INSTITUTIONS FOR COHESION
AND STRENGTH
Islam provides the institutions, the framework
and the guidelines for realizing the cohesion and strength of the ummah. We have mentioned Da’wah
in this context as the first instrument to bring back or call people to Islam.
Da’wah literally means
invitation. It does not mean coercion or force. It means calling people to
Islam ‘with wisdom and kindly exhortation’. Even when the Prophet Moses was
asked by God to meet Pharaoh, he was told to speak to him in ‘gentle words’ and
hold out the hope of reform to him.
Da’wah is normally taken to
mean preaching Islam to non-Muslims. But da’wah in
fact applies to Muslims as well. Da’wah to Muslims is
a call for reform (islaah) and renewal (tajdid). It applies to your own
family and relatives, or even the congregation in a mosque. Here da’wah takes the form of reminding, clarifying and elucidating
the teaching of Islam. It does not require you to be angry and engage in
dispute and confrontation. It requires wisdom and gentleness.
Da’wah does not only mean
preaching. It means helping to look after people’s needs and caring for them.
You cannot call people to believe in God when they are starving and dying. Your
first duty then is to provide food. You cannot call people to Salaat if they do not have clean water to wash and clean
clothes in which to pray. You cannot ask people to study the Qur’an and the Sunnah if they do
not know how to read. Your first duty then is to teach them to read. You cannot
ask people to undertake jihad when they are sick and debilitated by disease.
Your first duty is to provide medical care and attention.
Da’wah then involves the
provision of basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter, education and health
care. There are millions who belong to the Muslim ummah
who do not have or are denied these basic needs. These needs should be provided
from resources within the ummah. The fact that they
are often provided by others exposes the ummah to
humiliation, loss and infiltration. (top)
This leads to consideration of another important
instrument for protecting the interests of the Ummah
and of mankind – jihad.
Jihaad basically means striving
and refers to the unceasing effort an individual must make towards
self-improvement and self-purification. It also refers to the duty on Muslims,
at both the individual and collective level, to struggle against all forms of
evil, corruption, injustice, tyranny and oppression whether this injustice is
committed against Muslims or non-Muslims.
Jihaad is to promote justice.
This cannot be done without strength and power. Notions of
equity without power to enforce it has no practical value. A Muslim,
according to the well-known saying of the Prophet, has the duty to try to put
down an evil with his hand, that is, with physical force. If he cannot do so,
then he should at least hate it in his heart – this last represents the weakest
manifestation of faith.
Muslims are not permitted to allow themselves or
others to become or remain the passive victims of others’ injustice or
aggression. It is not natural that people should accept humiliation and so:
‘Permission (to fight) is given to those against
whom war is wrongfully waged, and verify God has indeed the power to succor
them: those who have been driven from their homelands against all right for no
other reason than their saying, ‘Our Lord and Sustainer is God’.
For, if God had not enabled people to defend
themselves against one another, (all) monasteries and churches and synagogues
and mosques – in all of which God’s name is abundantly extolled – would surely
have been destroyed. And God will most certainly succor him who succors His
cause, for verily God is most Powerful, Almighty, (well aware of) those who
(even) if We firmly establish them on earth, remain constant in Prayer, and
give in charity, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of
what is wrong. And with God rests the final outcome of all events’(
The above verses imply that the defense of
religious freedom is the foremost just cause for which arms may and indeed must
be taken up, otherwise according to another verse ‘corruption would surely
overwhelm the earth’.
Linked with advice of the noble Prophet quoted
above, we can see that the Muslim is thus not only required to give assistance
to the victim of tyranny but to stop the one who is committing it in order to
bring about the rule of righteousness, freedom and justice for all people.
Islam itself signifies peace and the relationship
between the Islamic state with other peaceful states
is devoted to the exchange of knowledge and the furtherance of mutual benefits.
With aggressive powers, the duty of the Islamic
state is:
1. To repel
hostility by all peaceful means if possible: ‘And if they incline towards
peace, incline also to it’ (8: 61)
2. If peaceful
means do not succeed, war becomes obligatory: ‘If anyone makes war on you, make
war upon him in like manner’ (2: 194)
3. The state
may conclude peace only after
aggression has been repelled: ‘And fight them until oppression
ceases and all religion is for God along. But if they desist then let there be
no enmity except against the wrongdoers’ (2: 193)
War is thus justified only as a means of
upholding the right and repulsing the wrong and not the sake of greed or false
pride. This is meaning of Jihaad ‘in the way of God’.
Islam has specified laws for the conduct of war. Fore
example, these were the instruction of Abuu Bakr, the first Khalifah after
the Prophet, to a Muslim army:
‘Do not be harsh on them, do not kill children,
old men or women; do not cut down or burn palm trees, do not destroy furit trees, do not slay a sheep or camel except for food.
If you see people who have taken refuge in monasteries, let them be safe in
their place of refuge’.
In these instructions, we see the spirit of Islam
which abhors aggression, destruction and bloodshed and enjoins justice, mercy
and tolerance.
Islam demands for the sake of self-defense and
the ensuring of peace that the Muslim ummah and those
societies which make up the ummah must be strong
enough so that no aggressor would ever be tempted to attack and that they
should never be taken unaware by treacherous moves.
All Muslims, including scholars and people in
positions of responsibility and leadership in the Muslim world, are faced with
the great and awesome challenge of promoting and protecting the unity, strength
and integrity of the ummah and of assuming, for the
benefit of mankind, the moral leadership of the world. (top)