Dr. Khalid Zaheer’s Blog

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.

A few days back, one of my colleagues delivered a lecture in an international conference in which he presented the understanding of our teacher, Mr Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, on Jihad and how Muslims are expected to behave with non-Muslims. He informed the audience that Jihad, according to Mr. Ghamidi was binding on Muslims only for them to eliminate oppression and religious persecution in the contemporary world. He also clarified that this view contends that the Jihad launched by the prophet, alaihissalaam, was specific to the times of the rusul (messengers) who came to ensure that their message dominates during their times and that their adversaries (kuffar) are annihilated. Such aggressive jihad was specific to their era alone and is no more applicable to our times, nor is the requirement that all non-Muslims should be considered enemies of Muslims and therefore should not be taken as friends.

At the end of the lecture, a Jordanian Muslim participant came complaining to the speaker that he had done a disservice to Islam. Explaining what he meant, he mentioned that what was described in the lecture was the Islam he had learnt about and believed in right from his childhood. That, he said, was the only true Islam. He lamented the fact that the extremist Muslims have hijacked the true Islam. One should present Islam, he said, not as a point of view presented by this scholar or that. One should state it confidently as the only true Islam.

My feeling is that what this Jordanian friend mentioned may not be the truth in the academic world of Muslim scholars. However, many common, intelligent Muslims do not resort to the world of Islamic scholars to learn what the correct interpretation of Islam is. The Islam learnt and believed in through the simple, objective reading of the Qur’an is very close to the real understanding of God’s word. What religious scholars say is quite often the reflection of the point of view they have already decided to follow, in many cases because of the madrassah (religious seminary) they were taught in. Since academic debate and critical examination of views in the light of Qur’an, sunnah, hadith, and common sense is lacking in our academic world and most scholars today sheepishly following what the earlier scholars have said, what people receive through these scholars is quite often contrary to what the true understanding of Islam is.

Ghamidi Sahib recently met a traditional scholar who told him that what he was presenting to the people was a new Islam. Mr Ghamidi responded to him by telling him that what he was presenting was the original, oldest Islam. He told the scholar that what he and his likes were presenting were versions of Islam that were three to seven hundred years’ old. “We are attempting to jump back to the times of the prophet to bring out what the original message of Islam is” he said. That Islam has to be based on the teachings of the Qur’an, sunnah, and hadith, all of which ought to be understood through the sincere and unrestricted use of intellect and not through the opinions of the scholars of the later days, which is what most of the Muslim scholars of today are doing.

Are God’s expectations from humans easy to follow? If they are, should we not let others to do what they are doing and not get involved in unnecessarily disturbing them by declaring what they are doing as un-Islamic? Also, should we not let non-Muslims remain what they are? Isn’t it an unnatural expectation from them to convert to a completely new religion? If we are expecting non-Muslims to convert, why shouldn’t Muslims be expected to conform to the truth within their own faith? Is changing from one religious view to another not difficult? If it is, how then is Islam easy to follow? Why can’t we follow the Keep-It-Simple rule in Islam?

God Almighty wants us to make things easy for us. This is what He has to say: “Allah wants to make things easy for you; He doesn’t want to make things difficult for you.” The prophet, alaihissalaam, strongly urged his followers to “make things easy and don’t make them difficult. Give them good news and don’t scare them away.” However, easiness in religion has to be done in the way the Almighty wants us to do it. It should not be mistaken for casualness. Here are the outlines of the easy way, as I understand, the Almighty wants us to follow:

i) One has always got to remain open to truth. It is only in that way that one acquires true faith. Laziness in matters of truth is an offence, though hopefully a minor one, but unjustifiable stubbornness in the matter of truth is an inexcusable crime. By the latter what I mean is that you refuse to take interest in the truth simply because you are already attached to some other ideology and you don’t want a new one to disturb you. In the process of comparing the contestants for truth, if I am confused, the Almighty would accept it as a valid excuse, insha’Allah. Ignoring the truth, however, can never be a part of the otherwise desirable Keep-It-simple formula.

ii) There is no Muslim vs Non-Muslim divide in the eyes of God. No one is at a disadvantage in this trial of life. Muslims are expected to be open to truth quite as much as the non-Muslims are. Those non-Muslims who know that the message of Islam is from God and are still spurning it out of arrogance are criminal Kafir (the condemned disbelievers) in the eyes of their Creator. Likewise is the case of Muslims who are guilty of a similar crime in any aspect of the truth that comes from God. So long as a person is confused about whether a certain message is from God or not, he is not guilty. The ultimate decision on all such matters will be taken, thankfully, by the All-Knowing God Himself.

iii) In matters of practice, the rule is that you are expected to follow the truth as much as is possible. God has promised that His expectations are simple. However, we need to understand them in order to follow them. That strategy would ensure that things are kept simple.

iv) In matters of new findings on religion, science, or any other discipline, we again need to remain open. Of course, not everyone is interested in everything, but if someone tells me that what I am doing right now is not acceptable to my God, then I cannot take it lightly. Even in non-religious matters, once we jump into a discussion, we have to behave like truth-seeking believers and not like truth-spurning Kafirs.

v) God Almighty has promised that He is not going to make any soul accountable for anything more than what his potential is. He has also promised that He will forgive people who repent after realizing that what they were doing was wrong and that He will only screw those idiots who were insisting on a wrong, criminal attitude knowingly. What better Keep-It-Simple approach could there be than this?

vi) One of the things I am expected to do as a good believer is to get involved in the process of correcting those others who are closely linked with me. Likewise, I should allow others to influence me positively whenever I am going wrong. Such an attitude of mutual correction is a demonstration of the believers’ concern for the welfare of each other. In no way does it demonstrate an unnecessary interference in the affairs of others. In fact, not doing so would be indicative of a lack of interest in the spiritual and moral welfare of the other person.

Are God’s expectations from humans easy to follow? If they are, should we not let others to do what they are doing and not get involved in unnecessarily disturbing them by declaring what they are doing as un-Islamic? Also, should we not let non-Muslims remain what they are? Isn’t it an unnatural expectation from them to convert to a completely new religion? If we are expecting non-Muslims to convert, why shouldn’t Muslims be expected to conform to the truth within their own faith? Is changing from one religious view to another not difficult? If it is, how then is Islam easy to follow? Why can’t we follow the Keep-It-Simple rule in Islam?

God Almighty wants us to make things easy for us. This is what He has to say: “Allah wants to make things easy for you; He doesn’t want to make things difficult for you.” The prophet, alaihissalaam, strongly urged his followers to “make things easy and don’t make them difficult. Give them good news and don’t scare them away.” However, easiness in religion has to be done in the way the Almighty wants us to do it. It should not be mistaken for casualness. Here are the outlines of the easy way, as I understand, the Almighty wants us to follow:

i) One has always got to remain open to truth. It is only in that way that one acquires true faith. Laziness in matters of truth is an offence, though hopefully a minor one, but unjustifiable stubbornness in the matter of truth is an inexcusable crime. By the latter what I mean is that you refuse to take interest in the truth simply because you are already attached to some other ideology and you don’t want a new one to disturb you. In the process of comparing the contestants for truth, if I am confused, the Almighty would accept it as a valid excuse, insha’Allah. Ignoring the truth, however, can never be a part of the otherwise desirable Keep-It-simple formula.

ii) There is no Muslim vs Non-Muslim divide in the eyes of God. No one is at a disadvantage in this trial of life. Muslims are expected to be open to truth quite as much as the non-Muslims are. Those non-Muslims who know that the message of Islam is from God and are still spurning it out of arrogance are criminal Kafir (the condemned disbelievers) in the eyes of their Creator. Likewise is the case of Muslims who are guilty of a similar crime in any aspect of the truth that comes from God. So long as a person is confused about whether a certain message is from God or not, he is not guilty. The ultimate decision on all such matters will be taken, thankfully, by the All-Knowing God Himself.

iii) In matters of practice, the rule is that you are expected to follow the truth as much as is possible. God has promised that His expectations are simple. However, we need to understand them in order to follow them. That strategy would ensure that things are kept simple.

iv) In matters of new findings on religion, science, or any other discipline, we again need to remain open. Of course, not everyone is interested in everything, but if someone tells me that what I am doing right now is not acceptable to my God, then I cannot take it lightly. Even in non-religious matters, once we jump into a discussion, we have to behave like truth-seeking believers and not like truth-spurning Kafirs.

v) God Almighty has promised that He is not going to make any soul accountable for anything more than what his potential is. He has also promised that He will forgive people who repent after realizing that what they were doing was wrong and that He will only screw those idiots who were insisting on a wrong, criminal attitude knowingly. What better Keep-It-Simple approach could there be than this?

vi) One of the things I am expected to do as a good believer is to get involved in the process of correcting those others who are closely linked with me. Likewise, I should allow others to influence me positively whenever I am going wrong. Such an attitude of mutual correction is a demonstration of the believers’ concern for the welfare of each other. In no way does it demonstrate an unnecessary interference in the affairs of others. In fact, not doing so would be indicative of a lack of interest in the spiritual and moral welfare of the other person.

There is a common view amongst Muslims according to which the basis of religious understanding and practice is confidence in individuals. What it means is that if you have confidence in your scholar, you follow him. Even those who think that they are following no scholar, they too, according to this view, are actually following someone. Consider this typical line of argument coming from such a school of thought:

“If you say that one should not say sunnah prayers while the jama’at of fard prayers is going on, you are holding that opinion on the basis of a hadith on whose authority you are confident. Essentially, you accept the research of Imam Bukhari or Imam Muslim who declared the hadith in question as authentic and those who were involved in transmitting it as reliable people. We don’t act upon this hadith and instead believe that saying sunnah prayers, especially that of fajar prayer, while fard jama’at is going on is religiously fine because we have confidence in the religious knowledge and piety of our scholars who have given the latter ruling and who, we believe, were more reliable because of their better knowledge and piety.”

We all begin our journey of learning religion, as indeed all other disciplines, on the confidence of what is already understood, believed, and practiced in our society by our elders. However, there comes a time when we realize, at least on some occasions, that some of the things we had learnt weren’t quite correct. It is in such cases that we must change our earlier opinions. Thus, the problem is not with following the elders or having confidence in what they have understood; we have no choice but to do so at an early stage of our learning curve. The real problem arises when we are faced with a view that is superior to the one that we have learnt from our elders or espoused scholars. It is on such occasions that we must change our earlier opinion or else we will be guilty of ignoring the truth, which, of course, is a big crime.

For example, take this case of saying sunnah when the jama’at of fard prayers is going on. Because I know that it is mentioned in authentic books of hadith that the prophet, alaihissalaam, had clearly declared that there was no other prayer allowed in the masjid when the jama’at of fard is going on, I will not pray sunnah, whether of fajar or any other prayer, at the time when jama’at of fard prayers is going on and would also use my influence to convince others that they too should follow the prophet, alaihissalaam, whose religious guidance is clearly available with us in this matter. I will do so because I know that it is religiously necessary to follow the messenger of God in religious matters. Indeed my confidence that this report is reliable is based on the authority and competence of Imam Muslim in whose book I have read it. However, I am still not blindly following him; instead, I am following the prophet, because I am determined that as soon as I will be given an argument claiming that the reported statement of the prophet has reached us through a suspect source, I will set aside my confidence in the Imam and try to find out, as best as I can, whether the criticism on the reported hadith was convincing or not. Why would I continue to follow a hadith if I get a strong indication that it was not a reliable one and the alleged quotation may not have originated from the prophet? And why would I not follow the hadith if I don’t have convincing evidence that it is unreliable? My concern would be to know the truth and not to follow this person or that mindlessly.

I therefore believe that the point raised by this line of argumentation is not convincing. Having confidence in a person’s ability for one to learn from him is one thing and having such blind confidence in him that one doesn’t allow oneself the opportunity to look at any other possible understanding is quite another. While the former is natural and everyone is bound to follow it at the early stage of one’s learning career, the latter approach is misleading. In case if an individual blindly follows someone because he realizes that comparing religious arguments of different scholars confuses him, he will have to prove to the Almighty that he was actually suffering from that disability. However, in case an individual has adopted it as a regular strategy on religious matters without any justification, it is obvious then that his religious practice is not inspired by the spirit of knowing the truth. Instead, he is guilty of being unwilling to know the truth and of being inflexible and arrogant. The prophet, alaihissalam, is reported to have said that the arrogant is not going to enter the paradise. While clarifying arrogance, he said that two things constitute it: “Looking down upon other humans as inferiors and refusing to acknowledge the truth.” As believers, we are expected to be fair in all situations. The Qur’an urges us to be fair thus: “O you who have attained faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding justice, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents or kinsfolk.” (4:135) How can we be fair in forming a religious opinion if we are not even listening to the religious points of view other than those we think belong to our religious group? May Allah Almighty save us all from arrogance, and may He enable us to see the truth as truth and give us the ability to follow it and may he enable us to see the untruth as untruth and give us the ability to stay away from it. Amen.

We have been told time and again by religious people that it is binding on all Muslims to follow ijma‘ (the consensus of opinion of religious scholars on a certain issue). On the contrary we (i.e. me and the school of thought I am representing) believe that ijma‘ has no role to play in determining the acceptability of an opinion on religious matters.

Our position on the issue is that what the majority of scholars say about the authenticity of ijma‘ has no religious basis whatsoever. Our religion is based on the teachings of the Qur’an and sunnah which have both been transmitted to us through undisputable sources. There has never been an ijma‘, not even on a single matter of religious understanding, except on the fact that Qur’an and sunnah have been transmitted authentically.

How can one prove that all Muslim scholars of the ummah agreed on a certain matter when we don’t even have a reliable research that tells us the correct number of scholars the Muslim ummah has produced? Who is going to define what a scholar is? Even if we were able to define a scholar who would tell whether they were five thousand in all, ten thousand, one million, or what?

Has the process of their production stopped or is still going on? If scholars of the present times don’t count, when then did the genuine Islamic scholarship end? Who would decide that the process has stopped or is still continuing? Even if by some miracle a remarkable research answering all these questions convincingly is done, how would one go about proving that all those thousands or millions of scholars agreed on a certain issue? Has anyone the ability to go back through the time tunnel to meet each one of them to know their opinion? We normally learn about the views of people of the past through what they have written themselves or through what others write about their views. However, most of them may never have written anything on the issue nor anyone else may have written about their views.

What if there is a tiny minority of scholars that disagrees? Going by the existing trend of narrow-minded religious people, if there is a minority opinion, it should be rejected because it goes against ijma‘. The question is, if there is a minority opinion on a certain issue, how could there be an ijma‘ claimed on it? And if the entire population of scholars agrees on an issue, and nobody can disagree on it, what then is the utility of this concept of ijma‘?

The fact of the matter is that ijma‘ is an unnecessary term that has been coined by some Muslims. It serves no purpose except that it confuses people or helps some conservative Muslims in condemning certain religious views as heretical simply because they find them different from what they have been trained to accept. When some religious people don’t find convincing reasons to satisfy their followers that the religious view competing with theirs is incorrect, they use the tool of ijma‘ to influence the ordinary people to convince them that the other view is incorrect and misleading. The end result of this exercise is that instead of concentrating on the issue from the point of view of the arguments of Qur’an and sunnah, people are emotionally blackmailed into accepting a religious view on the basis of ijma‘. This tendency is misleading and condemnable.

Muslims, whether they are scholars or non-scholars, are expected to follow the truth under all circumstances. The truth about the religion of Islam is contained in the Qur’an and sunnah. Anyone who looks for religious understanding from outside these two sources is being unfair in his pursuit of truth and is biased towards the opinion of scholars he likes. This tendency is clearly against the Qur’anic expectation from believers which says this: “O you who have attained faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding justice, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it goes against your own selves or your parents or kinsfolk.” (4:135) How can we be fair in forming a religious opinion if we are not even listening to the religious points of view other than those we think belong to our religious group? May Allah Almighty enable us to see the truth as truth and give us the ability to follow it and may He enable us to see the untruth as untruth and give us the ability to stay away from it. Amen.

One of my colleagues at my university asked my students to not listen to what my teacher, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, says on religious matters because, he claims, his views are representative of only a tiny minority. Following views on Islam that are not supported by a large number of ulama, according to him, is misleading. Further, there are also comments like this sent to students: “What are you going to do on the Day of Judgment when all scholars of the ummah will be on one side and you along with Mr Ghamidi will be on the other, lonely, side?”

When we are confronted with religious differences, the ultimate criterion to decide which of the views is correct is the Qur’an. This fact is so natural that every unbiased individual would appreciate it. In the absence of the book of God, one could have felt the need to look for other sources; if the book of Allah is with us, resorting to other sources is clearly misleading. The Qur’an itself emphasizes this fact in several of its passages. The Qur’an declares itself to be al-Furqan, the ultimate criterion that would clarify what is right in religious matters from what is wrong (25:1). It declares that its message is al-Mizan, the balance that acts to weigh the value of acceptable elements in religious views from the ones that are not acceptable (42:17). It mentions that from after its revelation till the day of Judgment, it is its verdicts that would serve to be Muhaimin (guardian) over all the previous divine books (5:48). It also clarifies that even the prophet, alaihissalaam, could not do or say anything that went contrary to Qur’anic description (10:15). It, furthermore, insists that God’s purpose behind revealing all His books was to ensure that the books “give the correct verdict to men in (religious) matters where they disagreed.” (2:213)

Given the above facts, all serious-minded, truth-seeking Muslims should look for the correct understanding of the Qur’an, wherever they can get it from. It is the verdict of the Qur’an that would serve to enlighten them to know whether the truth in different matters of religion lies with the majority or minority of scholars. It could be that in some matters one scholar is right and in another, some other may hold the correct view. For the purpose of knowing the correct religious view, one should always continue to look for views of scholars in the light of the arguments they present from the Qur’an.

When the Qur’an makes such clear claims that its teachings are the ultimate source of knowledge, then could it be that those teachings are designed by the Almighty to remain inaccessible to the common man, in a way that he remains dependent on the reputation and quantity of scholars to judge whether a certain religious view is correct or misleading? The entire claim of the Qur’an that it is the most significant source of religious knowledge is attempted to be reduced to nothing by those people who concoct arguments from their own minds to prove that for most of the Muslims the Qur’an is not a book of guidance; instead, it is their scholars who are the only real source of guidance for them.

My religious guide, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, says that the Qur’an is the ultimate source of guidance for all Muslims, whether they are scholars or non-scholars. The former should get guidance from the book of Allah directly. The common Muslims should try as best as they can to find out which one amongst the diverse views of scholars in a certain matter seems to be the closest to the Qur’anic message. He never insists that people should follow his point of view only. Instead, he believes that those scholars who are insisting that common people should follow their views blindly are misleading them.

The Qur’an declares that on the Day of Judgment, the prophet, alaihissalaam, is going to plead against a certain group of people to the Almighty not because they went against the majority opinion of Muslim scholars, but because they ignored the Qur’an: “And the Messenger will say my Lord, my people deserted this Qur’an.” (25:30)

I therefore believe that the statements of my colleague are an attempt to emotionally scare people to not do their own research to find out the truth.

This indeed is a very serious problem. People resort to emotionalism only when they lose on the front of arguments. What would people do on the Day of Judgment if the Almighty would ask them why they didn’t bother to understand and follow His book when it was presented to them? The Qur’an says that on that day all those people who were mislead because they blindly followed their leaders will face serious disappointment: “When those who were followed would disown those who followed them . and their relations will be cut off from them. And those who followed would say, ‘If only we had one more chance to return (to the worldly life) we would disown them as they have disowned us.’” (2:166-7) The prophet, alaihissalaam, is reported to have said “The Qur’an shall serve as an evidence (on the day of Judgment) either in favour of you or against you.”