We are Muslims once a week

“Allah o Akbar, Allah o Akbar”, this is what we hear all day on Fridays till afternoon. We as Muslims are very sensitive about religion and consider it as a taboo to discuss. But is it that sensitive issue? Today I decided to share my views on it. I might be wrong so I request you to actively participate with me in the discussion.

What is Islam? Is it just about offering a Juma prayer, wearing shalwar kamiz, having half holiday. Or is it something more than this. Most of us get up early in the morning, take a bath, wear a shalwar kurta, and then go to mosque, offer prayer and come back home. We think that after this exercise we will be purified Muslims once again. But what we do after that? Most of us forget everything about Islam till next Friday.

This is a shame for all of us being Muslims.

As I was growing up I always used to consider “Deen” and “Mazhab” as same thing and the word we use for this in English is religion. But is this the same thing? If I succeed to clear this misconception in today’s post, I will have a satisfaction that at least I have contributed a little in education my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters.

The first part which is Mazhab is more focusing towards individual. It’s about Tauheed, offering prayers, keeping fast, Zakat and going for Pilgrimage. These are the fundamental principles of Islam. The rituals fall under this category as well like milaad, funeral prayers, Khatam, Chaliswa, etc etc. Now I will be touching a bit more sensitive part. Have we ever thought why we Muslims have so many sects and why there is so much fundamentalism and radicalism in Islam? What are the things over which we fight? We fight over how to offer prayer, we fight over timings of prayers, we fight over what happened in the past, we fight over Islamic history, we fight over rituals of Islam. But all of these things fall under the category of Mazhab. These things are between an individual and Allah. We are no one to dictate our terms. We can only convince people by giving our arguments but cannot label someone as Kafir.

The second part is Deen and unfortunately we have completely forgotten this aspect of religion. This part deals with humanity as whole. Deen is about the social, political and economic system of Islam. The revolution of Islam which we often talk about is the revolution of Deen. Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) made a political, economic and social state based on the principles of Islam in Makkah.

Let me quote some harsh realities here. We as Muslims are very sensitive about the ways to offer prayer but no one of us will ever raise a voice against this capitalism which is totally against the spirit of Islam. We are very sensitive about what happened in past but we will never dare to make our political system in the light of Islam. In most parts of the Muslim world there are still authoritative regimes. Is this endorsed by Islam? The social system we are living in, is this system given by Islam? Honestly our social system, in Pakistan is more or less the social system in India with some minor changes.

I will conclude my post with a hope that all of you will at least give it a minute to think that where is we heading. Islam is not just about practicing some rituals, it is about implementing the political, social and economic norms given by Islam.