Good Deeds Part 1.

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

What constitutes a good deed?

The "deed" part is easy enough, I guess, but its the "good" part that befuddles us sometimes.  A case in point is the classical Euthyphro dilemma, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

In other words, is something good because God loves it, or God loves it because it is good? The attempts to answer this question have been many, and have given rise to many kinds of philosophies. For example good is "one that maximizes the overall "good" of the society" (utilitarianism), or "pleasure is the only intrinsic good" (hedonism), and a whole lot of others.....

What puzzles me is that when I ask this question to Muslims, I get diverging answers as well. In my opinion, there should be no divergence amongst Muslims, as we are supposed to obtain our moral code of conduct from the Qur'an and the Prophet's (salallahu alayhi wasallam) example. Let us look at some ayat (verses) of the Qur'an:

Al-Baqara [2:216], a part of which states:
  عَسَى أَن تَكْرَهُواْ شَيْئًا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ وَعَسَى أَن تُحِبُّواْ شَيْئًا وَهُوَ شَرٌّ لَّكُمْ وَاللّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ

....but it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and you know not.


An-Nisa [4:19], a part of which states:

فَعَسَى أَن تَكْرَهُواْ شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيرًا

......it may be that ye dislike a thing, and Allah brings about through it a great deal of good.

Both of these ayat or parts thereof indicate that Allah knows best what is good.


And then we have ayat like Al-Ahzab [33:21]:

لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ لِّمَن كَانَ يَرْجُو اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا

Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the Praise of Allah.


And also Aal-i-Imran [3:31]

قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللّهُ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ

Say [O Prophet]: "If you love God, follow me, [and] God will love you and forgive you your sins; for God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace."

Further, in An-Nisa [4:80]:
مَّنْ يُطِعِ الرَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أَطَاعَ اللّهَ وَمَن تَوَلَّى فَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ عَلَيْهِمْ حَفِيظًا
He who obeys the Messenger, obeys Allah. But if any turn away, We have not sent thee to watch over their (evil deeds). 

All the above ayat, and numerous hadith (Traditions) of the Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasallam) indicate that the criteria for deciding what is good is through the commandments of God, and whatever the Prophet (salallahy alayhi wasallam) taught us about the commandments of God.

So, in conclusion, everything what Allah and His Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasallam) love and asked us to do, is "good", and what Allah and His Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasallam) have forbidden us from, is "not good"/"evil"/etc. We should understand, and internalize this criteria to guide us as to do what is good and avoid doing what is not.

What about things that are not explicitly mentioned as good or bad? Well, that is the topic of discussion for another day, another post :)

Fictitious Unity. Ramadhan at the same time.

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Some of the well-intentioned, yet  self-styled defenders of Muslim unity insist that the whole Ummah should start fasting on the same day, and should celebrate Eid on the same day as well, as a sign of solidarity across the Ummah.

Some show regret that even after 1400 years Muslims are unable to agree on when it’s the first of Ramadan, or the first of Shawwal. Especially now when communication is so easy, we can simply use a tool like Facebook to unite all Muslims and once the moon is sighted, or calculated to have been sighted, we should all agree.

If not at an Ummatic level, at least at a national level we should agree on one day, goes the argument…..

Some of us rationalists talk about the scientific calculation of moon phases, those of us from the fiqh schools talk about moon-sighting, some Sufis from us trust their shaykh and some of our salafi brothers talk about Makkah or Medina (perhaps with the Umm ul Qura calendar) being the reference point to unite the entire Ummah.

Although it stems from good intention, in my humble opinion, this is not a show of true unity.  I believe that this is a non-issue.

First of all there is no concept of country in Islam and hence no concept of national identity (granted that it is controversial, but this is a topic for another post). So those to try to rally their nation around it, well, lets talk some other time. There is an Ummah, and there are your loyalties to your communities at a local level, some sort of a federation model, if you please. 

And at an Ummatic level, it is impossible to have the same calendar, since the Geographical time zones are spread across the globe. 

The idea that I have understood from our scholars from Salafis, to Shafa'is to Ja'faris, is that the observance of the moon is a local phenomenon, and is to be followed by people in the same geographical area (or moon phase). Also, it may be determined scientifically (astronomically) as well, as long as there is no doubt. But that is again topic for another post. Having said that, people in the same geographic area do differ sometimes, and that is another issue, and it is well beyond my capabilities to discuss. 

My concern in this post is only those who believe that the whole ummah should celebrate at the same time, and I believe that not only it is a position contradictory to the general understanding of Muslim scholars throughout history, it is also an illogical position.

I would just like to quote one well-known narration, known as the the hadith of Kurayb which is narrated in Muslim, Tirmidhi Abu Dawud, Nasa’i, Ahmed, Bayhaqi and Daraqutni (with variants), and relates as follows: 

Kurayb reported that Umm Fadl, the daughter of Harith, sent Fadl to Damascus. While in Syria, the month of Ramadan commenced, and he witnessed the new moon of Ramadan. When he returned to Medina at the end of the month, Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas informed him that they had seen it a day later in Medina and thus begun the fast later. Ibn Abbas stated, “We will continue to observe fast till we complete thirty [days] or we see it [the new moon of Shawwal]. When Kurayb asked, “Is the sighting of the moon by Mu’awiya not sufficient for you?” Ibn Abbas replied, “No, for this is how Messenger of Allah (salallahu alayhi wasallam) has commanded us..” 

What has been deduced from this narration is, as Ibn Rushd writes in his Bidayat al-Mujtahid, that a location outside the “moon-phase” of a confirmed sighting is not obliged to (yet free to) follow the reported easterly sighting.  And that each geographic area can, and perhaps should have its own reference level to start a month. 

There have been arguments about this narration. Imam Shaukani and others tried to argue to reject it on the following grounds:
 

1. Ibn Abbas (May Allah Be Pleased With Him) did not quote the actual words of the Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasallam). (Comment: There are several versions of the Hadith "La tasumu…", quoted above.)
2. He required a testimony of at least two witnesses. (Comment: Why is there no mention of number of witnesses, but rather "Visibility".)
3. It was his Ijtihad, and his Ijtihad is not binding.(Comment: Ibn Abbas(May Allah Be Pleased With Him) did not mention anything like this, but rather, he explicitly mentioned: "Amarana..." Rasoolullah (May Allah Be Pleased With Him) Ordered us?…?
4. Kuraib was not a reliable witness. (Comment: Again, there is no mention of Kuraib being unreliable.)
5. Kuraib's testimony was only news/information, and not a Shahadah (eyewitness account).(Comment: If Ibn Abbas (May Allah Be Pleased With Him) took it as news only, then why did he continue asking questions?)

As an after thought,  if unity is observance of religious obligations at the same time, then we can extend it further. For example the whole Ummah should pray fajr (or any other salah) together with Makkah or Medina. We can easily broadcast the azaan from the haramain world over, and then do the iqamah together, a true show of Muslim unity. No matter if the ummah extends from Morocco to Maluku, and that maybe fajr time in Arabia is Isha time in New York?

 

So perhaps, instead of feeling dejected on this apparent lack of Muslim unity, we should instead focus our energy to organize ourselves into local trustworthy bodies (not national Hilal Committees, unless you are a small nation, like Singapore perhaps) that can help us determine the dates, and organize local moon-sightings, and so on and so forth. Perhaps such local bodies can later serve to be the rudiments of an Islamic political system as well. Who knows? 

Wallahu 'Alam.

Islam the Liberator

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ 

مَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَن يُؤْتِيَهُ اللّهُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحُكْمَ وَالنُّبُوَّةَ ثُمَّ يَقُولَ لِلنَّاسِ كُونُواْ عِبَادًا لِّي مِن دُونِ اللّهِ وَلَـكِن كُونُواْ رَبَّانِيِّينَ بِمَا كُنتُمْ تُعَلِّمُونَ الْكِتَابَ وَبِمَا كُنتُمْ تَدْرُسُونَ

It is not conceivable that a human being unto whom God had granted revelation, and sound judgment, and prophethood, should thereafter have said unto people,  "Worship me beside God"; but rather [did he exhort them], "Become men of God by spreading the knowledge of the divine writ, and by your own deep study [thereof]." 


After this beautiful ayat of the Qur'an, I would like to quote a couple of quatrains from ارمغان حجاز "Armaghan-e-Hejaz" by my beloved thinker and reformer, Allama Iqbal:

مسلمانم غریب هر دیارم
که  با این خاکدان کاری ندارم
به  این بی طاقتی در پیچ و تابم
که  من دیگر به غیر الله دچارم

The Muslims are aliens in every nation
Ignored and passed over like dirt
I endure this warped state of affairs, powerlessly
Coz who else other than Allah can provide a way out for us

Actually, Allah has already provided a way for us, and it is for us to hold on to it, if we want to end this terrible state of affairs. It is the "rope of Allah", the "Deen" or whatever you call it.

هنوز اندر جهان، آدم غلام است
نظامش خام و کارش ناتمام است
غلام فقر آن گیتی پناهم
که در دینش ملوکیت حرام است

Adam is still enslaved in this world ,
His systems are defective, and implementation incomplete.
I am a slave of only that master, who sheltered this world,
and who in his Deen, forbade kingship

Iqbal himself alludes to this in the above quatrain, talking about a system in which kingdom/kingship (includes dictatorship etc) are forbidden.

Looking at the self-defeating policies of the "free" world such as the epitome thereof - the United States, at the behest of a privileged few, is saddening. The 99% are neither free, nor liberated.  They are enslaved as much as the rest of us, but the difference is that they are deceived into believing that they are not.

It seems clear that Iqbal's foresight showed him that all systems such as democracy in its current form, socialism, etc, while giving illusion of freedom are just different forms of the same kingship, and in reality enslave the Children of Adam at the hands of a select few. His concept is the governance brought forth by the  Deen taught by Rasoolullah (salallahu alayhi wasallam). This can further be seen from:

 جلال بادشاہی ہو کے جمہوری تماشہ ہو
جدا ہو دیں سیاست سے تو رہ جاتی ہے چنگیزی
   

Whether it be the grandeur of kingship, or the drama of democracy, 

if "Deen" is separated from governance, what remains is barbarianism.

Why it is important to have "deen" in governance?  It is undoubtedly the "deen" of Islam that liberated mankind from the shackles of obeisance to all humans (whether kings, priests etc), natural elements, animals or any other kinds of false gods, and elevated mankind to the highest stature that they deserve. A stature wherein we are supposed to bow to none other than the Creator, the Almighty, the Lord, our Beloved God.

I would like to a couple of stories to showcase this:

1. Mugheeth and Bareerah

Bareerah was a female slave and A'isha (radhia Allah anha), upon her request provided her with sufficient money to liberate herself. She was married to Mugheeth while still a slave, and while he still loved her, according to Shariah, now that she was free, it was her choice whether to continue her marriage, or choose a different option.

She said, "Alhamdulillah, I'm tired of this marriage, I'm going to get out." Mugheeth loved her so much, sincerely and honestly that after she left him, he couldn't take it, so he went in public weeping, chasing her, asking her "Ya Bareerah just look at me or talk to me." He went to sahaba and said, "Please talk to her for me (to Abu Bakr and Umar (radhia Allah anhuma) and at the end, even to the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam) to ask him to intercede.

So Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam) asked Bareerah to continue with her marriage.

Here is where it gets interesting.  Just imagine a newly liberated slave, who should be burdened by the kindness of  A'isha (radhia Allah anha) and also by the respect for the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam).

However, she understood Islam truly brings freedom.  She asked the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam) , "Are you commanding me or are you just interceding?"  (in other words, is this a command of Allah through the command of the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam), or just in his (Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam)) personal capacity.

The Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam)said, "I'm interceding."

She replied, "If this is the case, then I don't want him".

And that was that......

This story is a simple example illustrating how the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wassalam) brought a "deen" in which people were truly free.

2. 'Umar (radhia Allah anhu) and the Bedouin

Since ‘Umar (radhia Allah anhu) was known to be very strict, the following story will highlight how free the Muslims felt under the rule of Allah's Deen, as administered during his Caliphate.

Once ‘Umar (radhia Allah anhu) was addressing a congregation and asked the people, “Guide me if you see a fault in me.”

Upon this, a Bedouin Arab replied, “We will guide you with sword if we see a fault in you.”

In order to test him, he said "Do you know who you are talking to?", upon which the Bedouin replied that people knew him as a nobody, just the son of Khattab, but all what he has achieved is by the blessings of Islam.  And if he would stray away from the "deen", they would take corrective measures, even if it meant using a sword.

Hearing this, ‘Umar (radhia Allah anhu) thanked God that there were still such people in the ummah that felt free enough to provide checks and balances necessary.

Look at the freedom felt by an ordinary member of the ummah, even during the reign of someone whom people used to be afraid of, before he became Caliph.

Islam came as a "deen" to ensure that Allah's commandments would be Supreme, and people would enjoy justice and true freedom. For that, there is no separation of the Church from the State in Islam.  And Islam did not come to be practice in monasteries, mosques or spiritual retreats, but rather it came to spread Allah's justice everywhere on earth.  If now we do not ensure that Allah's commandments are implemented by our governments, it means that Adam will remain enslaved.   Again, as Iqbal said:

ملا کو جو ہے ہند  ميں سجدے کي اجازت
ناداں يہ سمجھتا ہے  کہ اسلام ہے آزاد   

The leave allowed to the Mullah
To bow and bend, before God, to pray
Makes that naive fellow think
That in India Islam is free.

It would of course be shortsighted to think that these couplets are for the United India at the time of Iqbal alone. But rather,  anywhere in the world if Mullahs think that Islam is truly being implemented, because we can pray, they are mistaken.  Islam has come to administer, rule and deliver justice:

كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللّهِ.....

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 3:110, Al-Qur'an)

Four types of Spiritual People

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Words of wisdom from Shaikh Abu Muhammad al-Shakkaz.

In accordance from the four aspects or meanings of the Qur'an, as listed in a hadith given on the authority of Ibn Hibban, by Ghazali (Ihya ulum al-din, Cairo ed. I. p. pp, Kitab qawa'id al 'aqaid.)

There are four types of spiritual people.

1.  People of the apparent (rijal al-zahir, رجال  الظاهر ), those who have been faithful to the pact they made with Allah.

     مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ رِجَالٌ صَدَقُوا مَا عَاهَدُوا اللَّهَ عَلَيْهِ فَمِنْهُم مَّن قَضَى نَحْبَهُ وَمِنْهُم مَّن يَنتَظِرُ وَمَا بَدَّلُوا تَبْدِيلًا

(Al-Ahzab 33:23)
Among the believers are men who have [always] been true to what they have vowed before Allah;  and among them are such as have [already] redeemed their pledge by death, and such as yet await [its fulfillment] without having changed [their resolve] in the least. 


2.  People of the interior (rijal al-batin رجال الباطن ), those who are not distracted from the invocation of Allah by either trade or business.

    رِجَالٌ لَّا تُلْهِيهِمْ تِجَارَةٌ وَلَا بَيْعٌ عَن ذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَإِقَامِ الصَّلَاةِ وَإِيتَاء الزَّكَاةِ يَخَافُونَ يَوْمًا تَتَقَلَّبُ فِيهِ الْقُلُوبُ وَالْأَبْصَارُ
 

(Al-Nour 24:37)
people whom neither [worldly] commerce nor striving after gain can divert from the remembrance of Allah, and from con­stancy in prayer, and from charity: [people] who are filled with fear [at the thought] of the Day On which all hearts and eyes will be convulsed.


3.    People of the limit (rijal al-hadd رجال الحد ), those of the "A'raf"

     وَبَيْنَهُمَا حِجَابٌ وَعَلَى الأَعْرَافِ رِجَالٌ يَعْرِفُونَ كُلاًّ بِسِيمَاهُمْ وَنَادَوْاْ أَصْحَابَ الْجَنَّةِ أَن سَلاَمٌ عَلَيْكُمْ لَمْ يَدْخُلُوهَا وَهُمْ يَطْمَعُونَ

(Al-A'raf 7:46)
And between the two there will be a barrier. And there will be persons who [in life] were endowed with the faculty of discernment [between right and wrong], recognizing each by its mark.  And they will call out unto the inmates of paradise, "Peace be upon you!"-not having entered it themselves, but longing [for it].


4.    People of the ascent (rijal al-matla' or rijal al-muttala',  رجال المطلع ), those of who come to God on foot when He calls them.

     وَأَذِّن فِي النَّاسِ بِالْحَجِّ يَأْتُوكَ رِجَالًا وَعَلَى كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِينَ مِن كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيقٍ

(Al-Hajj 22:27)

Hence, [O Muhammad,] proclaim thou unto all people the [duty of] pilgrimage: they will come unto thee on foot and on every [kind of] fast mount, coming from every far-away point [on earth], -