For many people living in the Western world, religion does not play a significant part in their lives. Many people are atheists or agnostics, whose link with religion is only the nominal one of the religious tradition, such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or Islam, which they inherited from their parents at birth. This is not surprising when, in a scientific, empirical age most leading thinkers have rejected religion as any valid source of truth or guidance. Freud said that human life passes through three distinct psychological phases: superstition, religion, and science. Now, being the era of science, all religion was out of date. Marx dismissed religion as a source of thought control employed by the ruling classes, calling it the 'opium of the masses'. And, perhaps most emphatically, Nietzsche proclaimed that 'God is dead'.
Religious people are viewed as freaks, or as weak people needing the psychological crutch of an external source of guidance to determine their lives. Moreover, religious people in the West are normally expected to relegate their worship to merely private matters and not demand that any religious perspective should govern public life, This state of affairs has come about because the Western world has been undergoing a process of secularization for the past 400 years. Although Nietzsche said that 'God is dead', perhaps more poignantly he added that it is man who has killed Him.
Yet Islam offers a complete alternative. Islam is not just a religion in the narrow sense of the word, meaning only a system of faith and worship. Rather it is a complete way of life offering Divine guidance on all aspects of human existence. This includes the organization of political, economic, and social life.
Islam therefore is the focal point in most of the actions which a Muslim performs. This may seem strange to those who do not follow a religion or to those that do so only occasionally. Yet to a Muslim it is the people who do not follow religion, those who have no guidance, who are the peculiar ones. Imagine sitting next to a person on the train and asking them what stop they got on, or where they are going. What would you think if they shrugged their shoulders and said 'I don't know' or 'I don't care'? You would think they were crazy. Yet that is precisely how many people are living their lives today - unsure of where they have come from, what they are doing here, or where they are going.
And it is so sad, because they are missing out on a most beautiful life. God says in the Holy Qur'an: 'Whoever submits himself wholly to Allah (God) and is a doer of good (to others), he has grasped, indeed, the most trustworthy handle…' (31:22). A life lived according to Islam is one lived in contentment. Everybody finds external contentment in material things such as a good job, a pleasant home, and a caring family. Yet very few people can find the internal contentment, the happiness with one's own life, which everyone searches for. This is because mankind has neglected the spiritual aspect of their lives. The Holy Qur'an speaks of people '…who have hearts with which they do not understand, who have eyes with which they do not see, who have ears with which they do not hear …' (7:179). In Islam, remembrance of God leads to much sought after internal peace: 'Verily by the remembrance of Allah (God) are the hearts set at rest' (13:28). Indeed Islam literally means 'peace through submission to the will of God'.
Worship of God in Islam does not take the form of blind praise, but rather a lucid and joyful understanding of the nature of all things and their source - God. Worship is guided by a gratitude to our Creator. Existence is pure gift. Our eyes and our ears, our hands and our feet are gifts. Mountains and rivers and the blue sea are gifts, as is the air we breathe. But above all, the awareness which brings together in consciousness and enjoyment, and the power we are given to acknowledge their source and to give praise, are Divine gifts.
If you would like to comment on what is written above, please e-mail me.
|
Copyright © 1997 Afzal Merali