Are we really "The Ummah"?

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

A few weeks back someone was arguing the case how the ummah of Rasoolullah Salallahu alayhi wasallam would go to Paradise based on this or that hadith.  Although it made for pleasant hearing for the audience, who (Muslims) obviously believed in their Divine Right to Paradise through the Shafa'at (intercession) of the Prophet Muhammed Salallahu alayhi wasallam, it made me think..... 

What qualifies us to be a member of the ummah of Rasoolullah Salallahu alayhi wasallam? I started by searching about what the Qur'an says about the concept of ummah.

The word ummah (plural ummam), in its noun form is found in the following ayat of the Qur'an:
2:128, 2:134, 2:141, 2:143, 2:213, 3:104, 3:110, 3:113, 4:41, 5:48, 5:66, 6:38, 6:42, 6:108, 7:34, 7:38, 7:38, 7:159, 7:160, 7:164, 7:168, 7:181, 10:19, 10:47, 10:49, 11:8, 11:48, 11:48, 11:118, 12:45, 13:30, 15:5, 16:36, 16:63, 16:84, 16:89, 16:92, 16:92, 16:93, 16:120, 21:92, 21:92, 22:34, 22:67, 23:43, 23:44, 23:52, 23:52, 27:83, 28:23, 28:75, 29:18, 35:24, 35:42, 40:5, 41:25, 42:8, 43:22, 43:23, 43:33, 45:28, 45:28, 46:18

The meaning of the word according to Lisan Al-Arab, and also various lexicons, such as that of Lane, ranges from one's kinsfolk, tribe, party, community, nation, group of living things having certain characteristics or circumstances in common, any grouping of human or animal, creation, generation, creatures of God etc to way/course/manner/mode of acting, faith, religion, nation, , time or period of time, righteous persons, a person who is an object of imitation and who is known for goodness/virtues;

An interesting fact about the term ummah is that it shares its root with the word umm (mother, source, principle, prototype, origin).

Moving on from the linguists, back to the Qur'an, I found out that in context of being the ummah of Prophet Muhammed Salallahu alayhi wasallam, Allah subhanaHu wa ta'ala, said a lot of nice things, but what I will talk about today is the following:

كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللّهِ ........... (3:110)

You are indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for [the good of] mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and you believe in God.....
(Part of Aal-'Imran 3:110)

This ayah (or part of an ayah) used to be frequently quoted in the khutbah (sermon) when I was a student, and brought with it a kind of feel-good factor, a feeling of being unique or distinguished and so on.  This feeling stemmed from the mistaken notion that in this ayah Allah is addressing us...


Why mistaken you ask?

Let us be honest to ourselves.... When Allah says "you are the best community", do we really qualify? Can we really be that blind to our faults that we egoistically attribute this title to ourselves? What have we done for the good of all mankind? Yeah, I know, Muslims have contributed so much to the world, when Europe was in Dark Ages etc etc.... But quoting from to my beloved poet-philosopher Iqbal:

..   تھے تو آبا وہ تھارے ہي' مگر تم کيا ہو
...    ہاتھ پرہاتھ دھرے منتظر فردا ہو!

Surely they were but your forefathers, but what are you ?
Procrastinating idly, waiting for tomorrow are you !

And even now we have this many scientists, PhDs, doctors, engineers etc.. No doubt.

But I venture to ask again, what have we, present day Muslims (including the writer of this blog), have done for all mankind, that we would so arrogantly and shamelessly stake claim to be a member of this ummah in accordance with this ayah?

Far from enjoining what is all good, and forbidding and standing up against all that is evil, we ourselves have succumbed to worse kinds of evils. And far from standing up for the good of mankind,  we conveniently excuse ourselves to even stand up for good of our own family, society, community etc.

Not only that, we have redefined  مَعْرُوفِ from "universally accepted values" into something else, and have also redefined مُنكَرِ from "universally rejected evil" into something else as well.

And as for Belief in Allah... well, that is a failure of epic proportions, and merits a blog post by itself to begin with.....

So, rather than wallowing in our own miserable arrogance, we should take some time and introspect whether we are really fulfilling the requirements of being a member of the ummah of Rasoolullah Salallahu alayhi wasallam before moving on to the "logical" conclusion that Paradise is our birthright.