By: Tashbih Sayyed
Muslims define the month of Fasting - Ramzan - as a month during which the faithful spend their time praying and beseeching God for forgiveness and mercy. They explain that Ramzan is not only abstaining from food and drink; but it is also an exercise in patience and self-discipline. Eid, Muslims say, is the celebration for those who have fasted and obeyed God's rules and teachings. They insist that Eid is for those who have spent the month of Ramzan in complete devotion to God. Eid is a time when all Muslims come together to celebrate what they have achieved by following God's commandments.
For Muslims, everywhere, the consciousness of what Islam stands for and the realization that some people, claiming to share their faith, are busy acting against the very will of God that they were supposed to submit to, has become a heavy burden. Knowing that when they pray they are before their Allah, they find themselves looking for excuses before facing the almighty. The fact that on Eid -ul-Fitr, they were supposed to be coming together to 'celebrate' their achievements by following God's commandments, made it very difficult to congregate.
With this back drop, when the Muslims gathered to celebrate Eid -ul - Fitr this year, many of them did not really feel like celebrating. The visions of September 11, scenes of destruction in Afghanistan and images of blood flowing on the streets of the Middle East kept on coming back to their minds. While lining up for prayers, the memories from the pictures of innocent people hurling themselves out of the windows of the crumbling Twin Towers in New York, the dead bodies being carried out of the Pentagon in Washington DC, innocent Afghan children with flies on their faces trying to retrieve grains of wheat from the dusty streets of Kabul and Kandahar and the young, old, male and female faces mourning their dead in Israel and Palestine rushed in to occupy the minds of the worshipers, making it impossible for a complete, total and unobstructed devotion to Allah. Cries of children waiting for their fathers to come home with presents, the distant looks in the eyes of wives who knew that they will never be able to share the joys of life with their husbands and the dried up eyes of mothers who still stared at the front doors for their sons to return home from a hard days labor, continued to tax the conscience of those who believed in a benevolent and merciful God. How could they convince their Creator that they did their best to stop the terror from being perpetrated. Many of them, felt that somehow they did fail their Allah.
The God fearing Muslims, who in fact are in a majority, have always been trying to challenge those who have, in the name of their Allah, been exhorting the innocent and uneducated Muslims into becoming terrorists. They knew that because of these Mullahs, the world perceives Islam as a religion that encourages violence. They were aware that because of the centuries old hold by these narrow minded, primitive and hate filled peoples over the mosques, religious seminaries and under developed communities; the real teachings of Quraa'n and the deeds of their Prophet have not been able to translate themselves into day to day practices of a common Muslim. The choke of the Mullah has been so complete that all the definitions, explanations and elaboration's of their religion made no sense to an outsider, because he could not see them in action. When pressed by a Muslim to study the teachings of Islam, non Muslims wonder, if the Muslims really believed in what they preached.
The limits of an uneducated mind in the form of a typical Muslim cleric manifested itself in a number of ways. Take for example, the way the Muslim clergy defines Ramzan. It appears, the Muslims have to devote themselves to God only during the 30 days of the month of fasting. And this devotion too only concerns their digestive systems as they so religiously underline on the aspect of abstaining from food and drink. They also insist, without understanding, that Ramzan is about an exercise in patience and self-discipline. I wish they knew that patience is defined in books as a state, quality or fact of being patient. Patience also means the will or ability to wait or endure without complaint. Patience implies the bearing of suffering, provocation, delay, tediousness with calmness and self control. Can any Muslim vouch for the vocal Muslim leadership and their followers that any one of them has ever demonstrated the qualities of patience and self discipline?
From what is witnessed by the world, their deeds have been just the opposite. One is tempted to ask, is suicide bombing with an aim of killing the innocents an act of patience? Is hijacking aircraft with the objective of ramming it into a building with the sole aim of killing innocent people the demonstration of Allah's quality of mercy? Is the use of a place of worship by an 'Imam' to preach murder and ethnic cleansing of those who do not agree with you a deed of self discipline?
Surely, what the uneducated Muslim clergy is spreading by way of their sermons is not Islam.
Ramzan does not mean to show your obedience to the God's commandments only during twenty nine or thirty days of the month of fasting. It also does not mean just to abstain from food and drink and sex. Some people, who indulge in all kinds of debauchery during the whole year, encouraged by such education, give up their lustful activities for just thirty days and think that they have fulfilled Allah's commandments. Ramzan is a window to exhibit what Muslims do all year round, 365 days of the year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day with all of their senses. Ramzan is designed to demonstrate to the world, the Muslim's resolution to try with all honesty to follow the divine order, since to disturb the divine order is to blaspheme. A true Muslim can not use his mind to plan murder. A person who has acknowledged the finality of prophet Mohammed and has recited the Kalamah can not use his or her mind, hands, speech or any other faculty to murder God's creation.
If the Muslim leadership really believes that Eid is the time when Muslims come together to celebrate what they have achieved by following God's commandments, then they will have to make sure that their sermons and exhortations do not encourage their followers to commit any act of terror against humanity. The Muslim leadership, political, religious, cultural or social, can not claim to be Muslim if they do not impress upon their followers that killing of innocent people for whatever reason, is like trying to kill God himself. They will have to condemn without ' ifs and buts', those who perpetrate terror in any way or any form. They will have to educate their circles of influence that creatures like the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden are not Muslims. They will have to declare that any mullah or "Imam" who exhorts innocent and unsuspecting Muslims to kill Hanafis, Shafais, Malikis, Jaferies, Christians, Jews, Hindus etc., is not a true devotee of Allah, as Allah is neither a Muslim nor a Jew nor a Christian. He does not favor a particular religion or a particular sect. He only favors the Pious.
Muslims will have to remember that Allah did not want a middle man between Him and his creation. He wanted a direct relationship with his creation. That's why He wanted them to "Read", so that they could distinguish between good and evil. So that nobody could misguide them. Muslims will have to decide for themselves, if their religious leader is following the commandments of Allah or not. Muslims will have to stand up and challenge the clergy who have made it their business to live off the harvest of hatred. The places of worship should be a source of enlightenment. And the worshiper will have to ensure that it remains so.
