The turmoil of civil unrest; the destruction and the upheaval brought about by the killing and resultant blood baths and annihilation are, in fact, the symptoms of future global revolution.

With the new millennium, humanity is entering a new era and the war mongering is ushering in a new world. All the dynamic life powers struggling for superiority, and for the establishment of a social system meeting their approval, are formulating and working for the new world order. Any power which is not involved at the moment as a dynamic combatant in the present conflicts and confrontations cannot be a partner in the establishment of this new world order.

It is true! Humanity needs new leadership. Until now, however, the leadership has been in the hands of the Euro-American Powers but herein-on this leadership is on a down hill slide. The ruling systems of the last three centuries have failed, and the world has tasted its bitter fruits. Humanity is crying for peace and order against the turmoil and subjugation which is upon the face of the whole planet. Humanity is desperately searching for rescue.

All the national and ethnic, economic and class-struggle ideologies emerged during these centuries, as well as all the collective movements based upon these ideologies. None of them have any new weapon to use. Precisely every individual and social ideology have been witness to their failures. Now, in this critical and dark stage of history, is the turn for Islam and the Muslim Ummah.

This is the time in which we Muslims must analyse our condition to discover whether our present attitude towards Islam, and the present religious paradigms will shape the future life-style in their moulds, emerging as the dominating thought and ideology over and above the present dying ideologies or whether the incoming global power structure will destroy the foundation of our religious and moral norms. If the latter is so, we shall have to be annihilated, or absorbed into the new world order, having no contribution of our beliefs and ideals in either its construction or its establishment.

Those who are narrowly engrossed in their personal, family or ethnic gains and achievements, have no need to consider upon what trend the world is heading, or upon what code civilization is going to be constructed in the near future.

The individuals within the community who believe that they have ultimate safety through the performance of rituals and practice of supplications alone, can never hope to have the vitality and fervour required in the field of action to combat the new forces. When it is believed that for the attainment of paradise, ritual prayers, supplications, fasting and the non-comprehensive recitation of the Quran are sufficient, then the urge to face the non-Islamic forces and to establish the supremacy of the divine life-system can never be inculcated.

The persons who considers the achievement of individual emancipation the beginning and end of religious efforts, are the victims of misunderstanding. Emancipation of the individual can never be separated from collective emancipation. A person can never be firm and stable on the path of righteousness and virtuous actions unless his collective environment is compatible with the growth and promotion of these targets. With the exception of the persons of nerve and firm determination, the mentality and the character of common persons are moulded in the framework of those standards and values of the society and state which are prevalent and dominant in their families, communities, and nations.

Today collectivism overlaps individualism. Socialisation, economy, education and family life, all are established today by the State. Radio, TV, media, journals, schools and communities none can function freely and independently. The government can impose, without any force or coercion, the beliefs, traits, customs and ideas that it desires. The media, the education system, entire policies and institutions, all are in the possession of the government and no individual can breathe freely in this environment. The State of today is a totalitarian state in action. Theoretically its citizens, individually, are free whatever they believe, but the practicality is that the coercive power of the government which empowers them also manipulates in the direction of ideas and plans it requires. The freedom of thinking and action is merely in name.

However much you may be a free person or free thinker, nevertheless the environment which surrounds you makes you powerless. In newspapers, radio, TV, education facilities, offices, you will hear only that which is in the interest of the government. In such a situation if one wants to be steadfast in his religion and beliefs, it is viewed as his lack of comprehension and wisdom. A society in which wrong standards, amoral values, and persuasive ideas, dominate, how can a person, solely by his own strength, escape from the culture of such a society, such a social system. The only alternative for the salvation of an individual is to make efforts to change the concepts, traits and ideologies of the social system or order.

This is the reason that Muslims have been ordained by Allah to eradicate evil wherever and whenever they observe it; because the one who bears with evil and does not make an effort to challenge it, is working towards an atmosphere in which the next generation will be totally unfamiliar with the blessings of Islamic beliefs and practices.

In short, to liberate oneself, one has to work for the liberation of the whole of humanity. In other words, one has to divert all his faculties for the sustaining and preservation of Islam. Hence a Muslim has not only been ordered to correct his deeds, but to go one step further, being responsible for the good and bad actions of all human beings.

“You are indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for the (good of) mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and you believe in Allah."

(Quran, 3:110)

The expedience (worth) of this injunction is that the one, who feels responsible for the goodness or misdeeds of others, should also work towards the betterment of ones own deeds; otherwise he/she will be reproached by society.

Efforts for the reformation of deeds can become fruitful only when the concept of virtues and vices, and the standard of right and wrong, towards which we have to invite the world, in reality are working. Hence the struggle against mendacity is also essential; otherwise the invitation to righteousness and the forbidding against evil becomes meaningless where the false systems have overpowered the values of life and the criteria of acceptance and rejection by humanity.

The public can never pay attention to, let alone be accepting of, one’s dawah work unless the correct criteria of good and evil is ascertained, again because the people follow the ruling of the coercive power. World history affirms that the dominant civilization moulds the thinking and goals of weak communities and nations. Hence to make oneself and others virtuous, first and foremost is the importance of nullifying the ideologies and concepts developed by the false systems.

The safeguard of the few apparent efficacies of Islam still prevalent in society is a fragile and defensive approach that clearly indicates how the esteem of this objective has been lowered. Instead of attaining our objective of the widespread knowledge of Islam, we now wish to retain the old left-over capacities of achievement of these aims. These are negative remedies that can never yield success. To retain these outmoded methods is wrong in principle. If one attempts to achieve higher goals, then, automatically, the remains will exist with but additional results also being produced.

The analysis of the material rise and development of the nations and their collective achievements shows that the real strength is in the awareness of the goal, and the earnest desire and efforts made towards its achievement. The attraction and attachment with the objectives is the prime mover of an individual or a community, and thus orientates the nations and communities towards the destination of honour and success. Purpose is life, and aimlessness is death. Those who have purpose but do not have the attachment that makes them turn way from each other's interests at the time of need, can never attain success and development. Sequence and organization are procured by having the purpose and goal by which human powers proceed towards one centre. The purpose and goal, being the essence of life, keeps the individuals and nations activated. It creates the warmth of living and the enthusiasm which fires efforts and achievement. Purpose is the source and the fountain head of all values and standards.

The divine system of Islam also works on the above principle. This whole system is designed upon the efforts and achievements for the upholding of the word of God and the establishment of the Truth. Fasting, Praying, Pilgrimage, Charity, Worship and obligatory commands and prohibitions, all these are for this very purpose, namely that there should only be the servitude of God on His earth, and all false dictators should be thrown out from every place; whether these deities are in the form of self-egos, gods and idols or whether they come in the garb of class, or national benefits; dictators, leaders and presidents, or Royal kings and queens.

When the earlier Muslims had the desire to achieve the Will of Allah by upholding The Word of Allah; when they had the desire to please their Lord by their obedience in making the Quranic criteria of good and evil, and the ethical values of Islam sovereign over the whole world; there was effect in their prayers, and life in their worship. All the components of the Divine System had been unified thus nourishment and growth, vital parts of the Divine purpose had been attained.

The moment when this purpose was hidden away from sight, all the branches of the Islamic life withered away. Prayers, fasting and religious rites were then considered practices which, of themselves, became all-encompassing; while the teaching and learning of the Quran became the ultimate objective without comprehending the essence of the Quran. Thus mutual relation and interaction among different components of Islam were exterminated. It is quite obvious that an action, when focussed upon as an end in itself, thus losing its purpose, no longer nourishes, but saps the vitality. The life of each action is associated with its purpose. The moment this association is demolished, the enthusiasm of action and the essence fade away.

Today, if the Muslims accept this collective goal, we shall see how their intellectual faculties emerge for the effort and pursuit of this goal. The main purpose and goal of a Muslim is to uphold the Word of Allah. This ideal, the differential between the Muslims of today and those of the Prophets' period, is this very objective. That those Muslims had an ardent love for that goal and a great attachment with its purpose may easily be seen. They were the propagators of the universal ideal to such an intense level that they underwent unlimited sacrifices, and burdened themselves to the utmost. For this very purpose they received the light of knowledge from the Quran. They, without a backward glance, left the habits and rituals of the period of ignorance (Jahiliyyah), and attained, in a few years, all the virtues which are to be found in the developed and progressive nations.

The Prophet (s) did not, in an effort to remove Jahiliyyah, first establish schools and institutions for the promotion of education. Rather he first presented an ideal, a goal, and introduced a purpose. And when the intense love and attachment to that ideal and purpose developed in the hearts of the believers, it was not difficult for them to perform all obligations and act upon all Divine commands and prohibitions.

There has occurred a fundamental difference and contradiction between our practice of Islam and that of the Companions (as). Our Islam is not that Islam embraced by the Muslims of the Prophet's period, upon which they laid the foundations of their beings. That Islam was a lively, revolutionary and dynamic system of thought and action, which was fermented with the enthusiastic and courageous yeast of passion in which an array of selflessness, sacrifice and risks was put in. In that Islam the sentiment was not only of the personal salvation of an individual. The task was such wherein the salvation of the whole humanity was paramount. The Companions (as) were the preachers of a social system and a way of life. They were representatives of a universal goal and the advocates of a universal purpose. Hence the value of their devotions and actions were ascertained within the same structure as that of the ultimate goal and purpose. Supreme effort for the sake of Allah was the measure of their sincerity and purity, and its reward from Allah was also distributed to them through the same measure.

Allah has given a great preference to the activists over the pacifists. Their efforts for the propagation of Islamic thought and system and for the establishment of the Islamic goal were such a great obligation upon them that a slight negligence in this pursuit nullified all their worship and piety in their view point. They used to keep this verse always in their forefront:

"Do you think that you would be left alone while Allah has not known those of you who have striven hard and have not taken an ally besides Him and His Messenger and the faithful? Allah is aware of what you do."

(Quran, 10:16)

Listen carefully! Who are addressed in the above verse? These are the persons whose prayers and supplications and worship were full of sincerity and devotion and whose pious actions and moral dealings were unparalleled in the history of the world. The Quran itself is giving evidence of their high rank. In spite of all this, they are being challenged here in severe words that if they were slightly negligent in the upholding of the Words of Allah and their pursuit of the establishment of the Truth because of some inclination towards indulgence in life's comforts, then they should wait for the accountability to Allah.

This prompts us to ponder very seriously this fact, that when the Companions (as) were being warned, in spite of their pious actions, prayers, and supplications, that they should not become even a little inactive in the cause of Islam - then where do our prayers and supplications stand when we are not ready even to give a slight sacrifice for the uplifting and establishment of Islam in this world?

Is not, at present, the Islamic system engulfed by today’s ungodly atmosphere, in the same manner that it was encircled in Makkah's life by the dominance of the polytheists? Is not the same level of selflessness, sacrifice and devotion required nowadays to make the establishment of Islamic way of life a practical reality?

NOTE: this is a translation of an article from the Urdu

Translator: Ibn Hassan