The Return of Darkness
By Dr Nadir Khan
Alta Loma, CA
Almost all living things need a source of light. Humans need an inner source of light too. This Light is not ordinary light. It lights the inner being and a search for divine guidance and a nearness to the source of Light. This Light is the essence of a true divinely revealed message. The need and reason for this Light is to help humans navigate their lives during their sojourn on this planet.
One of the beauties of Islam is that it does not deny the other sources of light which came before it. It really believes in the evolution of the divine messages of guidance. Islam’s past has been brilliant and its future is equally bright. Islam is not in any danger but Muslims are. It seems that the real Light is receding from our individual and collective lives and a curtain of darkness is descending over Muslim lands.
The source of this darkness is human and these are Muslims themselves. It would be a significant contribution to analyze and explore these sources.
True religions bring unity and peace among people. The prophet was neither a shia nor a sunni. He was a Muslim like all the other prophets before him. All the divisions and sectarianism we see are men-made. Human interpretation of the divine will has caused so much pain and suffering that even the heavens are crying.
Just look across the Muslim world and the landscape is tragic. We have more dictators, emirs and kings than any other religious community We are less educated , more ignorant and less healthy than others.
There are more relentless attacks on education and health in Muslim lands than any other places in the world. When we go to our mosques we are constantly reminded that the prophet’s first revelation was IQRA---read. And we also hear the oft repeated prophetic narration that to seek knowledge, you can go as far as China. Today in Pakistan a child cannot go to his neighborhood school. Schools are constantly being blown away. A fifteen-year -old girl in a remote village in Northern Pakistan is shot in the head just because she believes in girls' education. A fifteen-year-old boy sacrificed his life so that a crazy person will not destroy his school This is sheer darkness. This is the new Jahiliya.
Education, apart from its economic benefits, enlarges the mind and provides tools for critical analysis and thinking and defines the worldview of an individual and the community of which he or she is a part. With education under siege all those elements which allow individuals and communities to blossom and flourish are missing. And that’s sheer darkness.
Intellectual freedom, which was the hallmark of our faith and which allowed us to make such significant contributions to human advancement and civilization, is dreaded upon now. Our ancestors who contributed so much in so many fields of human endeavors would have been blown to pieces by the Taliban if they had lived in today’s Pakistan.
We have become a ritualistic people, completely forgetting the ethos and spirit of who we are . We have gotten so tangled up into what Iqbal has called KHURAFAAT.We are so afraid of thinking outside the box for fear of damaging Islam, completely forgetting the divine protection of our faith .Our current communal slogan is “follow the ignorant mullah.” Ijtehad is no more a part of our religious lexicon. All the doors are closed. Please go somewhere else. This is sheer darkness.
Paralytic polio is a dreadful disease.’ It is also a very easily eradicable disease. A few years ago the World Health Organization (WHO) declared polio as a disease which could very easily be eradicated just like smallpox. Few years ago there were four countries with polio cases: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. India has successfully eradicated the malady and is no longer in that group. The three countries left are all Muslim-majority countries. In Nigeria and Pakistan polio vaccinators are being killed. Bill Gate, whose Foundation is donating 10 billion dollars for various disease-eradication programs, said the other day that in Pakistan the goal of eradicating polio by 2018 does not seem possible. Where are the oil-rich Arab and Muslim countries? Ironically, a few days after the first democratically elected Egyptian government was overthrown, Saudi Arabia gave 5 billion dollars to the military dictators. United Arab Emirate gave 2 billion dollars. What a shameful act by the guardians of Islam’s holiest places! This is sheer darkness.
It is interesting that on the third anniversary of the Arab Spring in Egypt , Hosni Mubarak’s cronies are back in power. The same Egyptians who ousted Mubarak, voted overwhelmingly for the army’s new constitution and decided to prolong their own suffering. That’s the reason masses are not being educated by the ruling classes.
Is this darkness going to last? Of course not. Dictators, emirs, and kings have to go and will go. People need awakening and that's why education is so important. We need to confront our enemies in our midst. We need to rediscover the ethos and spirit of our faith. We need to liberate ourselves from the patronage of ignorant religious leaders. It means we need to go back and learn the basics of our faith. Even among the educated the knowledge of our faith is fairly shallow. We stand at the end of the line among divinely revealed messages and in a way we are on our own. The task is stupendous but is doable.
We need to realize that a curtain of darkness has descended on the Ummah. This curtain has been there for centuries but has gotten thicker and darker in the last few decades. Fortunately we have the source of Light in our hands And we belong to a tradition of Light. This Light is our heritage and it is our destiny.
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