Vital Issue?

UNDERSTANDING THE VITAL ISSUE



uploaded 09 Feb 2006

The instinct of survival makes it incumbent upon every people in the world to have vital issues, for which a people is prepared to defend with utmost effort, without any hesitation or argument. These issues are those related to either perishing or staying alive, or related to the removal of a people from existence or the safeguard of its survival. Likewise, measures undertaken towards them are very similar to all people because they are tangibly life threatening. Hence, the measure is the same and the issues are also the same. This matter is true for the Muslims and indeed all the states and people that have existed and exist today, whether the US, UK, France, China, Brazil, Russia, Japan and the like.



However, these issues related to the survival instinct are not all the vital issues, nor are the vital issues only those related to the survival instinct; for there are other vital issues related to the spiritual instinct or to the procreation instinct. However, people differed in these issues according to the difference in their viewpoint about life; thus they differed in the measures undertaken towards them. This is because what makes these issues vital is the specific viewpoint about life; thus they differ and the measure also differs.



The Muslims are one Ummah and they undoubtedly have a host of vital issues. The Ummah’s vital issues, whether these are related to the survival instinct, the spiritual instinct or the procreation instinct, should be according to their viewpoint about life. Their viewpoint about life is determined by Islam alone. Hence, it is Islam that determines the vital issues and also determines the measure.



Islam has explained to people the vital issues and made the measure of life and death towards them an obligation. Hence, the Muslims have no choice in determining their vital issues. That which is considered by Islam to be a vital issue must be viewed by the Muslims as such. Likewise, they have no choice in the measure of life and death undertaken towards such issues; because when Islam determined the vital issues, it also determined the measure that Muslims should undertake towards them. For Islam to have faced events which threatened it and for Muslims to have come up against what threatened their existence, in their capacity as Muslims, was inevitable. It was inevitable because Islam has come as a mercy to mankind in the form of a comprehensive Way of Life with the sole aim to organise and regulate the affairs of society and the world as a whole.
Allah (swt) says in His Noble Book,

هُوَ الَّذِي أَرْسَلَ رَسُولَهُ بِالْهُدَى وَدِينِ الْحَقِّ لِيُظْهِرَهُ عَلَى الدِّينِ كُلِّهِ

“It is He who has sent His messenger with the Guidance and the Deen of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all ways of life” (TMQ al-Tauba:33)



Therefore Islam and her people would engage and be engaged by those who sought to preserve their own ideologies, ways of life and values and/or sought to spread them over the Muslims. Ever since the dawn of Islam, the struggle has been at its fiercest between Islam and Kufr. This struggle has been about the fate of Kufr and the fate of Islam. The material struggle that has been added to the intellectual struggle since the establishment of the Islamic State in Madinah was in defence of the vital issues. Hence, the existence of vital issues was to the Muslims inevitable and axiomatic, and their undertaking of the measure of life and death towards them was also inevitable and axiomatic.



The Muslims used to perceive the vital issues and undertook what Islam obliged and permitted them to repel the danger. This was because that which Islam had explained in terms of vital issues was considered as fact by the Muslims, which they clutched with a tight grip, and the danger of neglecting them was clear.



Hence, it was inconceivable for them to face a situation that threatened their existence without undertaking towards it that which Islam had obliged upon them, that is the measure of life and death. Neither the Islamic Ummah, nor the Islamic State ever failed in the past to perceive and be aware of the vital issues, nor failed to perceive and be aware of the measures. Thus they never neglected them.



However, when the perception of Islam receded to the level of deviation and when the piety in the souls weakened to the level of keeping silent over the flagrant Kufr, these vital issues lost their consideration as being vital, and the measure of life and death was not undertaken towards them. Consequently, the threat to their existence loomed and the Muslims failed to respond in a manner deserving to repel this threat. Hence, the Khilafah was destroyed, the system of Islam was abolished and the whole of the Islamic Ummah was threatened with extinction.



Hence, it is imperative to perceive the vital issues from the Islamic viewpoint as Islam decreed in the Noble Book and the Sunnah. It is also imperative to perceive the compulsory measures which ought to be undertaken towards them as outlined by the Qur.an and by the Hadith of the Messenger of Allah (saw). Only then will awareness of the vital issues and of the compulsory measure towards them be generated and their neglect then becomes inconceivable.



Source: KCom Journal


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