General
From Issue: 290 [Read full issue]
| Living the Quran |
Al-Nahl
(The Bees)
No doubt, all parents would like to see their children achieve success and happiness in their lives. Similarly, all sincere Muslim parents would like to see themselves and their children admitted to paradise in the hereafter. One gains no benefit in achieving success in this life and loss in the hereafter. Indeed, the correct Islamic tarbiyah obtains felicity in this life and in the hereafter. The objective of tarbiyah is to raise children with values and means that will help them to be righteous and happy. What do we mean by righteous and happy? Righteousness encompasses all great and good values. It is the embodiment of exalted moral and ethical principles, and manifests as a balanced and moderate life, reflecting positively on the individual's behaviour. Happiness, real happiness, stems from within and results from strong faith and knowledge of the purpose of existence. It is knowledge of the reality of this life, and its true value compared to the hereafter. Man's happiness comes from clearly perceiving life's meaning and understanding the human being's true mission in this life in general and his mission as a Muslim in particular. During the process of tarbiyah, these two qualities cannot be separated. The righteousness of the child will be the cause for his or her continuous happiness in this life and the hereafter. At the same time, a person's happiness demonstrates that he or she understands Islam properly, thus guaranteeing the joy of a wholesome and fruitful life. It guarantees peace of mind, body, and soul. Source: |
| Understanding the Prophet's Life |
| The Fast Car If the life of this world is an illusion, the period of greatest illusion occurs during youth. It is a period of high energy and great enthusiasm, coupled with an air of invincibility and perpetuity. Like the driver of a fast car, one may also develop a disdain for the slower cars on the highway of life. It is difficult to imagine that the car will run out of fuel and that one day the engine will wear out. For the moment though the car is fast and it can go places! For this reason there are special warnings for the youth and glad tidings for the person who uses this energy wisely. A famous hadith tells us that on the Day of Judgment no man will be able to move from his place until he answers five questions. "How did he spend his life? How did he utilize his youth? How did he earn his wealth? How did he spend it? And, how did he practice what he learnt?" [Sunan al-Tirmidhi]. While the first question asks generally about one's life pattern, the second especially focuses on the period of youth. On the other hand, the person who devoted his youth to the worship of Allah will be among the selected seven kinds of people: "There are seven people for whom Allah will provide His shade on the day when there will be no shade except His shade:
[Bukhari, Muslim]. Hence the profound advice in another famous hadith to value five things: "Youth before old age, health before sickness, wealth before poverty, free time before preoccupation, and life before death." A fast car is dangerous if it does not have strong controls. And that is where Shaitan targets the vulnerable --- by loosening the controls. It has been his time-tested trick to work through temptations and make desires look irresistible. The path of deviation looks good. It is cool. It is fun. It is endlessly entertaining. The only problem is, it leads to assured disaster. Source: |
| Blindspot |
The Resurgence of WomenThe thought and practice of Muslims have come lately to misrepresent most of the doctrinal and normative teachings of Islam on female affairs. The female is hardly ever religiously addressed except through the mediation of the male and as an addendum to him. In the fallen society of Muslims, women have little freedom to marry the person she likes, or to separate from a husband she loathes. Nor is she, as wife, entitled to full consultation and gracious companionship by her husband. In many cases she hardly enjoys an equal opportunity to earn and own property, or the full capacity to manage her property or to dispose thereof. All sorts of subterfuges are employed to deny her inheritance. Her role in private life has been reduced to that of a housewife chosen not for her personal merit, for she was denied the education or the opportunity to acquire merit, but for the merit of her men folk. In the domain of public life she is not allowed to make any original contribution to the promotion of the religious quality of life. Whenever she was allowed to work towards the material development of life that was likely to be in a context of exploitation or as mundane work with little spiritual satisfaction or significance. The greatest injustice visited upon women, is their segregation and isolation from the general society. Sometimes the slightest aspect of her public appearance would be considered a form of obscene exhibitionism. Even her voice was bracketed in the same category. Her mere presence at a place where men are also present was considered shameful promiscuity. She was confined to her home in a manner prescribed in Islam only as a penal sanction for an act of adultery. She was so isolated on the pretext that she might devote herself exclusively to the care of her children and the service of her husband. But how could she qualify for attending to domestic family affairs or to the rearing of children in a satisfactory manner without being herself versed through education or experience, in the moral and functional culture of the wider society? A revolution against the condition of women in the traditional Muslim societies is inevitable. The Islamists are urged by their own ideals to reform the traditional society and to close the gap between the fallen historical reality and the desired model of ideal Islam. This is even more urgent with respect to the present state of women. Contemporary social trends in an ever closer world require an early initiative to take the direction of change in hand before it takes its free course, when the alien trends take root and are assimilated, and it becomes too late to undertake right-guided Islamic reform. The teachings of their own religion call upon Islamists to be the right-guided leaders for the salvation of men and women, emancipating them from the shackles of history and convention, and steering their life clear of the aberrations of mutative change. Source: |
