As much we find our Islam great, as much we find weakness in ourselves to express it. The principles and sciences of Islam are great, but the application of Islam in our Islamic societies are inconsistent with the greatness of this Islam.
The difference between us and our righteous predecessors is great. Today, we have books, volumes and idioms that they did not have. We have also great accumulated scientific treasure.
They read the Holy Book of the Exalted Allah, and listened to the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH), but the difference between us and them is that they reacted with this great Islam wholeheartedly, with their selves, with their souls, with their hearts, and with their minds, while we do not. They were serious in their reaction with this great Islam, but we make our Islam outstanding and loved only in speech. When we are in the field of application, we find nothing that expresses the greatness of this Islam.
Islam established a society, and called to knowledge and work, and to a human strong solidified structure, but today we are living diseases that have no relationship with Islam. This state is the result of our reactive remoteness from Islam. Consequently, we suffer from diseases that have increased day by day because we do not change the notion into practical reality.
Let us review briefly some general, not specific, examples of these diseases:
Islam calls us to knowledge. Do we really react with this call in our Islamic societies genuiely?
Today, we are the captives of certain systems exported from the others that we consider sacred limits, whereas Islam calls to knowledge without restricting the age of the student. But in our export of these systems we tie ourselves to what is called the age of learning. Western developed countries released themselves from such complexes, but we haven't yet been liberated from them. In the above mentioned countries, the seeker of knowledge can get knowledge, whether he is young or old, whereas we are still the captives of the restricting age.
Originally, making learning open to everybody is consistent with the call of our Islam, but in the Islamic societies of today, we undergo inconsistency with this call. In the Western countries, the seeker of knowledge can get the required knowledge in a short time. A student can get the Ph.D. degree when he is in his twenties, because knowledge is open to everybody regardless of his age. This reminds us of Ash Shafi'i (ABPWH) who was a dexterous knowledgeable student when he was eighteen.
Certainly, Islam calls to an open learning, but we restrict it.
For example, most of our youth suffer from the complex of the General Certificate that requires the student to be a memorizing container. In this case, the student is not trained to deal with applicable knowledge. He is required to be a mere memorizer. His efforts and his behavior that are reactive with knowledge at the time of his learning are disregarded. Learning is restricted to a short limited time, and with a system that is inconsistent with the ability of the student that enables him to be free or open to get the information.
Nowadays, we suffer from the difficulties of getting the General Certificate because of our standpoint to it. Moreover, when the student gets this certificate, he is confronted with great barriers that hinder his way to enter the university. Hence, studying at university has become a difficult dream to attain.
If we move to private universities, we find that the developed universities demand expensive fees that the poor cannot afford. So private universities become the privilege of the rich only. Accordingly, there is no social integration that helps the clever poor student to complete his study.
In the full sense of the word, there is a crisis on the scientific level. We restrict learning by age, and put obstacles and stipulations that make the student (young or old) live in a state of frustration.
Moreover, the number of students in cosmic sciences is inconsistent with that of literary studies. We make the door wide-open before literary learning so that we lean the knowledge of speech, but we make it so narrow for the cosmic sciences. Moreover, we close the door before applicable research that has become restricted to the stage of after graduation. This procedure does not exist in the non-Islamic countries. There, the student begins to relate theoretical information with applicable sciences since he is in the elementary school.
If we move from the cosmic scientific environment to the scientific religious environment, we feel frustrated and shocked because of the many odd matters we find:
How many the superstitions are that spread from the podiums of the religious knowledge! They do not represent Islam, nor are they derived originally from Islam.
How many the Israeli tales are mentioned in the books of exegesis, and considered as examples from Islam!
How many the preachers are who spread fabricated or false Hadith, or the Hadith that is so weak that has become disregarded!!
Let us move from the field of learning to that of work. Islam calls us to work and to be in continuous active movement. If we study the economy of Islam, we find that it never neglects any element of production. Islam takes into consideration the elements of the land, money, as well as the working hand. It makes all these elements move in a serious system that builds up a renaissance and civilization.
Sorrowfully enough, in the societies that are called Islamic, we move today towards great class discrepancy. Poverty has increased, and there is a layer in society that is going into the precipice because of destitution; another layer gets wealth without great effort. Consequently, there is great class discrepancy that begins to appear in our societies, a phenomenon that does not represent Islam, nor is it consistent with it, and this is one of the recent pernicious fatal diseases we are living in nowadays. If we reacted with Islam, we would be cured from these diseases, but sorrowfully enough, we do not do that. We rather react with the "ego".
So is the case with occupational professional performance that has been separated from science. In developed countries, there are colleges specialized in teaching professions and occupations, and there are institutes as well that train students and relate science with occupation. But in our societies, the field of occupation is remote from science. Thus, there is confusion, and there is dependence on personal experience and experiment.
This is inconsistent with what Islam presents concerning calling to dexterity.
The Prophet (PBUH) saw a youth flaying a ewe unskillfully. He said to him: "Step aside". Then he taught him how to flay a ewe with his own honored hands. He inserted his hand between the skin of the ewe and its meat, then he said: "This is how you flay it".
The Prophet (PBUH) gave the youth a practical applied lesson. It was not a mere theoretical lesson away from application. It was a lesson in which there was reaction with the information to a degree that the teacher made the student witness the application of this information.
What we are living in today is inconsistent with what Islam calls to.
How far we are from the call of Islam that says: "Whoever brings to life a wasteland land, it will become his"!
Islam motivates all people to work so that man may employ his human effort, and invest the land of Allah. The Prophet (PBUH) said: "The land belongs to Allah".
So is the case with wealth that man is responsible for to Allah. The wealth man owns is not given to him in vain. He will be responsible for it on the Day of Judgment before Allah.
This is one of the examples Islam presents in the Mission, but we are very far from this level of practical application.
The instructions of Islam are directed to a clean, coherent society. Is the present society on the same level of the society in the past, or we see deviations that are very remote from the meaning of cleanliness and we live a social disintegration?
The neighbor is unlike that of the past, nor is the relative. Today, we see very little of the human relationships that were applied by our righteous ancestors and our forefathers who applied the principles that Islam calls to.
Let us move to another example in the field of proselytizing that is supposed to be a typical environment. If there is a defect on the cosmic scientific level, on the occupational practical, on the economic level, and on the social level…, it is presumed that the environment of proselytizing be typical because it is the nearest to the theoretical Islamic text. But, what we see in the field of proselytizing is enlisted in the fatal diseases that we face.
We see discrepancy, not disagreement. There is intellectual discrepancy that leads to enmity and dissension. There is great difference between the decency of disagreement of our ancestors, and the struggle we are living in now.
Moreover, there is a feeling of frustration on the level of those who work in the field of proselytizing. If you consider the contents of their words, you find that they lack the soul of hope. The proselytizer should keep hope in his heart however great the disease is, and however hard the circumstance is. He has to adhere to the Exalted Allah's words: "Despair not" (Az Zumur, 53). He has to preserve the soul of hope, but this soul has become weak. If you ask proselytizers or those who mix with them, you find that frustration has become their motto on the level of their words or their behavioral activity.
Our Imam, the Messenger of Allah said: "If they put the sun on my right and the moon on my left so that I give up this matter, I will not do that till Allah makes it victorious or I die in its cause".
Today, we are living the rarity of truthfulness and sincerity that is the secret of proselytizing, and the element that makes calling to Allah move forward.
Calling to Allah is not mere words or relating stories and tales. It is rather a state of truthfulness in which man turns to Allah. In this state the proselytizer need not be pushed to do his duty, for he has the light of truthfulness and sincerity that makes him a kindled torch. His support is the result of his remembering Allah and the righteous companionship, a fact that has become faint and extinguished.
Consequently, we are in need for reconsideration of the matter. In this brief speech, I have referred to our undergoing fatal diseases, not because I want to spread the spirit of despair and frustration, but so that we may ask ourselves the following question:
How can we make our return to Islam real, true and interactive?
How can we read the Qur'an so that it becomes within our souls while we are expecting Ramadan soon?
Are we looking forward to Ramadan to read the Qur'an and recite it repeatedly only by our tongues, or we prepare ourselves to react with it in behavior so that it becomes present in our hearts and souls?
Allahum…, guide us to You favorably, and make us from those who listen to wisdom and follow the best of it.
I say my words and ask Allah's forgiveness.