. Every breath should be drawn and every moment lived with the consciousness that it is to be accounted for. This, simply, is what belief in Allah entails.
Thirdly, it must be clearly grasped that belief in Allah demands that His Law should be obeyed. That in the practical life, this alone should be followed. That no gulf should exist between word and deed.
For wherever Allah says: الذين آمنوا “Those who have faith.” He also says: وعملوالصالحات” and do good deeds”. Allah is not content with mere verbal adherence. He demands that the whole of life should be a life of complete submission and surrender to His will. His law must be adopted. His Way must be pursued. Without doing it—one cannot claim to be true to his faith.
And, lastly, belief in Allah calls for perpetual struggle to establish the Islamic way of life. It demands that the Islamic ideology should hold the sway, that the law of Shariat should be the law of the land, that governmental power and authority should be utilised in the establishment of justice, in the propagation of virtues and the suppression of injustices and evils, in short the entire life of the nation or community which accepts the faith, should bear the imprint of submission to God, of virtue and piety. Every single believer must live the life of a missionary and a soldier, imbued with the love of the ideal. Every moment of his life should mirror his will to establish the Islamic way of life, both on himself and on mankind. These are the demands of the faith. These are the effects that faith should produce in our lives, if we want to be honest about our faith in Allah, in Mohammad and in the Holy Book.
