A Question of Islam and the West

In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Merciful

All Praise and All Thanks are for Allah (SWT) to whom we shall all return to be judged on The Last Day.

We praise Him and ask Him for help and forgiveness; and ask His protection from the mischief of our souls and the bad results of our deeds; whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide; and whom He declares misguided, none can guide to the right path; and I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah: He is Alone, without partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) is the Messenger and Servant of Allah (SWT)

As I write this I am once again in a Muslim land, surrounded by the sights and sounds that I love, among a people whose way of life and culture I respect and which I myself am part of. Yesterday I sat on the edge of the desert under the shade of a Palm tree beneath a perfect blue sky as, not far away, in the small village, the sound of the Athan could be heard. So I went to pray, and there in that simple Mosque amid my brothers, I was reminded that one of the many remarkable things about Islam in this modern world is its numinosity: the beauty, the sacredness, the intimation of the divine, which manifests itself in daily life especially through daily prayer, the recitation of the Quran, a love of the Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and a remembrance of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala).

It is this sense of the numinous that the West has almost totally lost, just as it is this sense of the numinous that is one of the great strengths of Islam in the modern world. And it is this numinosity which the kuffar are trying so hard to undermine and destroy with their evil desire to change Islam and have Muslims imitate the materialistic, dishonourable, arrogant ways of the West.

This sense of the numinous is the reality of Islam because Muslims submit only to Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) - a submission they affirm five times a day when, in prayer, they prostrate saying Subhana Rabbi-yal A'Ala. For Muslims are aware - and know and understand - that all that is given, achieved, or taken away, in this life is the result of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala), the gift of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) or a test from Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala). There is thus a genuine humility in Muslims, a humility totally lacking in posturing, arrogant, bullies like Bush the infidel and his swaggering soldiers who believe they have the right to do what they do and who use whatever force is necessary to achieve their aims, intent as they are on humiliating Muslims and having Muslims bow down to their dictates, their demands. It is through daily Salat that we Muslims are reminded of our duty to Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) and thus remember our own humble place in this life, this world, this Cosmos.

In the course of my varied life I have experienced many things, lived among many cultures - but one of the most beautiful and moving moments was while traveling in the desert, doing Salat on the hot sand while a burning Sun sweated me. It was so fitting, so perfect, so human, so simple to praise and submit to Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) there, alone, in that place - to acknowledge His Prophet and to say His words. I was complete, whole, at peace, there for everything made sense in those moments of prayer - especially my own mortality. For there, there was only me, the vast desert, the Sun, and Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) and it was easy to suspend my prideful belief in my own abilities and my own knowledge. For there - and it might have been any century since the Message of the Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) - it was quite clear that life and death were a gift from Allah and Allah alone. There, at night, I lay looking at the sky, watching the shooting stars which every ten or twenty minutes, flashed across the sky, as our own mortal lives briefly traverse the horizon which is this Earth.

I knew then that we complicate things. We seem to insist that life is not as simple as it is - that there is not a perfect peace, a perfect understanding, in such submission, in such an acknowledgement of our duty; in our giving of thanks. We complicate things by insisting on imposing our own fallible interpretations on life - by responding in an animal, and not a human, an honourable way; by giving in to our lower nature; by believing we mere mortals have the answers and have the right, even a duty, to impose our own answers, by force if necessary, upon others. We complicate things by forgetting the simple, unaffected, perspective that the desert, that Islam, brings - which is of our fragile, mortals, selves, of our Rabb. 

Life is simple, as Islam is. Islam is simply a guide to how we should live our lives in an honourable, civilized, way; a simple guide to the way which leads to the perfect eternal peace of Jannah. This simple honourable way is what the West with its arrogance, its hubris, its dishonour, its materialism, its hypocrisy, its new empire, has forgotten. Right, and laws, belong to Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) and Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) alone, just as honour is not possible without the higher perspective that an awareness of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) brings. That is, Taqwa is the beginning, the foundation, of honour just as in the Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) we have the perfect example of the honourable man - the archetypal human being, the archetypal honourable and chivalrous man: fair, courteous, just, trustworthy, brave, tolerant, honest, generous, modest and pious. 

"Indeed in the Messenger of Allah you have a perfect example to follow." [33:2 Interpretation of Meaning]

"And whosoever does not judge by what Allâh has revealed, such are the Kâfirûn." [5:44 Interpretation of meaning]

The West - and especially the leaders of the governments of the West, and their minions - have forgotten or never known the simple truth that it is Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) alone who has the understanding, the knowledge, the perfection, the wisdom to decide the things we mortals require to lead an honourable life and so achieve Jannah, and the simple truth that we Muslims must remember is that we have, in the Quran and Sunnah, the perfect, the only, guides, we need, to such a life and to Jannah: a gift as these are from our Rabb.

What have I learnt from my most recent return to Muslims lands? I have re-learnt humility, finding as I did the simple beautiful love, friendship, trust and hospitality of the Ummah, born from a striving to follow the perfect example of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). I have re-learnt that imitation of the kuffar is not a solution to the many problems that face our brothers and sisters in such lands. But most of all I have learnt that the real Islamic revolution - a return to the simple, numinous way of Quran and Sunnah - begins in the heart, in the mind, of each and every Muslim: with a simple return to total submission to Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) and Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) alone. There is then an avoiding in each and every way of imitating the kuffar.

From this return to the essence, to the simplicity of Islam, all else will InshaAllah follow - the Jihad to evict the kuffar from Muslim lands; the desire, the means, to re-establish an Islamic way of life based only on Quran and Sunnah, thus enabling us, as Muslims and through Shariah, to draw closer to Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) and His Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), thus attaining InshaAllah the success which is Jannah, the ultimate goal of our own mortal life.

Narrated Anas ibn Malik: The Prophet (salla Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) said: Use your property, your life and your tongues in striving against the Unbelievers. Abu Dawud 14, 2498

May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala forgive us for our mistakes and may He guide us to and keep us on the 
Right Path.

Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) knows best.

Abdul Aziz
29 Jumaad Al-Awal 1424