4.5. THE MOVEMENT AND EXPATRIATES
Besides minorities that live in non-Muslim countries, there is another group that the Movement should devote its attention to: expatriates who moved from Muslim countries to Western countries in Europe and the Americas, to Australia and to the Far East.
Why The Interest In Expatriates?
Expatriates are no longer few in number: they are counted in millions, especially in France where there are large communities of North Africans; in Britain where Indian and Pakistanis go; in Germany due to the presence of Turks; and in the United States because of the presence of Americans who descend from Muslim ancestors who were kidnapped from Africa long ago as well as the intensive immigration to that country.
There is not a single Western country that does not have transient expatriates, who go there to study or work, anti permanent immigrants who intended to stay there for good. Despite the numerous recommendations by different Islamic conferences that scholarships should be confined to those scientific and technological fields that Muslim countries do not have, Western countries still receive more newcomers who go there everyday at their own expense or at the expense of their countries to study. More expatriates are also leaving Muslim countries for Western countries in search for employment or to seek protection or freedom.
Allah the Almighty says, (O My servants who believe! Truly, spacious is My Earth. Therefore serve Me [and Me alone]!) [Surat Ankabut: 56].
The presence of the Islamic Movement in Western countrieswas at first guided by the Almighty and not planned by the Movement. Young men and women had emigrated there to escape with their religion from the rifts tearing their homeland apart and to seek knowledge, freedom and safety, then they found very good opportunities for working and spreading the Call amongst their fellow Easterners, scholars and others alike.
The Necessity Of Islamic Presence In The West
I believe that it is necessary for Islam in this age to have a presence in such societies that affect world politics.
Islamic presence is necessary in Europe, the Americas and Australia for several reasons, including the following:
Islamic presence is required for spreading the Message of Islam and getting Islam’s voice heard among nonMuslims through good word, rational dialogue and exemplary conduct.
It is required for taking in new Muslims in order to follow their conduct and nurture their belief in an Islamic environment that helps them lead a healthy Islamic life.
It is required for receiving newcomers to Western countries, such as scholars and immigrants, so that such newcomers may find themselves among people like the “Ansar” [the people of Medina who received the Prophet well and supported him at the time of hijra] who love those who migrate to their land and provide for them an atmosphere of Islam.
It is required for defending the causes of the Muslim Nation and the Muslim Land against the antagonism and misinformation of antiIslamic forces and trends.
It is not right, in my view, that Christianity should monopolize all these countries unrivalled, or rivaled by Zionist Judaism that only joins forces with it against us.
This is what I told our brothers in America, Canada, Australia and other countries years ago.
However, it should be done through good plans and proper organization and according to the fiqh of priorities.
We should look for the best place, the best work and the best means.
Muslims should have their own communities in wellknown states and cities, and they should have their own religious, educational and recreational establishments.
They should also have amongst them their own ulema and men of religion to answer their questions when they ask them, guide them when they lose the way and reconcile them when they differ among themselves.
A Conservatism Without Isolation, And An Openness without Melting
I used to tell our brothers in foreign countries, “Try to have your small society within the larger society, otherwise you will melt in it like salt in water. What has preserved the Jewish character over the past centuries was their small community that was unique in its ideas and rituals and was known as “the Jewish ghetto”. Try to have your own “Muslim ghetto then”.
I am not advocating selfisolation and keeping our doors closed to the people around us, for this will be the same as death itself: what is required is openness without melting the openness of people with a message who seek to affect and interact, not people who imitate and whose only concern is to go along and be affected to the extent of following in the very steps of others, whatever they do.
We have complained for some time of the drain of Arab and Muslim brains in important fields of specialization as a result of the migration of scientists who fail to find a place for themselves in their home countries but find it in foreign countries.
If this is true, we must not let such geniuses lose their loyalty to their religion, their nation, their culture and their fatherlands. We have to exert every effort to ensure that their loyalty and feelings remain with their people and homeland.
This will only be possible if their loyalty remains with Allah, His Messenger and the believers, and if they continue to be concerned over the woes of their nation and riot their own interests alone.
It is the duty of the Islamic Movement not to leave these expatriates to be swept by the whirlpool of the materialistic trend that prevails in the West, for they must always be reminded of their origins, to which they long all the time.
I believe that Islamic student unions have played a praiseworthy role in this respect over the past three decades, after the elapse of the era in which the Leftists, the Nationalists, the Secularists dominated and guided the actions of these unions.
No one with a grain of fairness in him can deny the efforts of the Association of Muslim Students in the United States and Canada. The Association has established branch offices and organized several conferences. Other establishments have emanated from it, such as the Union of Islamic Sociologists, the Society of Muslim Scientists and Engineers, the Islamic Medical Society, the Islamic Association in North America and others. There is an intention to base the Movement in the United States, so that it may assume its natural position in a society based on multiplicity and freedom.
The Five Duties Of The Muslim Expatriates
I have participated in conferences organized by the Union of Muslim Students for several years. What I saw there was a source of gratification. The same applies to the Society of Muslim Students and the Federation of Islamic Societies in Britain and other organizations in Europe.
In my meetings with expatriates, I always reminded them of five duties as follows;
-The expatriate’s duty to himself: to preserve and develop himself.
-The expatriate’s duty to his family: to protect it from disruption and establish it on Islam.
-The expatriate’s duty to his fellow Muslims: to unite with them to form one group.
-The expatriate’s duty to the non-Muslim community living around him: to invite the members of that community to the way of Allah with wisdom and beautiful preaching.
-The expatriate’s duty to the causes of his Muslim Nation: to care for them and support them.
Warning Against Two Things
There are two serious things that I have to warn about: racial and nationalist sympathies, and extremism and differences.
It is regrettable that we should see racial and nationalist sympathies given expression by several Muslim groups, with each closing itself to others and isolating its members from other Muslims, except for those spared [this wrongdoing] by the Grace of Allah.
Even the mosques are attributed to this or that group. It is not strange today that when you visit a city you may be told that this is the mosque of the Turks, that is the mosque of the Moroccans, and the third mosque over there is the mosque of the Yugoslavs and the fourth is for Indians, the fifth for Pakistanis; the sixth for Arabs, or a certain group of Arabs.
In the United States, in particular, there are special mosques for black Muslims.
Islam has come to eliminate the differences among people and make them equal. Mosques are just the tools ordained by Allah for performing this mission, so how can they become a tool for discrimination?
True, the language difficulties had made such separation necessary at first for the first generations of expatriates that did not know the native languages of the countries they had migrated to. But this could have been remedied by the allocation of lectures for each group in the same mosque for some time until there was a common language for all the Muslim community in each country or city.
However, this separation has become unnecessary in most cases, but the mosques remain attributed to certain groups or nationalities!
A mosque should be a mosque for Muslims and nothing else, and the flag under which the expatriates should unite must be the flag of Islam alone.
Expatriate Muslims will be strong only if they unite and help each other, for unity is strength, and dissent is weakness. Although solidarity is always required, it is more so in the case of being in an alien land, where one needs others of his kind to help him overcome his loneliness.
The second thing I want to warn about is extremism and differences over minor details, a phenomenon that, while still in its bud in Western countries, dates back to some time ago.
Our brothers in the East should not carry their differences and problems to the West, reviving and reliving them in their new home countries. For the time, place and people have changed, and these expatriates have been taught by their religious teachers that a fatwa changes with the change of time place and people, so why do not they apply what they have been taught?
About ten years ago, I visited the Islamic Center in Los Angeles, where some brothers asked me disapprovingly, “Is it right to show films in a mosque, even if they are educational films?” I replied, “What is in that? If these films teach some thing good, watching them would be an act of worship, and a mosque is a place of worship and a forum for knowledge and education “.
I added that the Prophet [peace be upon him] had allowed Abyssinians to dance with their spears in his mosque and had allowed his wife Aisha to watch them and had encouraged them to go on dancing.
Others asked, ” May women not wearing Islamic dress be allowed to enter the mosque on Saturdays and Sundays, when lectures and lessons are given? “I answered”, Yes, because if we restrict the admission into mosques to women who wear Islamic dress, where would others hear the Word of Islam and receive the Message of Allah? If we deny such women access to the mosque and its lectures and lessons, we will lose them forever, for the Call will not reach them. But if we Allow them to go to the mosque, then there is a great hope for them to be guided by Allah to observance of the rules of Islam. Many a true word has been made by Allah to open a heart, even several hearts”.
At the time I was getting this manuscript ready to go to the press, I received a report, or rather a letter, from my honorable brother, the doctor, scientist, poet and advocate of Islam, Dr. Hassan Hathoot, in which he explained some of theactivities performed by the Islamic Center in Los Angeles and the responsibilities carried by the center to help Muslims and nonMuslims alike. It was a letter that would warm the heart of any Muslim who reads it, as it was a true manifestation that Islam will never wither if it has on its side men who combine proper understanding and good intention.
Source: Islamic Basics by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
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