Burden Of The Standard Bearer- Mr. Yawar Baig

PART 1 OF 2

Prologue

The purpose of this note is to generate thoughtful dialogue resulting in action that is a dire need of the Muslim Ummah today. I wish I had all the answers. I don’t. What I do have is a lot of questions and while this may look like a problem in itself, I believe asking the right questions is a pre-requisite to arriving at an answer eventually. So here goes…..

The Muslim Ummah today is like a ship caught in a storm. Battered from all sides by hurricane strength winds and plagued internally by our own weaknesses. In such a situation, if we want to remain afloat we have to ensure that we do two things:
Be aware of the storm forces and our own strengths and weaknesses and understand how the external forces affect us.
Be clear about the path we want to chart which will lead us out of our difficulty and to stay on it with focus and single mindedness of purpose.

I want to begin therefore with a SWOT Analysis of the Muslim Ummah as I see it.

Strengths
Faith in Allah and His destiny which gives us enormous resilience and the ability to recover from personal disaster.
Growing awareness and confidence especially among the youth about Islam with a corresponding desire to learn, practice and be seen as examples of the Islamic model.
Growing awareness of the gulf between Ulama and the general Muslims especially in terms of the application of Islamic knowledge in real life and a desire to bridge the gap.

Weaknesses
Ignorance about Islam among Muslims, shirk & bida’a in practice, outdated education methodology in Islamic schools, no focus on application of Islamic ideology in real life, lack of tech & media savvy among Ulama leading to slow or no response, inaccessibility and partial or imperfect solutions. Big psychological gap between Ulama and their constituents. Focus on ideology without focus on its practice.
Fragmented thought, fragmented people, fragmented leadership and relationships with no appreciation of the challenges that face the Ummah; therefore no specific thought out action plan. No collective approach except in times of traumatic upheaval.
Lack of vision or strategy at all levels including at the top most leadership, both temporal and religious. No think tank to visualize future challenges and prepare responses. Absence of a proactive response even to situations that can be foreseen very easily.

Opportunities
To fulfill the purpose of our creation and benefit all mankind by providing thought leadership that can lead the world out of its current malaise.
To become role models for the world to look up to and emulate.
To show Muslims ways to practice Islam so that their very lives can become beacons of guidance for others as was the situation with the Prophet and his Sahaba.
The issue with the practice of Islam with most Muslims today is a “How” issue. It is a tools issue. It is not an issue of being convinced. Even people who are convinced are unable to practice because they don’t know how, don’t have systems to support them and have no means of developing these systems themselves. This is a huge opportunity to create such systems and build a support system for people to practice Islam.
A good example of the above is the lack of a suitable system of non-interest banking and lending despite interest based finance being haraam and Muslims being around for 1426 years.

Threats
Concerted, hugely funded and highly focused efforts to undermine Islam and disconnect it from real life; using the best brains, technology and media in the world.
Ignorant, apologetic, cowardly Muslims psychologically succumbing to the pressure, attacking Islam and its Shari’ah and advocating changing Islamic law and the Qur’an.
Increasing disconnect between Ulama and the average Muslim leading to the latter feeling that Islam is a way of worship alright but not much else.

Problem with current efforts

The problem with current efforts is that they talk almost entirely about “problem” and don’t give solutions. At best some of them give incomplete solutions leaving the rest in the realm of imagination. The result of this is that the Muslims have developed a “Victim” mindset. They blame the world for their condition, yet do nothing to change that even where they have the opportunity. There is an apparent unconscious stance that they need not do anything about their problems other than to cry about them and blame the world. “Solutions” that are suggested for the problems of Muslims are at best partial and in many cases not solutions at all. Slavery to antiquated thought of bygone leaders who were true to their times but whose teachings have little current validity.

No role models of applied Islam which shows success in this world as well as actions that promise success in the Aakhira. Examples of the practice of Islam are given of people who lived in the remote past and whose lives have little that is immediately in common with today’s challenges and problems. Little or no effort is made to glean lessons from their lives and see how they can be applied to today’s issues in a way that will show the superiority of the Islamic Way over the rest of the ways of the world.

Allah ’s purpose

Al Fath:28 It is He Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religions: and enough is Allah for a Witness.

Allah ’s purpose is to proclaim to world that His Way is the best way for them and is superior to all other ways. It is not to impose or inflict it on anyone but to show its beauty and benefit in clearly appreciable ways so that everyone will see how it is superior to whatever else they may be following. In order to demonstrate this He sent His Messenger who practically demonstrated the superiority of Islam. Deen is not the opposite of Duniya. The opposite of Duniya is Aakhira. Deen is the way to live in the Duniya so that we become the inheritors of Jannah in the Aakhira. Leaving the Duniya is a non-Muslim practice of asceticism that was the way of Coptic Christian monks and Hindu sanyasis. Muslims came to live in this Duniya and to teach others how to live in a way that makes them winners. As long as we did that we had moral authority and Allah gave us power. When we stopped being demonstrators and became imitators instead of being Standard Bearers, we lost our moral authority and Allah took away our power. Today we have voluntarily restricted Islam to some areas of worship, some selective application of the Shari’ah as long as it suits us and have taken to the ways of others blindly. We are not even intelligent enough to see that those very others are intensely unhappy in their ways because those ways have destroyed their societies.
We Muslims condemn their ways but we do the same things and we don’t show them an alternate way in the world of today. And then we are surprised that nobody listens to us.

Allah sent a demonstrator

Al Ahzab: 21 You have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern of (conduct) for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day and who engages much in remembrance of Allah.

Allah’s purpose of sending His Messenger with Islam was to make the benefits of Islam clear to all those who live in this world. The Prophet was the first Standard Bearer of Islam. That is why Allah said that the life of His Messenger is the best example for anyone to follow. He did not restrict this to any one or more areas of life. He gave the example of the whole life of RasoolAllah and the Messenger demonstrated this Islamic Way of Life in all aspects of his life and the Sahaba followed him. And that is what made them the dominant force in their world in just one generation.

In the current confusion that is visible in the thinking of the Ummah is the understanding of the above ayah and its promise of the domination of the Islamic Way over other ways. It is my belief that Islam will triumph in the world not by a humungous war in which Muslims will triumph over others and leave behind millions of dead. That will be the most useless outcome because dead bodies are no good to Islam or anyone else. The Prophet did not come to kill people. Neither did we.

Islam will triumph over all other ways of living simply because the benefits of the Islamic Way of Life will become clear to all people by seeing how Muslims live by the Islamic Way and become winners on that account. This is how Islam spread during the times of the Sahaba in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia. People took to Islam because they were impressed by the way they saw the Sahaba trading in the marketplace. Not by listening to lectures and Khutbas. They saw them doing ordinary worldly things in a way that demonstrated the superiority of the Islamic Way of Life.

Islam will triumph by the winning of people’s hearts

Our challenge is to show the benefit of the Islamic Way of Life in all aspects of human existence and demonstrate how the Islamic Way is better than any other way and makes its follower a winner. Once people see this clearly, they will be willing to listen to the benefits of Islam in the Aakhira which are linked to living in the Islamic Way. Simply talking about Jannah does not influence anyone when they see the Muslims around them living the lives of losers. No influence, no power, no moral values, no nobility. Shameless extravagance and irresponsibility. People who talk but who don’t walk their own talk. Nobody is impressed.

The challenge is to clearly differentiate on the basis of Islam. Show Islam makes the Muslim doctor a better doctor in the eyes of his patients. Show how Islam makes the Muslim teacher a better teacher in the eyes of her students. Show how Islam makes the Muslim politician a better representative in the eyes of his constituents. Show how Islam makes the Muslim technologist, business person, scientist, husband, wife, son, daughter, employee, employer; all better in their respective roles in the eyes of all those who deal with them. When we can do this, we can stop talking about Islam because people will see Islam. Until we can do this, talking about Islam does not help because people can’t see Islam. That is the crux of the matter.



Transform ourselves from being merely guardians of knowledge to demonstrators

We are currently a repository of knowledge. We are like those who own a library of automobile engineering books but walk home every day. We need to convert knowledge into practical reality that makes winners in this world. Then not only we, but the whole world will ride. Because for any ideology to have an effect it must first be translated into working models.

Our Jaamiyaat and Madaris have done an admirable job of preserving and protecting theological knowledge. However where they have fallen short is in converting the theological concepts into practical reality. Consequently Islam is taught like we teach any other ideology.
It is our duty however to translate the ideology into practical methods that can be applied and which will benefit the practitioner in this life itself.

A good example to understand how knowledge gains popularity when its benefits are practically visible is to look at the popularity of Yoga in the world. And that has opened the door for Hindu preachers to preach their ideology to people who first come for the exercise and start experiencing its benefits. If we merely keep teaching ideology and theory without translating it into practical models, people view it as a dichotomy when they hear what we say but they don’t see us practicing it in our own lives. This is detrimental to the concept itself and makes us and our message lose credibility.

Quite justifiably the world is asking today, “if your way is so good, why don’t you practice it yourself?” We have to answer this question by example. Not verbal arguments alone. That is the challenge today.

PART 2
Our Duty in this:

A’al Imraan: 110 You are the best (most beneficial) of peoples extracted (chosen) for (the benefit of) mankind; enjoining what is right forbidding what is wrong and believing in Allah.

Allah sent us to benefit the whole world. Benefit them by showing them a superior way of living that will give them Jannah after they die. A way that has the potential to make their lives a living Jannah. Potentially since people have made life a living hell, it should be very easy to sell this idea. But we are unable to do that. The reason is that social change does not come by lectures and talking. Social change comes by a small group of people who are convinced about the benefit of their own way, who practice it with confidence and pride and who are able to demonstrate its superiority over other ways. People believe what they can see. It is the challenge of the Muslims to show the benefits of Islam.

When Muslims can do this, they will become beneficial to society. It is the nature of the human being to value what benefits and to discard what does not benefit and to try to destroy what is harmful. If we remember this, we can clearly see the reason for all the difficulties of the Muslim Ummah today. We have stopped being beneficial and in some cases we have become harmful. If we change this and become beneficial, then the very people who are out to destroy us will stand forth to protect us and will value and honor us.

We are aware of all the instances in the past when this happened and Muslims were looked up to as role models. It is in our power to recreate that once again and truly become the Khair Ummah – Beneficial Nation.

So what’s the solution?

In my view, the challenge before us, as Muslims is to create a situation where non-Muslims will be clearly able to see what would be lost for them, if Islam and Muslims were not there.
This means that they would be able to see clearly what Islam contributes to life and society in every aspect. If we are successful in achieving this goal, then the opposition to Islam will vanish and people will be attracted to Islam and the Islamic way of life as they used to be when the Sahaba and their immediate successors went to far flung countries and practiced their worldly trades. People were able to see the influence of Islam in their lives and in the way they behaved among themselves and with others, and were attracted to them and adopted their ways as they saw these ways as being useful and beneficial. It is this demonstration of the Islamic way of life and its benefits that is the biggest convincer rather than any amount of talk or preaching of Islam.

Demonstrate Islam
How can we return to Allah by fulfilling the purpose for which He created us? I believe the way is to become Standard Bearers of Islam. Become Demonstrators of Islam. Not merely preachers or lecturers. I want to distinguish being ‘demonstrators’ from being ‘proselytizers’, or ‘propagators’, or ‘verbal inviters’; all roles we see being played and all of which have lost credibility and draw hostile attention in some cases and indifference in others.
Allah said: You have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern of (conduct) for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day and who engages much in the praise of Allah. (33:21)
Allah is speaking about the whole life of the Prophet as being the best example for us to emulate; not only his speech and sayings. He sent His Prophet to demonstrate Islam, not merely to talk about it. He sent his Prophet to demonstrate the entire Islamic Way of Life, not merely theology. The Sahaba learnt this lesson perfectly and demonstrated Islam which won the hearts of people who came into contact with them. As time passed, we forgot this lesson and created the discord between our statements and practice. And that was the beginning of the credibility gap that we are currently suffering from.

Let me give you three examples:

1. We ask Allah for Khilafa and Muslim rule in the world. But do we have a plan about how to apply the rule of Islam to the world of today? The British parliament has a shadow cabinet that the opposition party runs, which debates and decides on every situation from the perspective of their ideology. Do we have a shadow world Islamic cabinet? Is there any collective thinking and stance on the different situations that the world faces today with Muslims collectively proposing Islamic solutions to these problems? Yet we claim that we have a universally applicable ideology!!

2. We tell stories about Sahaba like Abdur Rahman Ibn Awf (RA) who came to Madinah with nothing and in a period of less than 10 years became a multi-millionaire in modern terms. Do we know what his business model was? How did he succeed in becoming one of the 3 richest companions of the Prophet and yet was one of the 10 who were given the good news of Jannah? Can we teach people how to do this in today’s world? And yet we say that Omar ibn Al Khattab (RA) said that a Muslim businessman has no right to do business in the souk unless he has understanding of the Deen. Which Islamic university is teaching Islamic business management and entrepreneurship? And why not?

3. We speak about the golden periods of Muslim rule under the two Omars (Omar ibn Al Khattab and Omar ibn Abdul Aziz). Which Islamic university is teaching the governance, system of administration, and political sagacity of these two Khulafa? And why not?
We seem to have unknowingly given up our rightful position of being teachers and consultants to the universities of the world. We need to now prove to the world that we have a way of life that they need desperately to learn and apply in all aspects of their teaching and learning. The world today seems to be tired of people who ‘talk’ about Islam. The world is demanding that those who say that Islam is the best way of life and is good for all time, actually demonstrate this in their own lives and prove their claim to the world visibly. I believe that unless we are ready to do this, Allah will not remove the difficulties that we find ourselves in today; either individually or collectively.

The Challenge

The challenge before us is to show; not talk about but demonstrate to the world by our own practice:

Show how the Qur’an, Sunnah and Shari’ah are relevant in today’s worldly life
Show the way to practice the Islamic Way of Life in today’s context
Show how Islam differentiates the Muslim and makes him a winner in both worlds
Create teachers who can replicate this model in every society throughout the world

What does Islam have to offer to the world today?

1. A democratic model of government based on the selection of the best among the people in character and piety.
2. An economic model based on helping each other and sharing of resources and social responsibility.
3. A moral order based on the consciousness of accountability to Allah from whom nothing is hidden.
4. A model of scientific development based on research taking hints of the marvels of creation given in the Qur’an

All of these are crying needs in a world that is increasingly amoral and is ruled by anyone who can lie, cheat and oppress. Self indulgence and the satisfaction of personal desire is the ultimate goal of the new world order that is being enforced on a helpless population. In that process, the fact that one may trample upon the lives and rights of others is seen as incidental and an unavoidable necessity. The willingness to do this without any compunction is seen as a sign of strong leadership and the poor ones who die an un-mourned death in the process are called ‘collateral damage’. Having given it a neat name, we can now legitimately ignore all the suffering and destruction that we have chosen to unleash in our single minded pursuit of personal power. We have truly become the worshipers of our own nafs (desires).

We are in the situation today where if one were to look at the world stage and try to pick one single public figure (especially among the rulers and leaders) that one would be inspired to emulate and take as a role model, there is not a single one. I don’t believe there was ever such a bankruptcy of ideology as the one we face today.

And in this entire process, the ones who have a solution out of this mess, where the world can literally have its cake and eat it too, are sitting silently, oblivious of both their duty and their resource. And the world staggers around and falls on its face like the proverbial blind person on an unfamiliar path.

So who is responsible?
Is it the blind person? Or the one who can see but will not show the way? The world today needs Standard Bearers like a drowning person needs air.

Note: We have a solution for this which is called the Standard Bearers Academy. The concept paper for that gives the rationale and method behind that initiative.
Please see the website for a full account:
http://www.sb-academy.com/