HIJACKED

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/06/27/hijacked/

Sahih Bukhari quotes the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) as saying: ‘Make things easy for people, and do not make them difficult. Cheer people up and do not drive them away.’

It is strange then, that most of those who have a voice in the matter of religion and how it pertains to life consider there is something wrong with it if religion is simplified and made easy to understand, or if it fails to make life difficult for it followers. They like to surround religion by mystique and an aura of exclusivity so that not only are they alone supposed to know what is right and what is not, but disagreeing with them is considered to be tantamount to blasphemy.

Needless to say, there are many exceptions. Mercifully.

There is of course the fact that knowledge is power. The Church in medieval times wielded huge power over its people, investing heavily in the perception that it was the gatekeeper to paradise. “Cross them in any way, shape or form, and you could yourself barred from the gates of paradise.” Nobody, neither a peasant nor a king, was able to pluck up courage, or sufficient power to oppose them.

The clergy was not given a huge role in Islam, perhaps because it tends to be this way. Few groups, after all, would not grab at such a ‘heaven sent’ opportunity for power if presented with it, and the clergy is not above it.  And yet we have it, a clergy.

And by this clergy, religion is presented as approving of acts analogous to putting pebbles in one’s shoe and self-flagellation, but the hardest to understand is the largely prevalent belief in unquestioning obedience without any attempt at understanding. Anyone who raises a voice of reason, anyone who believes in education, who attempts to teach along the principles of logic, is made to leave. The recent dismissals from educational institutions of great minds and rational individuals show this, and such cases are increasing. To deprive our young from exposure to such minds is a loss that will not be easily overridden.

If anything has brought Pakistan to the brink of where it is, it is this – more than corruption, more than the failures of its political regimes.

The fact is even more evident today in the way authorities appear powerless to implement their own rules. The way now, when distancing is so crucial in preventing the spread of covid-19, they were induced to resume congregational prayers. While some mosques are said to be adhering to SOPs, not all of them are, but they carry on. It is understandable that it is hard to impose a lockdown on commercial activity. But on prayer, when it can as well take place at home, what coercion is used unless it is that not to pray in a mosque is made out to be a sin?

This of course appears to have taken place in Saudi Arabia as well where, following a statement saying that Haj would not take place this year. authorities appear to have changed tack and allowed a limited number of persons to perform the pilgrimage. It is a surprise to find that far from considering it wrong to put fellow humans at risk God apparently approves of it.

And so we have witnessed a massive funeral for a respected religious scholar in Karachi, who died this month. The funeral was attended by many scholars, and thousands of the scholar’s students, in this time of covid-19.

Allah says in the Holy Quran: “If anyone saves a single life, it is as if he has saved all of humanity.”

If this injunction is followed to its logical conclusion, what of those who endanger many lives?  Which taking part in that massive congregational event has certainly done.

We need to learn more about what has been taught by the great Prophet of Islam (PBUH), to understand the religion better, for which we need discourse both verbal and in print. Yet this month in Sindh, the provincial assembly ‘unanimously adopted a resolution’ asking to make it mandatory to write “Khatim-un-nabiyyeen (last prophet)” along with the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ‘wherever the holy name is used, in official documents, newspapers, magazines, television, radio and wherever this holy name was used.’ This measure hampers discourse, not the other way around. There is also the fact that there are non-Muslims in this country whose beliefs are protected by the Constitution. Why should they say any such thing, in exactly the same way as a Muslim would not wish to speak of Jesus the son of God in a Christian country? In which case, are only Muslims permitted to speak of the Holy Prophet of Islam (PBUH) in Pakistan?

It is not pleasant to find something so precious hijacked towards an unsavoury destination, but it has been. May God bring us back to the straight path. Who dares say that that is not expected in Islam?