Weekly Message
Acquiescence Vs. Critical-Thinking
Many Muslim parents in North America
grew up in areas where colonizing rulers maintained schools for
acquiescence. That is, pupils were taught to repeat exactly what the
teacher told them. If the test question asked for 3 reasons why it is
good to brush your teeth, the answer had to be the exact three reasons
that the teacher had told them in class. The pupil is not supposed to
think; he is supposed to accept everything without questioning. This is
too often the way we teach our children about Islam. Do this action
because Islam says you have to. Do this exactly the way I say because
every other way is haram. Our children need to learn that there are two
kinds of knowledge, that which is revealed and that which is humanly
acquired.
Knowledge revealed in the Quran and hadiths
is unchanging and unarguable. Knowledge that is derived from our five
senses and our own thinking is subject to error and! can and should be
questioned.
North American schools, including good
Islamic schools, stress critical thinking. For children who grow up
here, it is not sufficient to say you have to do this because I say so.
You can expect your children to honour and obey you because Islam
requires obedience to parents, but you must also explain and discuss
why you are asking for their obedience. Your youth should be required
to pray, because Allah says for them to pray, but you must also be open
and willing to discuss why Allah would ask us to do that. What are the
possible benefits of praying, what should you do if you feel like the
prayer is empty of meaning to you, and so on. These questions don't
mean your youth are turning away from Islam; they mean that your youth
are thinking seriously about their religion. One of the most wonderful things about Islam is that because it is the truth, it can stand up to the most critical of questions.
Parents must also learn to acknowledge
that they make mistakes, and they are ignorant of certain answers. Your
child does not have the right to expect you to be able to explain every
Islamic injunction. He/she does have the right to expect you to give an
honest and open response to their questions. When you tell your youth,
"That's an important question. I don't know the answer. Let's see if we
can find out what the Quran says about it." then you have created an
open, honest exchange of thoughts with your youth.
Discuss Islam with your children from
the time they are young, stressing the positive, and encouraging them
to speak frankly and freely to you. Be an Islamic role model for them.
By the time they have emerged from their troubling, questioning
adolescence, you will have children who have actively embraced Islam,
and who want to be Muslim because they know that it will make their
life better in this world, and in the hereafter, in sha Allah (Allah
willing).
Compiled From:
"Teaching
Your Child About Islam" - Freda Shamma
Previous Week's MessageFive Degrees of Prayer
With respect to prayer, there are five levels of people. [The
lowest] is he 'who wrongs his own soul'; who is remiss; who curtails
his ablution and the times, limits and essential elements of prayer.
At the second level is he who keeps the times, rules and elements of
prayer; who keeps its ablution but is taken away by distractions, which
he lacks the inner strength to resist.
At the third level is he who keeps the limits and essential elements
of the prayer, and struggles against distractions. This person is
preoccupied with striving against his Foe, 'lest he rob him of his
prayer'. In prayer, he is in sacred combat [jihad].
At the fourth level is he who, standing in prayer, completes its
requirements, its essential elements and its limits. His heart is
absorbed in safeguarding the rules and requirements of the prayer 'lest
he miss any of them'. In fact, his entire concern becomes performing
the prayer as it should be, completely and perfectly. In this way, his
concern for the prayer and for worshipping his Lord absorbs his heart.
At the fifth level is he who, standing in prayer, performs it in the
manner of the fourth, but in addition places his heart before his Lord.
With this he beholds God - ever vigilant before Him, filled with His
love and glory - as if, seeing Him, he were physically present before
Him. Therefore, the distractions vanish, as the veil between him and
his Lord is lifted. The difference between this person in his prayer
and everyone else is as vast as the distance between heaven and earth,
for he is occupied [only] with his Lord Almighty in prayer, in which he
finds his source of gladness.
[Of these five persons], the first will be punished, the second
admonished, the third redeemed, the fourth rewarded and the fifth
brought near to his Lord - for his source of gladness has been placed
in prayer. And whoever is gladdened by the prayer in this world will be
gladdened by nearness to his Lord in this world and the next. He who
finds gladness in God, gladdens others [in turn]. But whoever does not,
leaves this world a loser.
Compiled From:
"The Invocation of God" - Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, pp. 29, 30
Calamities
"We shall certainly have them taste some
chastisement in this world in addition to the greater chastisement;
perhaps they will retract."
"The greater chastisement" here refers
to the chastisement to which the unbelievers and evil-doers will be
subjected in the World-to-Come. The verse, however, also speaks of
"some chastisement" in this world, which refers to things like serious
diseases, death of kith and kin, tragic accidents, and losses and
failures of various types which people face in the course of their
worldly lives. There are also storms, earthquakes, floods, epidemics,
famines, riots, warfares and other calamities which befall a people
collectively, sometimes affecting the lives of millions.
These calamities afflict people in
order that they may take heed before the greater chastisement overtakes
them. They should give up those patterns of thought and action that
lead them to the immense chastisement of the Hereafter. In other words,
God has not made man's
life in the world to be spent without care and concern. Man has not
been granted an altogether smooth sail in this life. Calamities visit him so that he may purge his mind
of the delusion that there is no power above him capable of causing harm.
They are thus made to realise that
their destiny is controlled by someone else other than themselves. This
real power and authority rests with God, not with man. Whenever any
calamity from God strikes man it becomes evident that he can neither
avert it himself nor by invoking any jinn, spirit, or god. Far from
being simply natural disasters, these calamities serve as warnings from
God to dispel man's misperceptions and prompt him to recognise the
reality of things. By deriving lessons from these, man can mend his
ways during his existence by embracing right beliefs and reforming his
conduct. This alone will save him from the greater chastisement of the
Hereafter.
Compiled From:
"Towards
Understanding the Quran" - Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, Vol. 8, p. 173
Selected MessagesDreams and Wishes
Islam is the religion of rational and critical minds. This is why one of its fundamental goals is to make man aware of the paramount significance of gradation, fortitude, and maturity.
Haste is an inherent characteristic of man in general and of the young
in particular. Indeed, haste is an outstanding characteristic of our
own age. It has made our youth eager to sow the seeds today and to
harvest the next day. But Allah's will in His own creation does not
allow that: a tree goes through stages of growth, short or long, before
it bears fruit. The very creation of a human being illustrates this
very clearly. A child is born, breast�fed and weaned, then he/she
gradually grows from childhood to maturity. Similarly, life gradually
moves from one stage to another until Allah's sunan (patterns) are
realized.
Islam began as a simple religion, then gradually the
obligatory duties were introduced, the prohibitions prescribed, and
legislative matters detailed. Gradually, the structure took full shape,
and Allah's favours and blessings were diffused everywhere. Such
development and stages are plain enough, but they are rarely, at all,
observed or acknowledged.
The enthusiastic young people are
outraged by the corruption that surrounds them as they witness, and
live, the rapidly worsening condition of the Islamic Ummah. The common
concern initiates group meetings they undertake to put things right, to
salvage what is worth keeping. But in their haste and enthusiasm, they
lose clarity of vision, they begin to daydream and build castles in the
air, believing that they can blot out all forms of corruption and
falsehood in addition to establishing the ideal situations
overnight.
They underestimate or disregard the incalculable
obstacles and pitfalls that exceed their means and potential. Their
dilemma is like that of the man who asked Ibn Sirin to interpret a
dream for him: he dreamed that he was swimming on dry land, flying
without wings. Ibn Sirin told him that he too was a man of too many
dreams and wishes. Ali ibn Abu Talib (may Allah be pleased with him)
warned his son: " . .and beware of relying on wishes, for they are the goods of fools."
Compiled From:
"Islamic Awakening Between Rejection and Extremism" - Y. Qaradawi
Al-Naml (The Ants) Chapter 27: Verse 18
Communication
Then, when they reached the valley of the
ants, an ant said, 'Ants! Enter your dwellings so that Sulayman and his
troops do not crush you unwittingly.'
The Quran supplies an interesting piece of information when talking
about Prophet Sulayman's (peace be upon him) armies and mentions that
there is an advanced "communications system" among the ants.
The scientific research made on ants in this century has shown that
there is an incredible communications network among these creatures. In
an article published in the National Geographic magazine, this point is explained:
Huge and tiny, an ant carries in her head multiple sensory organs to
pick up chemical and visual signals vital to colonies that may contain
a million or more workers, all of which are female. The brain contains
half a million nerve cells; eyes are compound; antennae act as nose and
fingertips. Projections below the mouth sense taste; hairs respond to
touch.
Even if we do not notice it, the ants have quite a different method
of communication in virtue of their sensitive sensing organs. They
employ these sense organs at every moment of their lives, from finding
their prey to following each other, from building their nests to
fighting. They have a communication system which astonishes us, as
human beings with intellect, with their 500,000 nerve cells squeezed
into their bodies of 2 or 3 millimetres. What we should keep in mind
here is that the half a million nerve cells and the complex
communication system mentioned above belongs to an ant which in bulk is
almost one millionth of a human being.���
The ants, who constitute an orderly social structure with these
various responses, lead a life based on mutual news exchange and they
have no difficulty in achieving this correspondence. We could say that ants,
with their impressive communication system, are hundred percent
successful on subjects that human beings sometimes cannot resolve nor
agree upon by talking (e.g. meeting, sharing, cleaning, defence, etc.)
Source:
"The Miracle in The Ant" -Harun Yahya, Chapter 2 (www.harunyahya.com)
