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BASHIR NUKCHADY argues that Muslims have become powerless because they fail to read the Quran with understanding.
NO Muslim living today will deny that contemporary Muslims are hated, despised, and considered backward. Exceptions apart, this is the case of Muslims whether living as a majority or minority across the globe. It is not that we are poor or uneducated or because we lack political power. There are 58 countries which claim to be ‘Islamic’ and thus qualify for membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference. Yet they are unable to face a tiny country, Israel, to thwart one aggression after another against Muslim countries, or to force countries like Myanmar and China not to persecute their Muslim minorities.
The fact is that wealth at the disposal of millions of Muslim individuals, corporates and states today far exceeds what Muslims ever owned during the past fifteen centuries. There is an army of graduate, post-graduate and doctorate-holder Muslims. Yet, as people and communities, Muslims are not respected.
The only reason I can think of is that we have turned our Islam into rituals – our prayers, our fasts, our Hajj, our Umrah, our Zakaat and Sadaqah have become lifeless rituals. Once outside mosques or on return from Makkah and Madinah, no difference is discerned in our character. Such visits hardly stimulate us to live Islam in our real lives in our homes, offices, workplaces, factories and on the street. We live carefree as if Islam poses no duties and obligations on us and as if there will be no Day of Judgment ever. Our lives hardly differ from those who do not believe in Islam, if not worse.
Turning a vibrant and revolutionary Islam into lifeless rituals is the direct result of our shunning the Quran. Today we read the Quran or listen to it for reward in the Hereafter, not as a source of guidance and inspiration, not as a guide in our daily individual or community lives. Muslims do not go to the Quran for their guidance. Though the Quran claims throughout that it is a guidance and the only guidance. ‘These are revelations of the Quran and a Scripture that makes it plain, a guidance and good news for Believers.’ (Surah An-Naml, 27:1-2)
Most Muslims consider it as a hymnbook to be chanted melodious in Arabic without understanding its meaning. Indeed, the Muslims have developed a whole lot of terminology associated with their obsession for the Arabic original of the Quran: tajwid is the art of chanting the Quran with the right pronunciation, hafith is a respected person who has memorised the whole Quran by heart. Almost all Muslims chant the Quran in a language (Arabic) which they do not understand. Even those who know Arabic prefer to listen to famous reciters of the Quran in order to enjoy the recital, not as a guide and source of inspiration and admonition. Indeed, though the Quran claims to be the only perfect guidance, ironically, it is also probably the only book in the world which is read in a language the reader does not understand!
This is why our noble Prophet (SAW) will complain to Allah (SWT) on the Day of Judgement: ‘O my Lord! Truly my people deserted this Quran.’ (Sura Al Furqan, 25:30)
What a severe indictment of our character. We have deserted the book which taught us how to be Muslims – a community which submits to Allah (SWT) – and a book which affirms that it is the only correct guidance: ‘Indeed, the Quran shows that way which is perfect straight.’ (Surah Al Isra,17:9)
It is this same book which lifted the barefoot illiterate Arabs into guides and masters of the world within decades of its first revelation in 610 CE.
Today we have in our midst people who tell us not to read the Quran translation because, they claim, you will get misguided because without certain ‘sciences’ you cannot understand the Quran! How strange! These ‘sciences’ did not exist in the time of the Prophet (SAW) or the Companions or even during the time of those who succeeded them for the next few centuries. Ordinary Companions of the Prophet (SAW) understood the Quran instantly without these so-called ‘sciences.’ They lived it, propagated it and conquered most of the known world at the time, fired by their faith and understanding of this divine message.
Actually, a True Muslim will judge everything according to the Quran alone: ‘We reveal unto you the Scripture with the truth. That you may judge between mankind by that which God shows you. (Surah An-Nisa,4:105)
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Indeed, anyone who does not judge by the Quran is a disbeliever even if he claims to be a Muslim. This is made clear in Surah Al-Maidah:
- If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) Unbelievers. (5:44)
- And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers. (5:45)
- If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) those who rebel. (5:47)
Unfortunately, people, including the so-called Muslims, judge by criteria other than the Quran. Muslims in the Indo-Pak sub-continent are told today to read and are forced to listen to man-made books which are read out in mosques instead of the Quran.
It is a duty of every Muslim to read and understand the Quran in Arabic, and if he does not know Arabic he must read the Quran’s translation which is available in most languages of the world today. If you receive a letter from a government official, will you start doing its reciting again and again and assume that you have complied with its instructions? If you don’t know the letter’s language, you will rush to someone who knows it. But a majority of Muslims today are exactly doing this: making tilawat of the Quran, without knowing what it says.
Muslims are misguided that merely saying a few prayers or reading certain chapters of the Quran, on specific occasions or days, will suffice for their salvation in the hereafter. If we actually read the Quran we will never make such claims. The Quran on every page exhorts us to believe in Allah (SWT) and do righteous deeds. The two, belief and continuously doing righteous deeds, go hand-in-hand.
The Quran says that prayer ‘restrains from obscenity and abominable deeds,’ (Surah Al-Ankabut, 29:45), but our prayer today fails to make any real impact on our lives or character. The Quran says that you should spend ‘Whatever is in excess of your needs’ (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:219) while our majority does not pay even the meagre amounts of Zakaat, yet millions of Muslims around the world spend lavishly on social occasions, buy the costliest gadgets and compete to make ‘Umrah’ visits, one after the other, while their fellow Muslims starve in so many parts of the world. We are doing everything to earn Allah’s wrath and yet blame others! The only way for our salvation is to read the Quran, in translation if we do not know Arabic, and most importantly, meticulously follow Allah’s commands in every part of our lives.
According to the Quran, this community is the best community raised for mankind. It enjoins good and forbids evil (Surah Ali Imran, 3:110). This community has not been raised for itself. It has been entrusted with a mission to bear witness to the Truth before humanity. In order to carry out this mission Muslim individuals and societies must first return to the straight path in their thought and conduct. It is only by living true Islam that they can bear testimony before the world.
- Bashir Nuckchady is a freelance journalist based in Mauritius. He is the secretary of the Council of Religions (Mauritius) and an executive committee member and governing board member of the African Council of Religious Leaders.
