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Reflections |
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The Reflection of
Sincere Faith As we repose faith in the Lord, our immediate desire is to be what our Lord wants us to be. Awed by His Mercy and Grandeur, we surrender before the religion He has revealed. With veritable sincerity of heart, we wish that this religion must govern our life such that no aspect of it should escape the religious directives. Encapsulated thus within the confines of religion, this life should exude unmistakable conformity with these directives and even more so with the spirit underlying them. This is only true a reflection of our sincere faith since to disregard the spirit is actually to throw the directive back in the face of the Master. Any act performed to the exclusion of the spirit is liable to attract Divine wrath instead of gaining favor. As we prostrate before the Lord, our heart should also prostrate, and as we give away money in charity, we should also truly acknowledge the right of the recipients in our hard earned wealth. As much as there is need to observe the form of the directive, there is need to comply with its substance. Without substance, any duty performed is a mere physical exercise that may bring worldly benefit with no share in the reward of the Hereafter. For the express directives, therefore, the right and true approach is to follow them in letter and spirit. As for the spheres of human activity where we have not been given any express directive, this sincere faith again goads us on to carefully decide a definite course of action. Once decided, it insists that we should abide by it. To take our religious decisions, which we sometimes make, lightly has also been condemned by the Almighty (the Qur’an, 2:187). To contravene what we feel is God’s wish is no less in severity than disregard the explicit directives of God. Besides, it is the obvious requirement of our faith in Allah that we endeavor to find the right path in activities not directly addressed by religion, and stick to it at all cost. Without reflection, the wrong path chosen may cripple and incapacitate us to follow even the explicit directives of religion. A little mistake here may precipitate circumstances of profoundly undesirable consequences. Each step should be trekked with caution and care. The knowledge of the entire religion should come to our aid to make the befitting decision in such situations. The Islamic scholars, who have expertise in religious sciences, should be resorted to in this regard though their help in understanding the explicit directives is equally warranted. The fact that they spend day and night in understanding the word of God confers on them the privilege to guide the masses both about the explicit directives, and the issues not directly touched upon. They keenly observe the spirit present in the specific directives of the Shari‘ah while giving their humble verdict. With a vision sharpened by the revelation, they are better placed to help us choose the right path whenever we stand in confusion on the crossroads.
Author: Jhangeer Hanif
URL: http://www.monthly-renaissance.com/issue/content.aspx?id=171
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Read & Reflect
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Debate & Discuss * Discussion Forum: Norms of Gender Interaction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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* General Discussion Forum: Arguments regarding the Existence of God
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Read and Reflect |
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Characteristic Values of Muslim Culture
Author Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (Tr. by: Tariq Hashmi)
The successful prophetic mission of Muḥammad (sws) gave rise to a culture which was based on and dominated by the value of ‘ubūdiyyah.1 It implies that the whole society centred on belief in God and servant-Lord relationship. This centre was the only criterion of validity of all human thought and action. Freedom was no doubt valued, yet dominated by the value of ‘ubūdiyyah. The Muslim culture was not unclear on the question of its moral and ethical foundations. These were authenticated by divine revelations. Poets, litterateurs, philosophers, sages, scientists and rulers, all were clear on this issue and recognized this reality in their views and thoughts. The Muslim culture, founded on this clear and uniform model of thinking, governed the collective body of Muslims for more than a decade. hifẓ-i furūj, ḥifẓ-i marātib and ’amr bi al-ma‘rūf and nahī ‘an al-munkar constituted characteristic values of the Muslim culture.
These can be explained as follows:
Ḥifẓ-i furūj implied that the members of the society would not be allowed to practice and promote sexual promiscuity. Men and women could not openly enter into sexual relations. They could not illicitly live together and were not allowed to reveal their bodies.
Ḥifẓ-i marātib meant that though all human beings are originally equal in the eyes of God, yet they are not equal in their family and social relations. The younger have to show respect to the older, the children to their parents, the students to their teachers, the wives to their husbands. Socially seniors were given the right to correct and censure the juniors in all social layers. The respect and honour of the elders and the seniors was always preferred over individual liberty.
‘amr bi al-ma‘rūf and nahī ‘an al-munkar entailed that the adherents of the Islamic faith would not, at the collective level, show indifference to the values of good and evil. All such values as accord to the human orientation (fiṭrah) and acknowledged by entire humanity as virtue and good would be promoted at all scales and all such actions, as abhorred by the human nature and termed evil and bad, would be prohibited in all circumstances.
Such was the Muslim culture, the beauty and crown of humanity. The downfall of this culture is nothing less than the downfall of humanity. Alas for man! If only he craved for re-establishing this great tradition as much as he yearns for democratic ideals and rule of law.
(Translated from Ghāmidī’s Maqāmāt by Tariq Mahmood Hashmi)
Topic URL: http://www.monthly-renaissance.com/issue/content.aspx?id=1040
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Discussion Forum: Norms of Gender Interaction
Sabihah
atifrafi
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General Discussion Forum:
aijaz47 Dear Mr. Hanif
Existence does not necessarily have to be physical. As regards Mermaids, their existence is imaginary or fictional. Thus if it has a name it exists.
Secondly, denial does not mean that that particular thing does not exist. One shall have to provide the prove for the denial. Physical existence is an attribute. So far it seems Mermaids do not have that attribute. Their existence is fictional. Can you deny the fictional existence of Mermaids?
Thirdly, Allah is The Creator of Universe and Claims to be so. I have not heard of anyone claiming to be the creator of The Creator. Answer shall be provided when the question arises.
student1 This is your reply to Mr. Hanif but I would like to present my comments on your reply and I hope you wont mind.
quote:
Dear Mr. Hanif
aijaz47
So you agree that
denial does not mean that a particular thing does not exist. Thanks for
accepting my point.
aijaz47
aijaz47
This is in reply to
your question "who created Allah?"
aijaz47 Kindly go to Forums> History of Quran> Collection under Abu Bakar ( may Allah be pleased with him).
Jhangeer Hanif (modeator)
I think you want to
say that existence does not have to be 'actual'. Because we know that
mermaids do not actually exist; they are fictitious in contrast to
reality. We are not taking about the nature of God's existence -
spirirtual or physical; we are talking about whether it is actual or not.
Hence when we talk about mermaids, we know that their existence is not
actual or real. Is this the case with God?
In the second
response, you are again confusing 'actual or real' with 'physical'. I am
not talking about the nature of existence. I am talking about whether
something really exists? Hence the stress is on real. I had written
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Raising Hands during the Prayer Posted on: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - Hits: 33
According to many reliable reports appearing in the most reliable works of Hadīth like Sahīh of Bukhārī and Sahīh of Muslim the Holy Prophet (sws) used to do Raf‘u’l-yadayn (raising hands up to one’s shouders) when starting the prayer, going to Ruku‘, standing from it, and standing after saying Tashahhud. So I am confused as to why we are not supposed to do Raf‘u’l-yadayn on other occasion besides starting the prayer when the Holy Prophet (sws) did?
Answer: The entire structure of prayer was taught by the Holy Prophet (sws) to the entire generation of the companions. All the people of the time of the Holy Prophet (sws) must have known the exact method of the prayer. This structure has been reported down by the collectivity of the Muslims without a break. You know that people never stopped praying and the act of praying is not a concealed one. This has always been a living tradition among the Muslim community. Thus we have the form of the prayer exactly as the Holy Prophet (sws) left it with us. It has been preserved and reported down through the most reliable source of knowledge. This profoundly established practice is countered by a couple of individual reports. We cannot question the authenticity of the report transmitted by the generations of the Muslims Ummah by the individual reports. We are bound to give some explanation to the individual reports appearing in Sahīh of Bukhārī and other works of Hadīth. I think the reporters who transmitted the reports must have reported some previous practice of the Holy Prophet (sws) which he abandoned and left the prayer in the final and ultimate form as it is with us. However, it should be noted that this also indicates to the fact that the practice of raising both hands at different occasions (other than at the beginning of the prayer) is not a necessary part of the prayer. That is why we see that the Prophet (sws) after initially doing it later abandoned it but did not make sure to eliminate it from the practice.
wassalam
see: http://www.studying-islam.org/querytext.aspx?id=990
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