In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful
Islam is a Deen, not merely a religion. This means that Islam covers all aspects of life not just personal. It has laws, punishments, judicial system, foreign policy, civil rights and liberties etc. As a Muslim, it becomes our duty (by default) to make the system (Deen) of Islam dominant. This process is called Iqamat ud deen.
In order for us to do Iqamat ud deen, we have to follow the only example that is available to us of this nature and that is of Muhammad (SAW). His example, contrary to the popular opinion, is basic and not unique, only his traits and strategies were unique, his methodology is very basic and everyone must follow it to bring about a change.
It can be summed easily into six steps:
1) Issue-You can’t bring a change for the sake of change, you have to have a reason for this change. And our issue is that the rule belongs to Allah (SWT), this simple fact should be recognized that even 100% votes cannot change what Allah (SWT) has decreed. We call this TAUHEED. Tauheed must be made relevant to the issues surrounding society today otherwise it just remains as theory.
2) Organization-Those who embrace this call have to organize, they have to be coherent, and they have to have a base from which they function.
3) Training-Training is to keep the focus, strengthen the will (Iman). To create a criterion to decide from right and wrong (Knowlege). To set a standard for coherence of thought (unity) and to develop strategies as well as developing an Islamic Culture.
To sum up- We will take the example of a case being brought in a court. The first thing is the charge (the crime which to prosecute). Then you organize your team; this process is to bring about witnesses, select a jury, and decide who is on your side and who is not. Then you analyze the circumstances surrounding the issue. Are they in your favor or are they not? We have to do our homework by looking into the history of how the events have unfolded in the past. We then need to recognize who the judge is and build a relationship with them either through sympathy or apathy, separate theory from the facts etc. etc. Then you bring your case to the court. We can take this analogy in our situation as well, when we bring our charges in the court in an organized and trained method than we face the opposition, they first do character assassination (if and only if our argument is convincing and can not be combated with any intellectual response), bring a charge against us, side track us but to all that we have to stay firm and not sway. It leads us to our fourth step.
4) Passive Resistance-We have to stay firm no matter what the opposition does, we have to realize at this stage, that it is us who has brought the charge, we are not the opposition. We can not become responsive, neither politically nor physically (bullet or ballot).
5) Active Resistance-Than we have to intensify our opposition by all means possible but keeping our focus. This can only be achieved with a critical number of people and strength in thought must be attained. At this stage we become more targeted in our argument and point fingers.
6) Than you take the last step and say that “either it is Islam and Us or you have to find a permanent solution for us.”
Our mission being Iqamat ud deen, we have to address the first step, Tauheed. Tauheed, as we know is the fundamental of our deen. Our job is to convey Tauheed not just publicly but in public realm. We don’t want to present Tauheed as not an individual’s affair but rather that it is a public affair and it has ramification on collective level. This is very apparent in the Seerah of our beloved, RasulAllah (SAW). We do this by presenting Islam as a Deen and giving it a face in our society.
Islam, according to a very recent survey done by ICNA, is associated either towards negativity (1 out of 4) or towards a private religion that is shared among brown people. We, as our first step, have to change that image. We have to present Islam as a universal deen.
If we are to present an Islamic point of view on the social issues in this society, we will be killing not just two but rather three birds with a single stone.
(1) We will show that Islam addresses the social issues of this society;
(2) It will show Islam as a Deen, and not just a religion; and,
(3) Islam has a solution for the problems and WANTS to solve them (producing a positive image of Islam while sharing its divine beauty).
In order for us to achieve that we are organizing brothers and sisters to distribute flyers. We will distribute flyers every three months in prominent traffic areas in NYC and surroundings. We will pick a social issue (nothing political or economical) and give an Islamic response in no more than 500 words. We will invite public to participate in discussions on our online forum, which will slowly progress the discussion towards Tauheed. We can post follow up articles and direct public towards Islam and Quran.
This requires great amount of research and organization. We have divided our work into following four segments;
(1)Research-Individual will take up a topic and research it thoroughly. (Guidelines will be provided)
(2)Organization-follow ups, arrangements for the discussion board
(3)Training-Our work has to lead us to deeper conviction as well as has to become the means of purification.
(4)Work-Actual distribution of flyer has to be carried out with effectiveness. We want a response of 2.5% to come and post on the online forum.
Right now we are only seeking brothers and sisters who can
carry out the research and be able to commit to it. We need cooperation, but those who join
cannot afford to adhere to any other ideology other than Iqamat ud deen. They have to commit their lives to becoming
students of knowledge while strugling their utmost to
perform this noble task, Iqamat ud deen.
Research Guidelines
In the name of Allah, most Gracious and most Merciful
Our biggest strength will be our Research, InshAllah, but it will be simple at the same time. Basically what each one of us has to do is read as much material from as many diverse sources as possible, if you come across any good points just note them down and include the original article, book (name and author). You should definitely search the archives of the magazines and newspapers or use the resources available (thesis or other material) at the college libraries. At the same time gather the ahadith and tafaseer on the ayahs related to the issue.
There will be a team just to write the flyer and their job will be to condense all the information into one strong cohesive discourse.
That’s basically all we are seeking right now. List of Topics that are available is listed below.
We are seeking to finish the research by
List of Topics
Please put your name next to the topic you want to commit to.
Alcoholism ---Mehboob
Pornography ---Ruman
Drugs --- Yaser
Respect of Parents ---Nadeem
Enviornment ________________________
Domestic Violence _____________________
Orphans/Illegitmate Children __________________
Juvenile Deliquency ---Syed
ImranUllah