Understand fully that Allah’s word does not come to bring misery, disgrace and suffering to man. ‘We have not sent down the Qur’ān upon you that you be wretched’ (Ṭā Hā 20: 1–2). On the contrary, the Qur’ān is the source of happiness and success. It is impossible for a people to possess God’s word and yet suffer disgrace and ignominy, live under subjugation, be trampled on and kicked around, and carry the yoke of slavery on their necks, being led by the nose like animals. A people meet this fate only when they do injustice to the word of God.
Look at the fate of the Israelites. They were given the Tawrāh and the Injīl, and were told:
Had they established the Torah and the Gospel and what was sent down to them by their Lord, they would surely have partaken of all the blessings from above them [heaven] and beneath their feet [earth] (al-Mā’idah 5: 66).
But they adopted a wrong attitude towards these Books of Allah, and reaped the consequences:
An ignominy and helplessness were laid upon them, and they were laden with the burden of God’s anger. That, because they used to disbelieve God’s messages and slay the Prophets against all right; that, because they disobeyed and were transgressors (al-Baqarah 2: 61).
If people possess Allah’s Book and still live in disgrace and subjugation, they are surely being punished for doing injustice to Allah’s word. The only way to save yourselves from Allah’s anger is to turn back from this grave sin and start trying to render His Book its due. Until you do, your condition will never change – even if you open colleges in each and every village, all your children graduate from universities, and you amass millions through unscrupulous means.
No Islam Without Submitting to the Qur’ān
Brothers! Two most important things every Muslim must know to do justice to the Book of God: who is truly a Muslim and what the word ‘Muslim’ means.
Human beings who do not know what humanity is and what the difference is between man and animal will inevitably indulge in behaviour unworthy of the human race and attach no value to being human. Similarly, people who do not know the true meaning of being Muslims and how a Muslim is different from a non-Muslim will behave like non-Muslims and will not be worthy of being Muslims.
Every Muslim, adult or child, should therefore know what it means to be a Muslim, what difference being a Muslim must make to his life, what responsibilities devolve on him, and what limits are set by Islam within which a man remains a Muslim and by transgressing which he ceases to be a Muslim.
Islam means submission and obedience to God. To entrust yourselves completely to God is Islam. To relinquish all claims to absolute freedom and independence and to follow God’s will is Islam. To surrender yourselves before the sovereignty of God is Islam. If you bring all the affairs of your lives under God you are Muslims and if you keep any of the affairs in your own hands or entrust them to someone other than God you are not Muslims.
To bring your affairs under God means to accept unreservedly the guidance sent by God through His Book and His Messengers. It therefore becomes necessary to follow only the Qur’ān and the Prophet’s Sunnah. Muslims follow no authority other than that of God, whether it be their reason or customs. In every matter they seek guidance from God’s Book and His Messenger to find what they should do and what they should not do. They accept without hesitation whatever guidance they get from there and reject whatever they find opposed to it.
Such total surrender to God is what makes. one a Muslim.
By contrast, people are certainly not Muslims who, instead of following the Qur’ān and the Sunnah, obey the dictates of their own reason and desires, follow the practices of their forefathers, accept what is happening in society, and never bother to ascertain from the Qur’ān and Sunnah how to run their affairs, or refuse to accept the teachings of the Qur’ān and Sunnah by saying: ‘They do not appeal to my reason’, or ‘They are against the ways of my forefathers’ or ‘The world is moving in an opposite direction’. Such people are liars if they call themselves Muslims.
The moment you recite the Kalimah: ‘Lā ilāha illa ’llāh Muhammadu ’r-rasūlu ’llāh’, you accept that the only law you recognize is the law of God, only God is your sovereign, only God is your ruler, only God you will obey, and only the things given in God’s Book and by His Messengers are true and right. It means that as soon as you become Muslims you must renounce your authority in favour of God’s authority.
Consequently, you have no right to say, ‘My opinion is this, the prevalent custom is this, the family tradition is this, that scholar and that holy person say this.’ In the face of Allah’s word and His Messenger’s Sunnah, you cannot argue in this manner. You should judge everything in the light of the Qur’ān and Sunnah; accept what is in conformity with them and reject what runs counter to them, irrespective of the people who may be behind them. It is a contradiction in terms to call yourselves Muslims on the one hand, and, on the other, follow your own opinions or the customs of society or some person’s words or actions as against the Qur’ān and the Sunnah. Just as a blind person cannot claim to have eyes, nor a deaf person to have ears, so a person who refuses to subordinate the affairs of his life to the dictates of the Qur’ān and the Sunnah cannot call himself a Muslim.
No one who does not want to be a Muslim can be compelled to be one against his will. You are free to adopt any religion you like and call yourselves by any names you like. But, once having called yourselves Muslims, you must fully understand that you can remain Muslims only as long as you stay within the bounds of Islam. These bounds are: to accept the word of God and His Messenger’s Sunnah as the ultimate criteria of truth and justice and to consider everything opposed to them as wrong. If you remain within these bounds you are Muslims, but if you overstep them you cease to be part of Islam. To continue, in such circumstances, to consider yourselves and call yourselves Muslims is tantamount to both self-deception and deception of others. ‘Whoso judges not according to what God has sent down, they are the unbelievers’ (al-Mā’idah 5: 44).
Difference the Kalimah Creates
Brothers in Islam! You become Muslims by reciting a few words called the Kalimah:
Lā ilāha illa ’llāh Muhammadu ’r-rasūlu ’llāh
There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
On pronouncing these words a man is supposed to have radically changed. He was an Unbeliever, now he is a Muslim; he was impure in faith, now he is pure. He deserved Allah’s displeasure; now he deserves to be loved by Him. He was going into Hell; now the gates of Heaven are open for him.
On a more concrete level, in social life, this Kalimah becomes the basis for differentiating one man from another. Those who recite it constitute one nation, while those who reject it form another. If a father recites it but his son refuses to, the father is no longer the same father, nor the son the same son. The son will not inherit anything from the father, his mother and sisters may even observe purdah from him. On the other hand, if a total stranger recites the Kalimah and marries into a Muslim family, he and his children become eligible for inheritance.
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