2.2. THE ISLAMIC MOVEMENT AND THE MASSES
Paying attention to the cultured elite does not mean neglecting the masses, as the two actions are not conflicting. Popularity is a main characteristic of the Islamic Movement. The Movement is popular in the sense that it is not a governmental or official movement, nor is it an aristocratic one. It is a movement that has emerged from the heart of society to express its feelings and interact with its masses, speaking in their behalf and supporting their demand for rights. The enemies of the Movement abroad, and their agents inside, have tried to isolate the masses from the Movement, sometimes by misinformation and distortion, others by coercion and intimidation, and still others by different means.
However, it is more dangerous that the Movement should alienate itself from the people through arrogance, accusation, disregard, desperation or preoccupation. There is a real danger when the Movement forgets its interrelationship with the people, neglects their problems and woes and crawls into its shell, talking only to itself and hearing only its own voice, thus putting itself in solitary confinement away from the people.
The Islamic Movement will be successful only when it manages to make the people move with it, supporting its cause, getting angry at what angers it, feeling pleased with what pleases it, appreciating its stances and efforts and cursing its enemies. It will be successful when it focuses its efforts on merging into the people, running through them like blood through veins, and mingling with them, like body with soul and vision with eyes, so that each cannot be separated from the other.
This will be possible only when the Islamic Movement adopts the causes of the people and reacts to their feelings, feeling joy at their happiness and becoming sad at their grief, sharing in their bitter and worse times, and becoming one with them.
Telling of the Truth, Not Anesthetizing With Dreams
Our belief in the people and faith in the power of the masses should not make us mislead them away from bitter reality, or anesthetize them with hollow dreams.
The advocates and intellectuals of the Islamic Movement should tell the Nation about its diseases as these diseases actually are, not hide them as people do with those who are afflicted with incurable diseases. They should give the people the facts, even though such facts may be bitter, not feed them rosy dreams without trying to bring these dreams to reality.
Muslim Sufi educationists have distinguished between hope and wish, saying, “Hope is what is coupled with work, otherwise it is a wish”!
Hope is the motive of believers, but wish is the craft of those who have nothing to do.
The Quran says to those who claim that the Garden is theirs alone, although they neither believe nor strive (Those are their [vain] desires. Say, “Produce you proof if you are truthful”) [Surat AlBaqara: 1 1 1].
Imam Ali Ibn AbiTalib said to his son AlHassan, “Beware of depending [totally] on wish. Wish is the stock of fools”!
An Arab poet says:
Do not be a slave to wish. For wish is the capital of the penniless.
Hope, aspiration and looking forward to a better day are the moving power and the fuel of any movement seeking to change dark reality into a bright tomorrow.
But hoping and aspiring are different from wishing, as wishes can combine with despair of realizing what is wished while hope and aspiration are the opposites of despair and hopelessness.
We must explain the harsh reality to people: we have to tell them of the dangers lurking in the future, so that they may brace themselves against the future’s suffering and not live under the illusion that the future will be a bed of roses without thorns, or a paradise where they will get all the goodies without toil.
There is a mistake that has to be corrected in the advocation of Islamic slogans and solutions to the Muslim masses: when Muslims raise the slogans, “Islam is the solution”; “There is no hope for us without Islam”; or “Islam is the only way out of our economic, social and political problems”, the common people imagine that just chanting these slogans and supporting their advocates in the elections to carry them to Parliament on a majority vote etc. would solve all problems with a magic wand or a miracle from heaven! . The Islamists and their intellectuals must explain, plainly and directly, to the people that Islam solves the problems of people through people themselves, and that Allah will not send down His angels to the earth to do people’s work for them: tilling land, nurturing animal and piscine wealth, boosting industry, reviving trade, building infrastructure, mobilizing Muslim potentialities for productive work, or keeping the Nation from idleness and squander of energies.
It is people who perform all these tasks and other tasks that are needed for good life and are lacked by a good contemporary society and sought after by a wise and thoughtful humanity.
Omar Ibn AIKhattab told some people who had taken residence in the mosque, waiting for what Allah would send down to them, “None of you should sit idle and not go after his lot that Allah has destined for him, saying “O Allah, send down my lot to me” while he knows that heaven does not rain gold and silver. Allah says, (And when the prayer is finished, then you may disperse through the land and seek of the bounty of Allah) [Surat AlJumu’a: 10].
The Holy Quran plainly states this inviolable law when it says, (Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change what is in them selves) [Surat AlRa’d: 11].
This is the first starting point, i.e. changing our wrong concepts, dead and corrupt ideas, hateful traits and rejectable morals into correct concepts, vivid and good ideas, praiseworthy traits and noble morals. People must prepare themselves for a life different from that which they are accustomed to: a life of work and production, not idleness and loafing; a life of seriousness, not joking; a life of austerity, not luxury a life of justice, not; a life of toil, not laziness.
Correction of Wrong Concepts
It is the duty of the Islamic Movement and its advocates to correct the wrong Islamic concepts that spread among the Muslim masses, so that Islamic concepts may be a tool of construction and progress, not destruction and backwardness.
Many of the religious understand some major Islamic values wrongly, including belief, piety, righteousness and straight forwardness.
Look at these verses of the Holy Quran: (If the people of the towns had but believed and feared Allah, We should indeed have opened out to them [all kinds of] blessings from heaven and earth) [Surat AlA’raf: 96].
(And for him who fears Allah, He [ever] prepares a way out, and He provides for him from [sources] he never could expect) [Surat AlTalaq: 23].
(If they [the Pagans] had only remained on the [right] way, We should have bestowed on them rain in abundance) [Surat AlJinn: 1 6].
(Before this We Wrote in the Psalms, after the Message [given to Moses]: “My righteous servants shall inherit the earth). When the common people read these verses in the Holy Quran, they think that what is meant by the verses is observing the rites and the faridas prayer, fasting, tasbih (uttering the formula “Subhan Allah”, i.e. “Glory be to Allah”), tahlil (uttering the formula of faith “La ilaha illa Allah”, i.e. “No god but Allah”), takbir (uttering the formula “Allahu Akbar”, i.e. “Allah is the Greatest”), etc and keeping away from all the forbidden things, i.e. wine, gambling, etc. This certainly is part and parcel of religion, but not all religion, nor even all faith and piety.
While Allah the Almighty has created man so that he may worship Him (I have only created Jinn’s and men, that they may serve Me) they may serve Me) [Surat AlDhariyat: 56] [Surat AlDhariyat: 56] they may serve Me) [Surat AlDhariyat: 56], He has also meant for man to be His vice gerent on earth, settling and building it with knowledge and labor ( I will create a vicegerent on earth )[Surat AlBaqara: 30], (It is He Who has produced you from the earth and settled you therein) [Surat Hud: 61]. The word “settled” here means “wanted you to and build it”. This settlement is a kind of worship.
Faith, piety, righteousness and straightforwardness make imperative that we balance our religion with our earthly life; worship Allah by following His universal practices; prepare all our might for meeting our enemies; till the land and work the factories; and take up every science or craft that the Nation may need for its religion or earthly life, as this has been regarded by Muslim faqihs (jurisprudents) as that the whole Nation would be a collective duty sinful if all people failed to accomplish it. The aspired piety is not beads jiggled by a dervish or a turban wrapped around the head of a self style sheikh, nor is it a hermitage or a secluded corner chosen for prayer by a worshipper: it is knowledge and work; religion and life; soul and material; planning and organization; development and production; perfection and excellence; (It pleases Allah that a man carrying out a task should do it well) [AlBayhaqi] (Verily Allah has prescribed proficiency in everything) [Muslim].
The Prophet urged Muslims to seek perfection in everything they do, even if it was killing a small reptile. A Prophetic tradition says: “He who kills a lizard at the first stroke will have so many good deeds to his credit. He who kills it at the second stroke will have so many (less than the first)and he who kills it at the third stroke will have so many (less than the second)” [Ahmad; Muslim; AbuDawud; AlTirmidhi; Ibn Majah]. Endeavoring to do everything well is required, however the thing in question may look trivial.
The Prophet’s companions did not look at Islam as a religion for monks or hermits, nor did they regard faith and piety as an isolation from life or an absolute preoccupation with faridas at the expense of life-enhancement.
Abdel Rahman IbnAuf, upon receiving a generous offer from Sa’d Ibn Al-Rabu, declined the offer politely and said, “I am a merchant, so show me where the marketplace is”. He traded and made millions in profit. This did not take him out of the sphere of faith and piety, for he was so faithful and pious that he became one of “the Ten Who Received Glad Tidings”, whose certain entrance into Paradise has been foretold by the Prophet, and with whom the Prophet was pleased at the time of his death – and one of the six members of the Shura (consultative) Group (the six companions of Omar ibn al-Khattab, who formed a council, at Omar’s behest, to elect one from among themselves as Caliph after Omar).
Pious believers are those who strive in this worldly life while being careful to always do well, armed in so doing by their trust in Allah and their faith and righteousness. Therefore, Allah blesses their endeavor in this world, and will not deny them their reward in the Hereafter.
they may serve Me) [Surat AlDhariyat: 56] [Surat AlDhariyat: 56] they may serve Me) [Surat AlDhariyat: 56], He has also meant for man to be His vice gerent on earth, settling and building it with knowledge and labor ( I will create a vicegerent on earth ) [Surat AlBaqara: 30], (It is He Who has produced you from the earth and settled you therein) [Surat Hud: 61]. The word “settled” here means “wanted you to and build it”. This settlement is a kind of worship.
Faith, piety, righteousness and straightforwardness make imperative that we balance our religion with our earthly life; worship Allah by following His universal practices; prepare all our might for meeting our enemies; till the land and work the factories; and take up every science or craft that the Nation may need for its religion or earthly life, as this has been regarded by Muslim faqihs (jurisprudents) as that the whole Nation would be a collective duty sinful if all people failed to accomplish it. The aspired piety is not beads jiggled by a dervish or a turban wrapped around the head of a self style sheikh, nor is it a hermitage or a secluded corner chosen for prayer by a worshipper: it is knowledge and work; religion and life; soul and material; planning and organization; development and production; perfection and excellence; (It pleases Allah that a man carrying out a task should do it well) [AlBayhaqi] (Verily Allah has prescribed proficiency in everything) [Muslim].
The Prophet urged Muslims to seek perfection in everything they do, even if it was killing a small reptile. A Prophetic tradition says: “He who kills a lizard at the first stroke will have so many good deeds to his credit. He who kills it at the second stroke will have so many (less than the first)and he who kills it at the third stroke will have so many (less than the second)” [Ahmad; Muslim; AbuDawud; AlTirmidhi; Ibn Majah]. Endeavoring to do everything well is required, however the thing in question may look trivial.
The Prophet’s companions did not look at Islam as a religion for monks or hermits, nor did they regard faith and piety as an isolation from life or an absolute preoccupation with faridas at the expense of life-enhancement.
Abdel Rahman IbnAuf, upon receiving a generous offer from Sa’d Ibn Al-Rabu, declined the offer politely and said, “I am a merchant, so show me where the marketplace is”. He traded and made millions in profit. This did not take him out of the sphere of faith and piety, for he was so faithful and pious that he became one of “the Ten Who Received Glad Tidings”, whose certain entrance into Paradise has been foretold by the Prophet, and with whom the Prophet was pleased at the time of his death – and one of the six members of the Shura (consultative) Group (the six companions of Omar ibn al-Khattab, who formed a council, at Omar’s behest, to elect one from among themselves as Caliph after Omar).
Pious believers are those who strive in this worldly life while being careful to always do well, armed in so doing by their trust in Allah and their faith and righteousness. Therefore, Allah blesses their endeavor in this world, and will not deny them their reward in the Hereafter.
Source: Islamic Basics by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
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