Why Are Muslims Ineffective?
By Dr Aslam Abdullah
Fontana, CA

Every creation in its physical existence follows sophisticated, well-codified programming from its beginning to end. Nature has laws for everything to balance the universe through recycling and rejuvenating its resources. What is applied to a tree also applies to humans in their physical presence.

However, when it comes to an organized social life, humans have a choice. They do not have inbuilt ideals to organize their world. Instead, they experiment with ideas, and they adopt whatever suits them to manage their affairs.

What suits them depends on their interests, based on their ethnicity, geography, culture, religion, caste, value framework, and deity concept. For example, a higher caste Hindu community focuses on preserving its identity, rituals, and tradition regardless of others. A white supremacist community gives preference to its value system. A religious community regards its practices as genuine even if they hurt others.

This practice contrasts with an ideal that humans refer to as divine, the idea of the oneness of humanity. Ninety percent of our world believes in one of the 4,500 religions with varying concepts of God. Some comprise billions of followers and others a small number. Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism claim 70.33 adherents. Some 15.88 percent are secular or agnostics, and the rest 4,500 religions, with Buddhists and Chinese traditional faiths having 5 percent of the world population and Judaism with only .18 percent.

Catholics have sustainable religious organizations worldwide with clear rules on most aspects of life in a religious context. The Mormons and Amish are other smaller communities with a strong sense of loyalty and organization. However, among the Hindus, the Brahmans, the Upper Castes have a well-knit structure that controls all aspects of Hindu culture. For almost 5,000 years, the caste-based hierarchy contains Hinduism, and nothing, not even modern education, and democracy has punctured it. Jews subscribing to the Zionist idea of exclusive land for Jews in Palestine also make a well-organized community.

However, among Muslims, the situation is different. With main sects such as Shias, Sunnis, Ibadis, and scores of schools of thought split into subdivisions, Muslims have differing ideas on the concept of God, society, and faith. They all believe in the oneness of God and the centrality of the Qur’an and the Prophet. But they all have differences about the role of God and the Prophet. They have no consensus on the society they want to create and no planning to create that. They have no unanimity of the individual, their faith and community should prepare. Every scholar comes up with a different viewpoint that often opposes the other.

Muslim scholars use three of the standard terms: Islamic State, Nizame Mustapha, (Prophetic System), and the Medina Society. Yet, there is no consensus on defining or implementing these ideas.

Unless Muslims follow nature in determining their purpose and course of action to achieve that purpose, the situation will not change for them. But, unfortunately, it is this area that Muslims lack and continuously ignore. They have meaningless slogans and non-executable preparations.

They do not lack resources and talents. But they lack the process to utilize them in the best manner for their and others' welfare. Without clarity on the type of community and individual their faith demands, they cannot bring about any significant changes in their present or the future.