"O ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam." [Surah Al-Imran 3: 102]
Saturday, 29 April 2006
The Muslim is Tolerant and Forgiving
If he becomes angry with his brother, the true Muslim restrains his anger and is quick to forgive him, and does not see any shame in doing so. Rather, he sees it as a good deed which will bring him closer to Allah and earn him His love which He bestows only on those who do good:
"…[those] who restrain anger and pardon [all] men – for Allah loves those who do good." (Qur’an, 3:134)
A man may be able to restrain his anger, but resentment may be smoldering in his heart, and may turn into deep-rooted hatred. Open anger and rage are healthier than hidden resentment and malice.
The true Muslim whose soul has been saturated with this religion does not harbor grudges; if he restrains his anger, he then follows that with forgiveness, and thus he will be among those who do good.
Anger is very difficult to restrain, for it is a heavy burden on the heart. But when a person forgives another, this heavy burden is lifted, freeing him, soothing him and bringing peace of mind. These are the feelings of ihsaan (goodness) which the Muslim feels when he forgives his brother.
The true Muslim is forgiving towards his brother, purely for the sake of Allah. He hopes thereby to earn the honor which the Prophet, sallallahu` alayhi wa sallam referred to in the hadith:
"Allah will not increase His servant except in honor. No one humbles himself for the sake of Allah, but Allah will raise his status." (Muslim)
It is a great honor from Allah, which combines with the good characteristics of the tolerant, forgiving Muslim, so that he becomes one of those who do good whom Allah loves, and one of those honored ones whom people love.
Resentment has no place in the heart of the sensitive Muslim who truly understands his religion. He realizes the value of forgiveness and purity of heart, and their importance if he seeks Allah’s forgiveness, as the Prophet, sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam, explained:
"There are three sins, whoever dies free of these sins will be forgiven for anything else if Allah wills: associating anything with Allah; practicing magic or witchcraft; and bearing resentment towards his brother." (Reported by al-Bukhari in Adab al-Mufrad)
Wednesday, 26 April 2006
- Sabrun Jamil ~ Beautiful Patience -
Mujâhid said: “Beautiful patience is patience without any panic.” ‘Amr ibn Qays said: “Beautiful patience means to be content with adversity and to surrender to the will of Allâh.”
Yûnus ibn Yazîd said: I asked Rabî‘ah ibn Abu ‘Abdur-Rahmân: “What is the ultimate of patience?” He said: “To be outwardly the same at the time of affliction as one was the day before it struck.” (This does not mean that a person does not or should not feel pain or anguish; patience in this instance means that one refrains from panicking and complaining.)
"Whoever tries to be patient, Allah will make him patient. And nobody can be given a better and greater gift than patience."
(Bukhari: Volume 2, Book 24, No. 548)
Omar ibn Al Khattab said: "Whatever hardship befalls a believing servant, Allah will make an opening for him after it, and one hardship will be overcome by two eases." (Malik Muwatta Book 21, No. 21.1.6)
Commenting on the meaning of Sabrun Jamîl, i.e, beautiful patience, in the verse : "So be patient with a good (i.e, beautiful) patience." (Quran Ma'aarij 70:5) Qays ibn al-Hajjâj said: “The person who is suffering from some affliction should behave in such a way that nobody is able to distinguish him from others (Ibn Qayyim)
Sabrun Jamil
The Limitations of Man as a legislator
The Limitations of Man as a legislator
Islam is a way of life revealed from Allah (swt). Muslims, as humans, perform human actions. The solving of our problems are based on a divine text. The extraction of solutions from this text is not biased, nor prejudiced in any way. The one who performs this extraction, the mujtahid(scholar), does not pre-assign a problem as being solely ethical, economical or educational. Rather, he views the problem as being a human problem. A problem that is intertwined with all the complexities of human societal existence. In contrast to this is the Western way of life. Problems are not solved from a divine source. Human problems are solved for humans by humans. The human is limited in his knowledge, myopic in outlook and prone to self-preservation in judgements. It therefore follows that the system that he derives is riddled with disparity and contradiction.
Capital - the dominant influence in secular decision-making
When Europeans began to refer to man as the source of legislation, they discarded the shackles of Christianity. Thus secularism was born. Constitutions were framed, laws were passed and systems of ruling emerged. These novel systems placed wealth at their centre. Political edifices were always constructed within the amphitheatre of capital. Appropriately, these systems became known as Capitalist. This constant reference to ownership and wealth drew on a very basic instinct that all humans possess. That is, the desire to secure one's own interests. When left unbridled, this instinct leads to greed, power-lust and exploitation. Rasul-Allah (saw) said, ''If the son of Adam was given a valley full of gold he will always want a second. If he has two valleys full of gold he will always want a third.'' (Bukhari)
The reality was that these systems were merely knee-jerk responses to the whims and desires of a greedy few. In the words of US President Jimmy Carter,
''The reason for the Constitution was to empower people of property over common people. Indeed, our definition of self government and freedom have become linked, if not equated, to the interests of the corporation.''
The British Lord Palmerston stated:
We have no eternal friends or enemies, only our interests are eternal''
The theory of Capitalism is totally impracticable. William Beveridge's ideas on welfare and social security were an attempt to compensate for abundant deficiencies within the Capitalist system. Indeed, welfare was an after-thought, an add-on, in the historical development of the British system. Purists would consider Beveridge to be a heretic. Today, issues are always discussed with an economical slant. This is regardless of whether the essence or implications of these issues are moral, social or ethical. The overcrowding of prisons, the availability of beds in hospitals and the poor state of education are always debated in relation to finance and funding. In Britain, performance related pay was a culture introduced into many realms during the 18 years of Tory government. The green-grocer mentality prompted the government to superimpose the economics of buying and selling to many spheres. Performance related pay scales were introduced into the health and police services. The architects of this policy assumed that the performance of a nurse or a policeman can be quantified in the same way as a green-grocer. Can the number of patients that die under a nurse's care, or criminals that evade a police-man, ever be correlated with the number of melons sold in a week?