Dr. Khalid Zaheer’s Blog

By the grace of the Almighty I have turned 50 on June 4, 2008. I bow my head in gratitude to my creator for numerous reasons.

I know that there are millions of people who are born and even after surviving for the first few years of their lives, they die before they turn fifty. I know so many people who were close to me who couldn’t survive for fifty years. The list includes my real brother, my real uncles, my cousins, my grandmother, my class fellows, my colleagues, and my students. I should therefore be thankful to my God for enabling me to survive for so long despite the fact that I was extremely vulnerable.

My progress has been unbelievable. I was a tiny creature only a few decades ago unable to do anything except to constantly disturb my mother; today I am a grown up man trying to convert my ideas into realities. As a young child, I vividly remember, I was good for nothing. I used to envy many of my young contemporaries for what they were. Not that I am on top of the world today, but what I have achieved thus far has no comparison with what my initial potential was. When I look back, I can only see God doing all the good things that happened to me. My potential and achievements simply don’t match. It’s only God who caused me to be what I am now from what I was when I was young.

I need to be thankful to God also for the kind of people he gave me to live with. My parents, my wife and children, my brothers, my friends, and my students have all been such wonderful people that it couldn’t have been without God’s design.

I am thankful to them all, but I am thankful to you — my dear God — more than anyone else.

On the completion of my fifty years’ stay in this world, I admit that I haven’t performed according to my creator’s expectations. It is not a ceremonial statement but a plain truth. I try to express my regrets for not being up to His standards every now and then in my prayers. And I am so blessed that I get a feeling, each time I do so, that He has forgiven me and overlooked my failings.

O God, I want that your mercy should continue to embrace me the way it always has. I know that I will continue to falter; and I somehow know that you will continue to forgive.

The prophet, God’s mercy be on him, had a unique concept of birthday and of celebrating it. He used to fast every Monday, of course, without making it publicly known. When he was asked, he clarified that he fasted on Mondays because he was born on a Monday. In other words, he had a very private way of thanking God, which, instead of doing annually, he used to do every week. No doubt he was the closest to God. What I learn from his great example is the fact that thanking God for giving us life is a natural, desirable thing; that it should be privately done, ideally without letting people know about it; and that the more one is close to God, the more one will do it.

I don’t want to make a strong statement for I cannot afford to annoy anyone on my ‘birthday’, but I have to say this to all my dear ones: I really don’t understand the idea of celebrating an individual’s annual birthdays. I am not calling it to question because it is a Western idea. Many ideas coming from the West are good; but not this one. A mood of celebration is in essence very different from a mood of thanksgiving. While one has the notion of entertainment intrinsically attached to it, the other calls for basically a very personal expression of gratitude to the creator. Praying, fasting, feeding the poor, expressing one’s feelings, or a combination of all these seem to be more appropriate acts for the occasion. Somehow, being what I am, when I am greeted by the expressions “happy birthday”, I find myself completely at a loss to know the true meanings of it.

I will end my ‘birthday statement’ by saying this: O God, thank you for giving me a wonderful life. Please continue to be as kind as you have always been. My expressions of gratitude cannot match your blessings. What you have given me is so huge that it cannot be measured and what I have done in return is so small that it cannot be seen. Despite that you have continued to shower your blessings on me. That has been the pattern in the past, and I pray to you that it should continue the same way.

An extremist is a person who holds views which are at the extreme side of the continuum of possible views on a subject. A Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim who says that he believes that he is on the right path and the paths others are following are not correct is, to me, not an extremist, despite being a religious exclusivist, so long as he is prepared to concede the possibility that his opinion had the likelihood of turning out to be incorrect and, given that possibility, he was willing to consider other views with an open mind. An extremist is a person who believes that only his views are correct while all others are incorrect and he is therefore not prepared to respect and listen to the other views to find out if they could be correct too.

What is the relationship between extremism and terrorism? Although all extremists were not terrorists, all terrorists were extremists. A person ought to have extremist tendencies to resort to aggression, violence, and terrorism. No non-extremist is likely to resort to terrorism. Despite at times not being a terrorist, an extremist is still a threat to the society because he could cause others to become extremists like him, some of who may also turn out to be terrorists. Moreover, there was no way of finding out when a non-terrorist-extremist may decide to become a terrorist-extremist.

What causes a person to be an extremist? There were apparently three reasons that cause a person to be an extremist: It was either the peculiar personality of an individual, or the kind of information and training he received, or/and a sense of insecurity in him which made him inflexible and as a result extremist. In many cases it was a combination of any two or all three of the above-stated factors that contribute in making an individual an extremist.

There were certain types of personality which are more prone to be extremists. A person who can be easily irritated in the midst of diverse views was a good candidate to be one. Someone who was obsessively fascinated by individuals, ideas, or other influences because of certain immediate, superficial reasons and then refused to reconsider his decision for fear of losing that emotional attachment was likely to be an extremist. A person deprived of his due rights in the society can also have extremist tendencies in reaction to his state of deprivation if he was not willing to reconsider his position on realizing that his reaction was exaggerated. The underlying common denominator amongst all extremists was their inflexibility in the wake of new information.

The training one received in the past could also make a person inclined to be an extremist. For instance, if the religious mentor under whom, or the educational institution in which, an individual got religious guidance continued to instill in his mind the thought that the ideas he was receiving were the only valid ones and the rest of them were either weak, unauthentic, or misleading, the trainee would begin to get convinced that all views other than his were unreliable and thus would give in to the extremist ideology. His stubborn attitude would be reinforced by the constant urging on the part of his religious guides that his reluctance to look at other views objectively was an indication of his ’strong faith’.

When a potentially stubborn person is put through the experience of a learning environment where participants were trained to be extremists, the likely outcome is that the individual would accept what he was being offered. The process essentially would involve reading about and listening to the same view and the arguments supporting it over and over again. Such process would create an exaggerated affinity for the views thus presented. Once the ideology being presented in a controlled environment was internalized, the participant would stop listening to the opposing views. Even when the opposing view would be heard it would not be taken with an open mind with a possibility of change; it would only be read and heard to be rejected and condemned.

What causes people to be inclined to accept the extremist views? The answer is that it is either misery, or love, or both which cause people to be extremists. If one has led a miserable life in the past, one is prone to be fascinated by extremist ideas that would somehow help in responding to the bitter feelings. If one loved an individual or an ideology to the extent of being infatuated by it, extremism would follow. No balanced, non-reactionary individual can ever fall prey permanently to extremist views.

Peaceful fanatics are as unacceptable as violent ones because they all stem from the same source. You can never stop them from doing what they have decided. Intellect has no role to play in their process of idea formation; it only plays a role in the implementation of ideas.

What can be done about it? All religiously inclined people should be helped to be convinced that their intellect was the most precious gift from God. It was only through intellect that they can sift reliable information from the one that was misleading. In not using one’s intellect one was being ungrateful to God. They should also be made to feel comfortable that it was not human intellect that misled people; instead it was the incorrect use of it that misguided them. While one could still be misled if one used one’s intellect if it was not done judiciously, one could never be on the correct religious track if one wouldn’t use it. Qur’an unequivocally declares “Indeed the worst of the beasts in the eyes of God are those deaf and dumb people who don’t use their intellect.” (8:22)

The most difficult victims of extremist propaganda are those intelligent minds who were influenced by some seemingly impressive ideas of a religious zealot who after having gained their confidence cleverly stopped them from using the mind any more. In other words, there were charismatic people who would capture the imagination of others through their God-gifted abilities to impress them to the level that their followers would ultimately give in to become passively gullible.

The anti-extremism moderates should play their role carefully. The extremist leadership looks at the weaknesses (apparent or real) eagerly and cleverly employs it to convince their followers that the ‘other group’ was dangerous. The extremist leadership is very sensitive about its following. It jealously guards each and every follower they were able to capture. Indeed they were clearly distinguishable from the non-extremists in this matter too: While a non-extremist would care little if someone who was in agreement with him decided to disagree with him through intellectual reasoning and sided with someone else. It would never be a problem for him because his agenda was to let others use their intellect and let them agree and disagree on the merit of arguments. For an intelligent person, therefore, it would hardly ever be a complete and total transformation from one position to another. An extremist leader would always demand total allegiance from his followers. He can therefore never allow his followers to enter into a free dialogue with others. He knows that disagreement of his follower in one area would signal a shift from total obedience to a position of partial agreement on the basis of the merit of arguments, which to him was as good (or bad) as complete disagreement.

I want to narrate a recent experience I had in Karachi and would want to draw a conclusion.

A couple of evenings ago, a young boy who had just done his A levels came to one of my programs with his mother who was a strict, practicing Muslim. She wanted me to respond to some of the questions her son had in mind. The boy came close enough to me to be able to ensure that his mother wouldn’t hear what he was saying to me. He mentioned that he was an agnostic and that he didn’t believe in the hell and the heaven. He also said that he didn’t know why God would send His own creation to the hell. I told the boy politely that he could ask me all these questions during the Q&A session.

My presentation was on the topic: “Islam is Easy to Follow”. It was followed by a Q&A session. The boy asked a question. It wasn’t one of those tough ones he had promised; it was thankfully an innocuous one. His mother also asked a question which clearly indicated two things: that she was a very strictly religious lady and that she had not heard what I had said in the lecture. After it was all over, the boy met me and thanked me for clearing many of his doubts about Islam (even though I had addressed none of the ones he had mentioned prior to my lecture). I could see where his problem was coming from: His mother wanted to forcibly ensure that her son became a practicing Muslim according to her high level of expectation. The son thought it to be more sensible that he declared that he was an agnostic instead of going into the drill of strict religiosity. As soon as he realized that the Almighty’s message was simple and easy to follow, he dropped the very idea of raising objections against it.

I have come to realize that our task is to present the message of Allah the way it is without suggesting our views and interpretations of strict application of Shari’ah. Apart from presenting many Quranic verses in my lecture, I mentioned these two ahadith as well:

“Make things easier for others and don’t make them difficult. And give good tidings to them and don’t create hatred (against religion) in them.” (Bukhari; No. 69)
“When the prophet, alaihissalaam, used to be presented with two options, he would choose the easier of the two.” (Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal; 24890)

May the Almighty guide us all to the right path! Amen.

In response to my article “The Quran-Centred Approach”, I received two strongly worded, emotionally charged messages from two well-meaning, sincere, and practicing Muslims. One of them accused me of intellectual dishonesty while the other one was a little less judgmental: He censured me for not doing justice with the approaches I had criticized in my article. My question to both individuals on their responses is this: If they were confident that my point of view was incorrect, why were they so emotional in their rejoinders and why didn’t they analyze my arguments to prove them wrong? While I concede that everyone has a right to disagree, I believe it is our moral and religious obligation that we be measured in our responses and be fair in our criticism. The trouble with morally charged responses to views different from one’s own is that they are more often than not likely to be unfair. The Almighty desires from us that we be absolutely just in all areas of our lives, in particular when we are dealing with people who have views different from ours: “Believers, be firmly committed to justice in a way that you be witnesses for the Almighty, even though in doing so your decisions may go against your own interests, or those of your parents or relatives.” (4:135) “Believers, be firmly committed to justice in a way that you be witnesses for the Almighty. And let not the enmity of a nation dissuade you from being fair. Be fair; that is closest to God-consciousness.” (5:8)

I will mention below my understanding of why people react sharply to the criticism that is raised against their religious point of view.

Religious message is accepted and espoused by people after it has been internalized. The process can happen in two ways: We either appreciate the message intellectually, knowing its strengths and weaknesses, or we don’t appreciate it properly. In the former case, when we know quite well what we are accepting through critically examining the message, we would never react sharply to any criticism raised against it. My claim is based on this simple logic: If we know the strengths and weaknesses of our message, we will, on hearing or reading a criticism, decide whether it was valid or not. If it was a valid criticism, we would be able to relate to the critic’s views because he would echo our own concerns and thus would feel comfortable that our dissatisfaction was shared by others too. If the critic also goes on to suggest a solution to the problem, we would be further obliged to him for helping us in solving our problem.

If you were wondering how one could internalize a message even while holding some part of it as weak in its arguments, I would suggest that that’s how we normally do in life while dealing with most ideologies. A good, intelligent Communist would accept his ideology as the best one even while acknowledging that it still had flaws. Despite those flaws, he would stick to it because of his conviction that the ideology was the best relative to the available alternatives. Likewise would be the case of a Christian and a Muslim. The only difference between the believers of religion claiming to have divine origins and other ideologies is that a believer in a religion from God would concede that his own understanding of it was somewhat flawed even though the message itself was perfect.

If the criticism to our religious views was weak, instead of entertaining emotions of hatred against the critic, one would either think of ways to help the critic know why he was wrong or else would at least feel comfortable that the criticism had no basis. In case we would feel that the critic was causing people to be misled by his views, we would make an attempt to correct the critic as well as those who were being influenced by him. Of course, no body has the moral and religious right to assume that the other person was deliberately doing something wrong.

In short, criticism of our views by others should never hurt us if our views were based on a process of intellectual internalizing.

However, if the process of internalizing didn’t involve intellect, affiliation with the ideology could only be had through indoctrination: the message is hammered into the mind through an emotional method. Anyone, a few, or all of the following tools could be employed for the purpose of indoctrination of a religious message: charismatic appeal of an individual, fear of the future, an atmosphere of piety in a retreat, condemnation of intellect to prevent the individual from using it for critical purposes, appeal to stick to the traditional belief system, a sense of belonging to a group which espouses the ideology, influence of poetry, oratory, drama, or one-sided presentation of history etc. The end result sought through this process is contentment through an emotional, non-intellectual approach that the point of view being presented was correct. That contentment is reinforced by dissemination of reminders through regular meetings and/or some other ways. When an ideology espoused through adopting such an approach is condemned, the reaction is always emotional. Quite naturally, if what was achieved intellectually was challenged, the reaction would be intellectual; if it was achieved emotionally, the reaction to its criticism would be emotional.

It is quite clear that Qur’an invites the reader to adopt an intellectual approach to internalize its claims. It is only after the concepts have been intellectually internalized that emotions are allowed to play their role. In other words, even though emotions are expected to play an important role in religious beliefs and practices of Islam, that role is only allowed after the religious sentiment passes through the conduit of intellectual scrutiny.

Take a few examples. Qur’an says: “Do they not ponder over Qur’an or is it that their hearts have been twisted?” (47:24) “Do they not ponder over Qur’an; had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have found therein a lot of discrepancies.” (4:82) “Tell them that I have lived with you for a lifetime before (delivering) this (message); do you then not ponder?” (10:16) “Tell them: then bring forth a book which is straighter than these two (books: Torah and Qur’an), I will be the first to follow them, if you are really truthful (in your claims). But if they don’t respond to you, then know that they are only following their own desires.” (28:49-50)”

Qur’an, moreover, requires its followers to ignore those who oppose and ridicule the message, instead of emotionally charging against them. “And when you see those who engage in a false conversation about our verses by mocking at them, stay away from them till they turn to another topic. And if Satan causes you to forget, then after remembrance sit not in the company of those people who are wrongdoers.” (6:68) When some of the hypocrites adopted a cheap way of ridiculing the prophet surreptitiously by pronouncing the word ra‘ina (the equivalent of ‘may I beg your pardon’) in his gathering in a way that it conveyed an expression of insult, instead of asking Muslims to retaliate, Qur’an asked Muslims to use unzurna another word meaning the same thing. (2:104)

The book of God requires people to listen carefully to the message which is presented to them and follow what is good in it. It says: “(The real servants of God are those) who listen (carefully) to the word and follow (what they find) the best in it.” (39:18) Qur’an condemns those who pounce upon a message like deaf and blind people when it is presented to them for careful consideration. (26:73) The book also condemns the attitude of those who spurn a message without subjecting it to intellectual scrutiny simply because they had not heard it before: “When it is said to them (the disbelievers) ‘Follow what Allah has sent down’, they say ‘Nay! We shall follow what we found our forefathers following.’ (Would they do that) even though their fathers did not understand anything nor were they guided.’” (2:170)

Qur’an condemns those who do otherwise: And when they reminded of God’s verses, they don’t pounce upon it deaf and blind.” When they are asked to follow what Allah has revealed, they say, instead we’ll follow what we have seen our forefathers doing.”

I would summarize the message of this article thus: If you have understood your point of view correctly through your intellect, you would never react sharply to a criticism raised against it. If you haven’t done so, you would always react emotionally while debating with people holding views different from yours. Qur’an desires that the first approach be followed by believers and discourages them from adopting the latter one.

All humans who believe that Muhammad, may Allah’s mercy be on him, was the last messenger God Almighty sent to guide the entire mankind are Muslims. However, despite the commonality of this belief, Muslims differ in the way they understand and practice their religion. There are two basic reasons for this situation to have arisen.

The first reason is that many Muslims have chosen to follow one religious group or another blindly. In doing so, they have decided that they will not employ the two most significant gifts the Almighty has bestowed upon them to sift the right views from the wrong ones: their intellect and the Qur’an. Since it is only their intellect which enables humans to know whether what they are doing is right or wrong and it is only through intellect that one can understand the word of God, Qur’an, once both were rendered non-effective, Muslims lost the ability of knowing the truth in its pristine form. Thus, whoever chose to follow a certain religious way at the beginning of his career was destined to follow the same way till the very end of his life. In such a state, it wasn’t possible for A and B, for instance, who may otherwise be very intelligent people and friendly with each other, to decide which of the respective religious views the two were carrying was the more correct. Since in the rules of Taqlid (blind following of the elders/scholars) a common man is not even allowed the facility to think about religious differences, the resolution of those differences and the motivation to find the truth in the jungle of them became an impossible task.

The other reason for the differences of opinion to continue to grow thick amongst Muslims was the fact that Muslim scholars, instead of seeking guidance from Quran to resolve their differences, chose to adopt one of the following four distinct non-Quranic approaches to understand religion: the hadith-centered approach, the fiqh-centered approach, the tasawwuf-centered approach, or the history-centered approach.

Those who pursued the hadith-centered approach were the ones who were more interested in proving that the true message of Islam was the one that emerged from the understanding of hadith literature. Even if there was an apparent conflict between what Qur’an was saying and what hadith was implying, it was resolved in favor of hadith with a plea that what we understand from Qur’an was our own understanding and what was mentioned in hadith was the interpretation of the prophet, alaihissalaam, and most certainly, so goes the argument, the interpretation of the prophet was superior to ours. The point that was lost was that a hadith, even if it was authentic, doesn’t give the exact wordings and the correct context of what the prophet had said. Also, it has never been convincingly explained as to how could it be that if our interpretation of Qur’an was unreliable, our interpretation of hadith be not unreliable too? After all, it is we, the same mortals, who would be interpreting hadith to get its meanings. The people who have understood Islam through hadith have come about to be called Ahle-Hadith. The fact of the matter is that majority of Muslims today are practically Ahle-Hadith even though many of them may claim that they were pursuing the fiqh-centered approach.

Those who followed the fiqh-centered approach were the people who pursued the path of emphasizing the scholarly work done on Islamic jurisprudence by their espoused scholars more than anything else. To defend resolutely what the earlier scholars of their school of thought had already mentioned became the most significant task of the scholars of the later times. The interpretation of the Qur’an was done to ensure that the Qur’anic verses were understood in the light of the fiqhi understanding that had already emerged in their school of thought. The peculiar understanding that thus emerged could neither be similar to the one that was reached by those who pursued the hadith-, tasawwuf-, and history-centered approaches nor could it be able to bring together the scholars who followed different schools of thought (fiqhi masalik) within the fiqh-centered approach.

The third approach followed by a group of Muslims is the history-centered approach. The followers of this approach have a peculiar understanding of the early history of Islam. Their interpretation of the Qur’an always tends to be faithful to that understanding. There are certain implications drawn from their historical understanding. It is claimed that the original teachings of Islam had decided to confer the status of a chosen people to the members of the prophet’s family, who were ill-treated by some tyrants of the ummah and to mourn their alleged ill-treatment was the most important part of all religious rituals. To prove those implications and the related concept of religion is the basic focal point of all Quranic interpretations done by the scholars of this school of thought.

A fourth approach towards understanding Islam is the Tasawwuf-centered approach. According to this approach the basic purpose of all Islamic teachings is to require humans to get back to where they originally belong: God, their Creator. Since man has been required to go through the tragic experience to spend the dreaded time of separation from God in his human existence, which is arrested in the flesh and bones of his body, in this worldly life, he must get out of it for his salvation to be a part of God again. For that purpose, he has to go through the various stages of spiritual exercises to be pure enough to achieve unity with the ‘truth’ once again. The approach has its origins outside the text of Qur’an. The emotionally attached adherents of it seek to find justifications for it from within Qur’an and interpret the text in a manner that suits their peculiar understanding of reality. The manner they achieve it is by describing their interpretation as esoteric (which relies on the methodology of bringing hidden/batini meanings of the text). Since this approach of interpretation doesn’t take the apparent text of Qur’an as binding but requires it to be interpreted in a manner that the ‘hidden’ meanings of it are extracted, the book of God is not given the status of final authority on religious matters.

As mentioned above, the fiqh-, tasawwuf-, and history-centered approaches are all based on, to a greater or lesser degree, the hadith-centered approach. They do not seem to have independent methodological bases other than what is offered by the hadith-centered approach. The only difference is that the tasawwuf-centred approach adds spiritual experiences (kashf) to help in arriving at its esoteric (batani) insights to tafsir together with weak (da’if) ahadith, the fiqh-centered approach prefers the juristic verdicts of the espoused jurists in interpreting the verses where there happen to be differences, and the history-centered approach is inclined to draw from the opinion of the Imams in interpreting verses where the peculiar point of view of the sect is desired to be emphasized.

Are these approaches completely incorrect? The answer is that insofar as they relegate Quranic text to a position of secondary source, subservient to the other sources, these approaches are intrinsically incorrect. However, they all have elements of virtue in them. What then is the correct approach? The correct answer to it is that only the Quran-centered approach is the correct one. The Almighty has Himself required believers to hold fast to the rope of Allah and as a consequence make sure that they don’t fall into disintegration. It is obvious from this statement that if there could be one integrating way of bringing all Muslims to one understanding, it was only through Quran. Also, the Almighty declares that it is Quran which is the ultimate criterion to sift right from wrong (Al-Furqan). He also clarifies that He sent books to humans from time to time so that those books should “… judge between people in matters wherein they differed.” (Quran; 2:214)

I will give an example to show how a certain religious issue could be resolved differently by different approaches and how Quran can come to our rescue to let us know which view is the correct one: What standard of living should one ideally adopt? How much should one ideally spend on oneself and how much on others? To respond to this question, the hadith-based approach would suggest that the ideal attitude would be not to leave any saving with oneself because such was the approach adopted by prophet, alahissalaam, even though lesser attitudes would be acceptable as well. The fiqh-based approach would say much the same thing except for the difference that they would divide the attitudes into different levels, categorizing the one adopted by the prophet as the ideal. The history-based approach would mention the example of their Imams as well to substantiate the same view. The tasawwuf-based approach would mention that the ideal attitude would be to minimize consumption for the individual to enable him to shun most contacts with the attractions of this world so that nearness with the Creator is achieved. It would attempt to support its view by clarifying that the prophet, alaihissalaam, did the same.

The Quran-centered approach would look at the book of Allah to find the right behaviour of the believer and make a claim that it mentions clearly the ideal attitude of the servants of the Merciful God (‘ibadurrahman) thus: “And those who, when they spend, are neither extravagant nor niggardly, but hold a (medium) way between those (extremes).” (Quran; 25:67) The approach would make an attempt to offer an explanation for the example of the prophet, alaihissalaam, in the light of this Quranic guidance. However, in case it fails in its attempt, it would explain that the reports have either not been properly understood or not properly transmitted. The possibility that the Quranic guidance hasn’t been properly understood would also be conceded. However, given a situation wherein a clear Quranic guidance is available, even if there was a possibility of it being misunderstood, it was the status of the book of Allah that its verdict be acknowledged as correct religious understanding on the subject, for it is the book which was given the status “… to judge between people in matters wherein they differed.” In case the mistake in understanding the Quranic text is pointed out, it will be accepted, again because the principle is that Quranic verdict must always hold supreme.

In this particular case, one of the explanations offered for the prophet’s behaviour could be that since he lived in times when the economic condition of Muslims wasn’t good, he lived a frugal life suiting his circumstances. The examples of Dawood and Sulaiman, alaihimussalam, would also be offered to substantiate the point that the prophets, all of whom were ideals amongst humans, lived a life which in accordance with their circumstances could be described as the middle-of-the-road approach in economic matters, exactly as described in Quran about the servants of Al-Rahman (the Merciful) that they “are neither extravagant nor niggardly, but hold a (medium) way between those (extremes).”

The program came to an end. No sooner did Mr. Javed Ahmad Ghamidi descend from the altar of the stage, a man went after him in pursuit. He had a religious journal in his hand; bringing it closer to Mr Ghamidi, he expectantly exclaimed: “Look, what Mawlana Taqi Usmani has written: It is permissible to write Qur’anic text with urine!” Mr Ghamidi had a cursory look at the person. Without bothering to take the journal from his hands for getting a confirmation of what he had said, he proceeded ahead, giving his clear verdict on the issue: “The Mawlana cannot possibly say anything like that.”

I am personally a witness to the above-quoted incident which took place in the recording room of Geo Television. It happened during a period when a strong campaign had been launched against Mawlana Taqi Usmani by his detractors. And it wasn’t a movement based on mere speculative allegations: His critics were supporting their allegations with ‘proofs’ from his writings. However, Mr Ghamidi brushed aside the very possibility of entertaining the idea of carrying any ill-feeling against a respected fellow scholar. His response served me with an effective lesson on how a scholar acting as a representative of the prophet, may Allah’s mercy be on him, should stand tall, far above the petty immoral rivalries, which one sadly witnesses amongst the present-day ‘competing adversaries.’ The behaviour of Mr Ghamidi reminded me that in Surah Nur (twenty-fourth chapter of Qur’an), while commenting on the circumstances surrounding the false allegations raised against Ayesha, the wife of the prophet, the Almighty had emphasized upon Muslims not to entertain negative thoughts about fellow believers.

I had a similar experience some while earlier too when there were allegations brought before Mr Ghamidi against another prominent scholar. Don’t ask what those allegations were, because there could be few charges more horrible than the ones made against that scholar. Had Mr Ghamidi desired, he could have launched a campaign to malign him on the basis of those charges. However, he did what was befitting for a scholar representing Islam: He didn’t allow the allegations against his contemporary scholar to go beyond him, even though the beneficiary of his magnanimous act was a person who had, as if, sworn it as one of the goals of his life to malign Mr. Ghamidi as an evil worthy of being eliminated.

People ask me if Mr Ghamidi had authored the script of a film; if he responded to the challenge of Qur’an by authoring a Qur’an-like text; if he received funding from the government; if he was against Jihad; if he believed the Bible to be the source of Islamic teachings instead of Qur’an; and many other similar questions. When I ask them as to who was the person they picked these pieces of information from, they mention the names of a religious journal, a religious personality, or a religious scholar. Such is the state of our present-day religiosity!

People say that our biggest problem is the US, or the disputes of Kashmir and Palestine, or the scourge of proliferating obscenity. Instead, I strongly believe that our biggest problem is our morally bankrupt religiosity which is all the time eager to wage a jihad on others to implement Islam but it is never able to see the worst kind of moral evils in their own ranks. It is able to see even in pitch darkness the conspiracies hatched against Islam by the Jews and Christians, but it is never able to see the deceptions of Satan playing havoc with their own souls even in the light of the Qur’an and the model of the prophet. It has guns in its hands, and religious slogans on its tongues, but their hearts are devoid of God’s fear and their characters are uninfluenced by the grace of the prophet’s personality.

Quite often I think that if Muslims are facing God’s wrath, there was nothing else causing it to happen save the manifestation of the Almighty’s justice. If people of such character are representing the leadership of Islam and the common man is content with following them in large numbers, the Almighty, it seems, is content with the destruction and ignominy of Muslims. God has no blood relations with any nation. He deals with all peoples on merit. If the torch-bearers of Islam and the representatives of the prophet, Allah’s mercy be on him, are people of such low character, then be sure that the decline of Muslims is not coming to an end as yet. As long as the character of Muslims in general and their leadership in particular would not change, neither their present nor their future would change.   

Author: Rehan Yusufi
Translated by: Khalid Zaheer

I am narrating my experiences with some devout Christians that I had while I was staying in Britain for my studies. I am mentioning a brief account of them followed by some questions that come to my mind on those experiences; at the end, I have mentioned my own analyses of the situation arising out of the fact that religious Muslims and religious Christians both behave in the same manner.

I stayed in Britain in Lampeter, a small university town in Wales, where there was a milk vendor who would move from house to house to drop milk bottles at the doorsteps of his customers. The gentleman would always wear a broad, genuine smile on his face. I saw him several times and on all occasions I saw him with his familiar, impressive smile. One day, I decided to visit him to find out what could be the reason behind the overwhelmingly beaming face he had. I also had another agenda in mind: to introduce him to the teachings of Islam. On meeting him it transpired that He was a Born-Again Christian. He mentioned to me that prior to his spiritual rebirth he was fully indulged in various kinds of sins. However, one day he had an experience wherein the Holy Spirit visited him and cleansed him inside out in a way that he no more felt inclined towards sinning. He mentioned that he was thereafter a completely transformed person. He started going to the church regularly and did all his work with a view to please his Lord. He was particularly impressed by Mr DiPartisan, the priest of his church, who used to deliver regular sermons on Sundays. I am a witness to the fact that Mr DiPartisan was a particularly impressive speaker.  

His story reminded me of the spiritual experiences of many people back home who met with, and were later helped by, their respective spiritual masters in going through similar experiences that helped them in completely transforming their lives. The spiritual experience narrated by the Born-Again ‘special-smile man’ and many of our Tasawwuf-inspired Muslims are strikingly similar. My question is: Why should the smiling milkman be considered misguided and the smiling Sufis be considered guided when their experiences of transformation are the same spiritual, non-rational in nature? Is it just because of the fact that the members of one group were born Christians and therefore they were misguided and that the other group members were born Muslim and therefore, by virtue of that, they were guided?

Now take the other experience: While in Britain, I was regularly visited by Mr and Mrs Elsworthy, a retired couple in their sixties, who would take the advantage of their visit from their village to the church in Lampeter on Sundays to come to my place for evangelizing. Mrs Elsworthy would be the one who would preach and her husband would invariably weep on being emotionally touched by the effective description of his Christian faith by his wife. Mrs Elsworthy once said to me: “Khalid, how could it be that a good person like you could stay away from benefiting from the all-embracing mercy of Lord Jesus?” Her persuasive urging used to be extremely sincere. I would keep responding to her presentations by putting across my views based on the Qur’anic teachings. At some point however I realized that we were heading towards nowhere. I presented this difficulty before them thus: “I believe we have reached an impasse: You keep mentioning your understanding from the Bible and I keep talking about my views from the Qur’an. While I believe some part of the Bible to be from God, you don’t believe the Qur’an to be from Him at all. How can we reach any common understanding unless we resolve this issue? I would suggest that you pray to your God during the next week and ask Him if the Qur’an too was His book, He should open your hearts for its guidance. I would do likewise for the Bible.” They agreed to my suggestion. When they visited me the next time, Mrs Elsworthy started the proceedings by apologizing that she was unable to pray to God in the previous week the way she had promised, because as soon as she made the intention to do so, the Holy Spirit reminded her of the fact that praying for the purpose of seeking guidance from outside the Bible was against the commitment she had already made to God.

I thought to myself that such a suggestion was unlikely to be from God and His angel. My God tells me that if somebody claims to have been gifted with a better truth than the one I have, I should be open to listening to it. The Qur’an tells the prophet, alaihissalaam: “Ask them: (If your claim to truth is correct) then bring forth a book that is straighter than these two books (Torah and Qur’an), I will be the first to follow it.” (Qur’an; 28:49)

The thought of the Elsworthys continues to bother me when I think of their sincerity towards their faith on the one hand and their complete confidence that nothing other than the Bible could be a source of guidance from God on the other. If I should consider them misguided despite their sincerity, why then should I consider many Muslims guided who are equally convinced that their religious point of view is correct and that any view different from theirs is sheer misguidance? We come across many Muslims who are initially inclined to be convinced that some other point of view is correct but, like Elseworthys were cautioned by the Holy Spirit, they are warned by their religious leaders not to seek guidance from any source other than the one they are already attached to. In fact, I must admit that I came across devout Christians like Elsworthys as more tolerant than many devout Muslims who would react far more aggressively at the mention before them of religious views different from theirs.

The truth of the matter is that Allah Almighty is not biased against, and unfair towards, any human being. He would judge all humans according to the merit of their performance. He has made a firm vow that He has created this world, and is running it, on the principle of justice (Qur’an; 3:18). Like Muslims of today, some of the Jews and Christians of the earlier days (and of the contemporary times too) believed that their judgment in the Almighty’s court of justice would not be based on merit. The Qur’an clarified this misconception by saying this: “It is neither (O Believers) your wishful thinking nor that of the people of the Book that would matter: Whoever would do evil shall be made to account for it and he would not find (in the hereafter) anyone, besides Allah, neither a friend nor a helper.”  (Qur’an; 4:123) To sum it up, at the end of the day, it is not who you are or by what religious group you are identified with, but your performance and attitude which is going to count for your final judgment at the time of accountability before the Almighty. The Qur’an says: “Indeed those who believe (in Islam), and the those who became Jews, and Christians, and the Sabeans, whoever (from amongst them), believed in Allah and the Day of Judgment and did good deeds, for them would be a reward before their Lord: they shall neither have any fear (of the future in the paradise) nor shall they have any grief (of the past).” (Qur’an; 2:62) Of course, all good people, when they are presented with the teachings of the genuine messengers of God, are inclined to accept them. However, no good individual can be blamed for not accepting a message from God if it was not presented properly by believers in a way that the individual was convinced that it was from His Creator.

Faith is the confidence of an individual in the fact that there is a certain reality out there which cannot be seen. That reality could be a living existence, the definiteness of a principle, or an understanding that a certain individual is gifted with supernatural powers etc.

Islamic teachings require an individual to have faith in those teachings. How does an individual acquire faith in the right manner according to Islam? Although the answer to it could be many, for the sake of brevity and clarity, I am dividing the possible answers into two categories: i) Faith is acquired and strengthened through constant exposure to Islamic teachings which process is supported by reassuring experiences; ii) it is acquired and strengthened through critical reflection on the accepted teachings which process is supported by reassuring experiences. 

In the case of faith of the first category, the faithful is given to hear Islamic message from his elders and what is generally made available to him by the society, he gets the opportunity to listen to just about the same views over and over again, and he experiences in his life things that further substantiate the veracity of the views that were given to him by his society and elders. In many cases, people acquiring faith through this process are influenced by some individuals who add to their confidence in faith by the influence they exert through their charismatic personalities. Thus a combination of these factors enables an individual to acquire and strengthen his faith: family’s and environment’s influence, confidence-building through listening to just the same views over and over again, influence of charismatic personalities who are idealized, and reassuring experiences in the form of spectacular coincidences that cannot be explained save through the confident answers provided by faith.

The accompanying feeling one gets through acquiring such faith is that of satisfaction and solace as also of confidence in the ultimate success for the individual through what he is doing. However, as a consequence of this feeling, and to safeguard it from all threatening influences, it is felt important that no critical examination of the articles of faith and the accompanying ideas be done. Thus all thoughts challenging the faith are considered devilish, the questioning mind is deemed misleading, and the people possessing religious ideas at odds with one’s own are considered worthy of condemnation. The outward reaction of the individual towards dissenting views can be anywhere from aggressively violent to a seemingly mellowed, tolerant one, depending upon the individual’s own personality and his group’s policy in responding to such situations. However, the basic inner motivation for the response always stems from the same source: the strong feeling that dissenting views are a threat to one’s faith and therefore are condemnable. 

Viewed from this angle, adherents to almost all faiths, howsoever diverse they may be in comparison to each other, have a similar approach to acquiring faith, exceptions, of course, are always there to prove the rule. A large number of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and people belonging to other faiths follow the same pattern. Indeed the process is no different in the case non-traditional or anti-religious faiths like atheism etc.

The other way of acquiring faith, which I believe is the truly Islamic one, is the way in which an individual is gifted with faith by the Almighty through a journey which begins with a sincere curiosity to know the truth and that curiosity takes him through the realms of both sincere intellectual reflection and moral and spiritual uprightness to the right path, a path which may not always lead an individual to the absolute truth in this world. It is a journey of a movement from relative darkness of ignorance towards relative light of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. The process involves constant, honest probing. No amount of dissent is ever resented in this path. Dissenting views are not just tolerated. They are respected. The reason is that the individual knows, or assumes, that like him all others are going through the same journey of intellectual and spiritual improvement. It is simply not allowed to an individual to question the sincerity of intentions of anyone else. Reassuring experiences in practical life are an important factor in this journey of faith as well. However, all such experiences are subservient to the intellectual scrutiny undertaken by the individual’s mind. The individual traveling on this path is acutely aware of his limitations. He therefore can never afford to look down upon other fellow humans as inferior or condemnable. He would certainly have clear ideas of what is right and what is wrong. However, those ideas would be accompanied by the awareness expressed here in the words of Imam Shafi’i: “I am convinced about the veracity of my opinions, but I do consider it likely that they may turn out to be incorrect. Likewise, I am convinced about the incorrectness of the views different from mine, but I do concede the possibility that they may turn out to be correct.”

A faith acquired through this process would always be open to debate, because the one adhering to faith through this process would be confident that what he has acquired is either the truth or has been accepted with the assumption that it is one. In case that assumption turns out to be incorrect, the individual would be even better off by accepting a better version of truth. In a debate of dissenting views, he would therefore always be in a win-win situation. His approach would be to politely insist that his understanding is the ultimate version of truth, and in case it is not, he would demand to be shown a better version of it so that he too may benefit from it.

A Muslim who acquires his faith through this second approach is always respectful to people belonging to all other faiths, whether they are the ones who belong to sects different from his own within Muslims or whether they are non-Muslims. He would always look forward to meet people belonging to other faiths to let them know what he thinks is the right path leading to God. While he would do so, he would continue to remain open to ideas coming from the other side. It is this openness of attitude which would enable him to grow in confidence, and faith, in his point of view, because he knows that despite the fact that he has allowed his faith to be challenged, he has always found those challenges wanting in substance.

This approach is thus radically different from the first one where a faith once acquired is jealously safeguarded from external threats through emotional attachment to it. Thus the first approach follows the pattern of constant brainwashing through listening to the same emotional messages over and over again given by people who have already been selected by the faithful as his spiritual leaders. The individual belonging to the second approach acquires and strengthens his faith through a regular process of critical examination of his views through an open-minded exposure to all views different from his.

The following verses of the Qur’an show that God Almighty, the author of it, wants His believers to follow the second approach: “Allah becomes the protecting friend of those who (want to) believe; He brings them out of the darkness of ignorance towards the light of faith.” (Qur’an: 2: 257) “Ask them, (if they claim that they are on the right track): Bring forth a book which is straighter than these two books (i.e. Torah and Qur’an), I (i.e. the prophet) will follow it (in that case), if they are really truthful. However, if they don’t respond to your demand, then be sure that they are after their vain desires.” (Qur’an: 28: 49-50) “Not all these people are alike. From amongst the people of the book are those who stand in the night time, reciting the verses of God while prostrating. They truly believe in God and the Day of Judgment, they encourage goodness, admonish evil and take lead in doing acts of virtue; such are the righteous people. Whatever good they will do is not going to go waste. And God is aware of the pious people” (Qur’an: 3:113-5) “Indeed those who believe (Muslims) and those who are Jews, and the Nasaraa (the rightly guided Christians), and the Sabeans, whoever (amongst them) believes in Allah, the Day of Judgment, and does good deeds, for him there is going to be reward before his Lord: They will neither have any fear of the future nor sorrow of the past.” (Qur’an: 2:62) “How do they (these Jews) make you (O prophet) their judge when they already have the Torah with them which contains the verdict of God, and even then they turn away from it? (When they come to you for judgment despite that) they are indeed not believers.” (Qur’an: 5:43)  “Indeed the worst of the beasts in the eyes of God are those (people) who are deaf and dumb, in that they don’t use their intellect.” (Qur’an: 8:22) “And when it is said to them ‘Follow what God has revealed’, they respond by saying: ‘We shall only follow what we have seen our elders doing’. Is it that they would still (follow them) if their elders neither knew anything nor were they rightly guided?”  (Qur’an: 2:170) “And the entrants into the Hell would say: Had we been listening or understanding (properly what we were told), we wouldn’t have been amongst the dwellers of Hell. They will admit their faults. Curse would be on the dwellers of Hell.” (Qur’an: 67:10-11)

In order to understand the true message of Islam, we need to ensure that the Qur’anic text is interpreted properly.[1] The Arabic text of the Qur’an has to be given meanings by the reader to find out what God Almighty, its author, has stated. It is the correct interpretation of the book of God that would bring forth the true understanding of the message of Islam. In order for us to be able to do that, we should know what different possibilities of interpretation are available and which one of those possibilities is worthy of being pursued for achieving the purpose of that understanding. Quite often, the decision regarding the method of interpretation would decide conclusively the kind of meanings that are likely to emerge from it.

Although numerous ways have been adopted to interpret the Qur’anic text over the last fourteen centuries, it could be said, in retrospect, that they can be broadly divided into three categories: the Traditionalist approach, the Modernist approach, and the Originalist approach. The Traditionalist approach to interpreting the Qur’an is, strictly speaking, not just one narrow way of understanding the Qur’anic text. However, the Muslim Traditionalists of the contemporary times have adopted a stance that views the enormous body of diverse literature on interpretation made available in the first twelve centuries of the Muslim history, or at least the more popular part of it, as one category of approach to interpretation. The contemporary Traditionalists have come to believe that a valid interpretation of Qur’anic text can only be the one that has already been done by at least some of the earlier scholars. No new interpretation of the Qur’an can be acceptable if it doesn’t enjoy the support of another interpretation that has already been done in the past. In other words, according to the Traditionalists, if an interpretation is to be taken seriously, it must first prove that it also occurred to someone else in the past, or else it is not worthy of even being seriously considered as valid.

This obsession with the need to confirm the validity of an opinion from what the earlier Muslim scholars said leads traditionalists to invoke ijma‘ to support their view. Ijma‘ is claimed to be the consensus of Muslim scholars on a certain religious opinion. Although it is impossible to prove ijma‘ on even a single religious view, Traditionalist Muslim scholars, because of their peculiar mindset, have used this expression as an effective tool for proving their point whenever they have felt the need to prove the correctness (or conversely, the incorrectness) of an opinion, especially when proving it through more direct arguments seemed difficult.

The Modernist approach insists that an acceptable interpretation of the Qur’anic text must be relevant to the contemporary times. Thus, according to them, if an understanding of a Qur’anic text makes sense in the context of the modern academic research in the physical and social sciences, it would be considered valid. In case the intellectual of the contemporary times is not at ease with a certain interpretation because of the peculiar way of thinking he has become accustomed to, the interpretation of the Qur’an in question would not be considered serious enough to be valid.

The Originalist approach[2], on the other hand, considers the Qur’anic text as the ultimate criterion for deciding whether an interpretation is valid or not. Although it deems it desirable to consider whether a certain interpretation is supported by the earlier scholars, such support is not regarded to be crucial for accepting the validity of it. Likewise, although it deems it to be a useful consideration that an interpretation should make sense to the modern man, that consideration too is not decisive. The only indispensable principle for an interpretation to be valid is that it should be strictly loyal to the Qur’anic text. To a Originalist, it would make no difference whether no one has come up with a peculiar interpretation of the Qur’an before it is presented so long as it is supported by valid arguments showing its compatibility with the Qur’anic text. It also makes no difference whether or not the interpretation appeals to the modern mind or not, if that interpretation is bringing to light the Qur’anic text in a way that the reader gets a strong feeling that God’s word hasn’t been tampered with and that the end result of the exercise is indeed the true meaning of God’s words.[3]

To sum it up, if you are a Traditionalist Muslim (scholar or otherwise) your greatest concern while deriving opinion from a given Qur’anic text would be to know what earlier Muslim scholars have said. Having seen a few names of well-known scholars of the past on the side of an opinion, you will be satisfied that the interpretation has a right to claim that it is giving reliable meanings to the message of God. On the contrary, if you are a Modernist, you will need to first know what the currently popular intellectual understanding on the issue at hand is. In case the religious opinion under discussion concurs with it, it would be sanctioned as valid. However, if you are an Originalist, your interest in knowing the Traditionalist and Modernist views on the subject of enquiry would be secondary. Your real interest would be in ensuring that the meanings you are deriving are genuinely emerging from the words of the text, whatever the consequential outcome of the exercise. Hamiduddin Farahi (d. 1930), Amin Ahsen Islahi (d. 1997) and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (b. 1951) are the most prominent scholars belonging to this category.

There are two things in human personality: intellect and emotions. The correct sequence of using them is in the same order. If you are intellectually convinced that a certain view is correct, it’s only then that you should employ your emotions to act upon your views and to disseminate them. If you will reverse the sequence, you will be guilty of ignoring the truth, which is a serious crime. The suggestion is difficult to practice. But it is vital if you want to live and die as a truth seeking person. This is one of the many lessons of wisdom I have learned from Ghamidi Sahib.

When you hear someone expressing a view different from yours, it is binding on you that you empty your mind and listen to what the other person is saying or else you will not be listening to him. When you have certain favourite scholars, you can always be emotionally biased in favour of them and be against those others who disagree with them. The consequences of being emotionally charged in an intellectual debate are extremely damaging. You can deprive yourself of the knowledge of the right things by being emotional at the wrong time. It was mistimed emotionalism that caused kuffar to deny the truth when it was presented to them. It was the correct combination of intellect and emotions that caused the companions of the prophet, alaihissalaam, to be what they turned out to be.

When religious emotions are high, people can go to the extent of killing fellow human beings in the name of God. Making false claims knowingly to defend one’s own religious views is another manifestation of such an attitude.

As somebody who has been teaching for the last twenty-two years, I want to share this recurring experience with you: I have never lost my temper on being asked a question by a student, howsoever rude the manner it was done, if I was comfortable with answering it. I have always been extremely upset on being asked a difficult question, even though put across politely, if I knew that I couldn’t answer it. This latter tendency has thankfully disappeared, at least partly, when I started applying the ‘technique’ of admitting to the one questioning that the query was valid and I didn’t know the answer as yet. I think what I experienced was a human weakness and what I did later to counter its ill effect on me was the only solution to problem.

In religious matters, if you will place your emotions before your intellect, you may find yourself categorized as a biased criminal in the eyes of God. In case you correct the sequence, you will progress leaps and bounds in religious awareness. Your success in the hereafter would ensue as a natural consequence of it.