Homeschooling: Why and How!

Blasphemy And The Ban on Facebook

Akhtar Sheerani, the poet, is said to be once in a very drunken state and was shouting profanities at everyone present or anyone mentioned. He was in such a drunken state that he probably could hardly tell what he was saying and about whom. It was in such a state that someone around him casually mentioned the name of RasooluLLAH (saw). At this the poet was suddenly outraged, he presumably threw something on the culprit who had mentioned the name and shouted, “do you want to deprive me of the only support I have?”

Ghazi Ilam din’s story isn’t different either; he was the men who killed the blasphemer who was all but set to be free by the law. It is said that when he was told that to have a strong case in the court and to avoid punishment he should deny the incident. And he said, amazed by the ignorance of his educated advisors, “this is the only thing worthwhile I’ve done my entire life, how can I deny this?”

Those, my dear readers, are the responses of two Muslims not known as very practicing ones, but they depict the truest picture of Muslims in general. Muslims may be adulterers, drunkards, usurers and downright sinners, but they can never ever withstand blasphemy against RasooluLLAH (saw). In fact, it’s been witnessed that the lesser a person weighs in practice, the more pronounced are his or her reactions. This is one thing the enemies of Islam have never been able to understand. For ages, centuries in fact, they’ve silently, clinically corrupted our thought process, our intellectual assets, manipulated our intellect from within and outside us. Imposing upon us pseudo-intellectuals who couldn’t tell one set of Hadith from another. But to see if their efforts have been fruitful, they have to run tests. The seemingly disconnected, sporadic incidents of blasphemy are in fact absolutely connected. They are to check if Muslims have left any amount of Ghairat left in them, and probably to their surprise, Muslims are down, but not out.

There are, however, some others who assume an apologetic role towards Islam as if they’ve been trusted with the burden of introducing Islam to the west. They want to picture Islam as a religion of timid, toothless followers who can’t protect their sacred heritage. They’ll never stop mentioning Hudaibiyah on the premise that RasooluLLAH (saw) accepted seemingly belittling terms set by the enemy for peace to prevail. They either don’t know or feign ignorance that when this same pact was broken by the hawks of Makkah two years later, Abu Sufiyan (ra) had rushed to Madina seeking its reinstatement and it wasn’t granted, setting the precursor to Fath e Makkah. Or they’ll mention that no one was to be harmed on the day of Fath e Makkah, only to forget that there was still a black list of men and women who were to be executed even if they were to found behind the veil of Kaaba. They’ll mention the days of Taif when Kuffar used to shout and tease RasooluLLAH (saw) him physically as well as verbally, wheras RasooluLLAH (saw) prayed for them. These apologists forget that when in Madina, he had ordered the execution of Ka’ab bin Ashraf and Abu Rafa, known blasphemers who were sensationally executed in their own dens by Hazrat Muhammad ibn Muslamah (ra) and AbduLLAH ibn Ateek (ra) respectively along with their teams (ra). These are only two of the many instances in which blasphemers were executed. There are other instances when Sahaba (ra) acted on their own and RasooluLLAH (saw) appreciated the actions.

I can understand where these apologetic stances come from, for I used to think the same. The soft image, the moderate type. Unfortunately, that’s what we’ve been fed at schools. That Muslims were always on the defensive, whatever they did was for defending themselves and any and all aggressions were done by the Kuffars. Trust me, when one reads the authentic Seerah books, it is revealed that RasooluLLAH (saw) was always many steps ahead of the enemy, creating opportunities to terrorize them, preempting the attacks in many instances, and employing battle strategies unknown even to the war mongering tribals. We must understand that there’s neither peace nor war in Islam. The goal is to implement the politico-socio-economic system of Islam to the point of making it dominant over all other systems, as mentioned in Surah Saff, Surah Tauba and Surah Fath. If that’s achieved by implementing peace, well and good, but if war’s the solution then so be it.

Coming back to the topic, one of the most striking things in the black list of Fath e Makkah were the names of two slavegirls of Abu Lahb and ibn Khatl. Scholars have called this fact extraordinary because they were woman, non combatant, and on top of that, slaves. Their crime was that they sang improper songs towards RasooluLLAH (saw), which was enough for their executions. On the other hand, Handh, the lady who had desecrated the corpse of Hazrat Hamza (ra) was given amnesty. So it can be safely said that blasphemy is a sin of higher degree.

In this context, when we look at the bans on Facebook and many others, it shouldn’t surprise us. As stated earlier, Muslims can be misguided, but they can’t compromise the respect of RasooluLLAH (saw). As of this point, many have deactivated their facebook accounts, many couldn’t because the site’s already inaccessible. Along with that, sites like youtube, flickr, and wikipedia have also been banned. A surprise, probably erroneous inclusion was that of blackberry services, but other than that, there’s hardly anything that people miss. It’s correct that these sites were the best in their respective domains, but they weren’t the only ones. Already traffic is turning to other sites; it’s a free world isn’t it? It may be argued that only the page could be banned but the administration hasn’t leant a listening ear to those reporting the abusive page, therefore, at least a temporary ban isn’t going to cause anyone to miss much, despite the site’s usability to proclaim the dawah to acquaintances in a shorter and user friendly way. Banning them is hardly a ban on expression; this is symbolic of our outrage against their apathy towards our feelings.

But the fact remains that such blasphemies are becoming more and more in number and Muslims’ responses are becoming much tamer. In an unbiased view, Muslims have brought it upon themselves. They’ve relinquished the Sunnah and mostly only recognize rituals and are comfortable doing them. So much so that in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, almost every ruler has fought vociferously against the abrogation of Riba. Even when the case against Riba was all but won, they found a way to claw back and reversed the decisions with ugly politics. Most of the educated elite are fans of Musharraf thinking he brought liquidity to the economy, whereas he brought more liquid than liquidity to the country, liquor is a commodity freely available these days, thanks to the “abstinent hermit” known as Pervez Musharraf.. 

There’s not a single globally recognized inch in the whole world where Islam is acted upon as the deen. We see it being practiced everywhere as individual Madhab. It’s the fastest growing religion of the world, but as a system, it’s totally dominated. That’s absolutely the responsibility of Muslims who have accepted secondary citizenship and are happy practicing Islam in their lives in whatever limited way they can. It is in this pretext that these blasphemies are done. They check the ferocity of the responses, and go back to the drawing board with a new strategy. They’re supposedly to continue unless they feel the responses are now very timid and then they’ll launch phase II.

Lastly, there’s hardly such a thing as harmless humor in media. Entities like Southpark, The Daily Show and political caricatures will always demean one end of the society to make the other laugh. So when we’re laughing on such things we should understand that such a person doesn’t respect limits and can as well make fun of things we hold sacred.

I hope and pray to ALLAH (swt) that we gather the strength to obliterate all such people who dare point even a finger at our beloved RasooluLLAH (saw).

Pakistani ExPats are ashamed but not for reasons they should be!

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”, so said the same Joseph Goebbels who’s linked to the famous quote “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”.

Despite West’s claim of despising the Nazis, they’ve fondly adopted the standards set by Hitler’s propaganda machine, and they’ve improved it to near perfection. Over the course of the last decade, the western media have trumpeted with untiring consistency a claim that has now taken its root in the minds of not only the general public in the west, but also the victims of that claim!

The claim? “Muslims are terrorists”… Ok not all Muslims are terrorists, but those that we call are definitely them, so say the west. This lie has been repeated with such focused concentration and in so many different formats and versions – through movies, news, novels, social media- that it is now accepted as fact. So much so that whenever a new terrorism incident takes place, Muslims, especially Pakistanis, are the first to condemn it and after finding out the accused was indeed a Muslim brother or sister, start alienating him from the global Muslim brotherhood. In essence, before the trial is even begun, the accused is convicted by his own people and actual case proceedings remain only a formality!

This behavior is most evident in the recent case of Faisal Shahzad, the Time Square bombing “suspect”. Ever since it was reported that he could be the major hand in plotting probably the biggest car bomb in recent history, internet was exploded with apologies from Pakistanis across the globe. Pakistan’s most watched channel was angry that this person has brought shame to the entire Pakistani nation and his own family. Most of the blogs and their commenters rued the fact that he threw away his carefully built “American Dream” just like that. Pakistani ex-patriots feared even more strict vigilance over them, while believing this “fanatic should be jailed for life”. All in all, their verdict is, guilty as charged!

However, one felt there’s something missing from this whole story, the other side of course! Even though Faisal Shahzad can now boast a wikipedia page , that’s probably not for reasons he’d have liked himself. That page is full of stories mentioning different facets of the case- some claiming he dumped his documents in the home he had abandoned quite a while ago- but they didn’t, even for a single line, give a piece of what Faisal Shahzad says. It’s totally one sided. And to put it mildly, that stinks! But somehow this fact is missed by all involved. There has been absolutely no access to him by our government or by other Pakistani coummunity members, at least not publicly available.

The report that his documents were found from his “abandoned” house is so ridiculous that it shouldn’t have made it to the press in the first place. What would a person, allegedly looking to bomb his way into FBI’s most wanted list, be doing in his old house is beyond logic and beats a level headed reader. Other claims are that he had gone to his birthplace Peshawar on his recent visit ; started wearing all blacks and remaining serious while stealthily walking across his backyard, that’s neighbor’s reports, he was seen posing on Times Square was also a claim. That his documents had cards from someone wishing him well were also pertinent for some reports. Huffington post even attempted to sneak into his Facebook profile only to put the blame on another Faisal Shahzad. Such is the state of electronic media and citizen blogs. Whatever happened in Pakistan is another matter.

When I asked a few Ex-Patriots, their opinion was that it’s an open and shut case – he plotted a crime, failed, got arrested, gave up his rights and admitted! I was amazed, appalled really to see how much faith they have in “their” media and government is saying, otherwise any Pakistani knows how people can be made to confess under duress. Besides, in most laws, confessions under custody weigh nothing unless they’re given in front of legal authority. If an accused declines to testify on his confession it may be called a mistrial.

I invite you to put yourself in Faisal’s shoes. You’re an average Pakistani living in the US trying to consolidate your career there. You’re very apprehensive of any indication of extremism from any of your acquaintances. You try to live by the sidelines. You’re boarding a flight to Pakistan; suddenly you get arrested, finding you’re on TV across the world. Authorities give you two choices, confess the crimes handed to you and face some years in Guantanamo Bay Prison or get ready for trial find yourself guilty as charged and still go to Gitmo facing life sentence. You’ve heard of water boarding, you’ve heard of electric shocks, you’ve heard of stories of blood hounds in Abu ghuraib jail. You’re an innocuous, in fact scared, person. You’re left with no choice but to admit the crimes which you didn’t hear before that day. Under duress, any scared person would do what he did.

For most people my theory would seem laughable but Dr Shirin Mazari also smells a rat in this whole story. I don’t trust American justice system and for good reason. It’s discriminatory! It has been discriminating on grounds of race, religion and color. This is not a matter of today, it’s been happening since the first day an Italian set foot on this soil. America bombs more Pakistani civilians daily in drone attacks then it has lost soldiers in Afghanistan. Pakistani blood, Muslim blood is so cheap that even thousand Muslims don’t equate an American life. Is that justice? My apologies to US lovers but any country who had laws legalizing lynching only 50 years ago and has killed more people than Hitler and Halaku combined has to do a lot more than just lip service to gain Muslim’s confidence.

Lastly, Pakistanis living in America shouldn’t be ashamed of Faisal. They should be ashamed of themselves. Their brothers and sisters, fellow compatriots are facing one-sided trials in front of their own eyes. Faisal Shahzad and Dr Afia are only two of hundreds detained in Gitmo without proper trials. Still, Pakistanis in general are happy to live their lives with the convenience of their families, fearing any voice against these cases might land them into trouble. What’s shameful is this behavior, not getting framed by corrupt authorities. It’s their pathetic submission to this unjust system that has led the Americans to believe that all Pakistanis would give up their rights if paid enough. They’re feeling shame alright, but one feels it’s for all the wrong reasons!

Ustad e Muhtaram ki Yaad main

Inqilab!

Rationale for Islamic way of life (As I have understood)

There are more than a billion Muslims in the world, almost 2/3 of them offer prayers (during ramadan it’s almost 3/4), Saudia is inundated with pilgrims during Hajj, Eid shoppers crowd the markets, every mosque is overflowing during Friday prayers; yet we’re divided, dismantled, disintegrated, and most shamefully, dominated! Still our behaviour is masochistic to say the least. The west can step over our values any time they want and all we do is ignore. The very west that’s dominating us in our lives, is the place we all want to go. We look up to them to cure us from the ailments they’ve caused. Yeah right, you’ve heard all this before!

My question has lately been, what is it that we should be doing as Muslims to be respected. One thing is clear, no matter how much we try to become “them”, we can’t become “them”, they won’t accept us as one of theirs and rightly so.

Let me confess, this questions came to my mind only after I started listening to dars-e-quran of a contemporary scholar. It was different from other Moulvis bcuz it first created those questions in my mind, and then led to the answers so logically that everything started to fall into place.

First reaction was, if we want to be respected in life, then the only way we can do that is to become ardent followers of Quran. Whatever Quran says, we follow.

Second reaction, since RasooluLLAH brought the Quran, and since he was Saadiq and Ameen, we should trust him that he(S.A.W.) described and acted upon the Quran in the best and most easily understandable manner as possible. So if we follow the Sunnah, we’ll do exactly what Quran wants us to do.

Still, my mind, like the minds of many others, kept asking. There should be a logic behind this. All the rituals, practices, prohibitions, allowances, should have a logical outcome, because Islam is a very practical religion, at least as is told. On one hand, it stops from adultery, fornication, gambling, meaningless activities, and on the other hand orders to do things in a certain way, follow a certain code, do this, don’t do that. This should all lead up to a grander cause than just creating mindless followers.

The reason, as far as I’ve understood, is in this verse of the Quran.

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“It is He Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion: and enough is Allah for a Witness.”

Islam was destined to dominate. Muhammad RasooluLLAH’s (S.A.W.) mission was not only to proclaim the message of ALLAH(SWT), but also to upend the prevalent politico-socio-economic system. And as we all know, systems don’t give way all too easily. It needs sacrifices, sacrifices need volunteers, and volunteers should be totally committed to the cause instead of walking the fringes.

For a cause as high as this, the quality of volunteers can’t be compromised. Young volunteers should be thoroughbred, totally developed in an environment in which they breathe not air, but their mission. That environment can be provided by parents who are sincere to each other and trust each other, and follow the Quran themselves. Hence the ban on adultery, and the strict rule of Hijab. The ban on gambling and other meaningless activities was because they dilute the focus away from the mission and, being the footsteps of satan, will lead them away from the correct path. Ban on liquor because a man not in his senses can do all of these banned activities. I hope you’re following me.

It generally takes 20-25 years for a generation to grow. The span between the day the first Wahi arrived, and the day RasooluLLAH(SAW) departed this world, is 23 years. A whole generation grew up with this value system circulating in their blood. They did what the Quran told, but not mindlessly, the wisdom of Sahaba is well known. The way Islam spread even after RasooluLLAH’s (S.A.W.) departure from this world, is enough to prove that their focus wasn’t lost, they believed in ALLAH (SWT), RasooluLLAH (SAW), Quran and their mission. And whenever there will be a “successful” effort to uproot the zionist systems, it can be this way and only this way.

The reason I’ve been repeating the word standardization and discipline, is that as much as belief causes action, actions cause beliefs as well. Someone asked me earlier whether it’ll be realistic to say so. I believe yes it will. Most people only “think” they need a reason to act upon something, whereas in effect they’re themselves doing a lot of things just because the other guy’s doing it. Most of us justify our actions “after” we act. Some people could be the exceptions that prove the rule. I’ve come to believe very firmly that Muslims will soar to greater heights they once reached, there are clear Hadith that predict these. ALLAH (SWT) will get His work done no matter what. If someone works in that way, it’s going to benefit himself only, no one has any might to harm or favor ALLAH (SWT)… And it’s mentioned in the Quran (I miss the reference again, sorry), that if we won’t do the job we’re supposed to do, then we’ll be wiped off the face of the earth and be replaced by a nascent, alive nation.

Diagnosis and treatment? This couplet of Iqbal from Jawab-e-Shikwa has both.
Wo Muazziz thay zamanay main musalman ho karAur tum khwar huay taarik-e-Quran ho kar(They were Muslims, and they were dignified, You abandoned Quran, so you’ve been abandoned)(Iqbal)

If we say that the people currently preaching Islam are not doing it correctly, then we must do it! And if we think someone is doing it right then we must go all out and support him. All we need to do is to learn the Quran, with sincerity, not seeking conspiracy. And the same way we look for the best teacher available for our studies, we should look for teachers of this knowledge as well. The world, and Pakistan, must still have good, practicing scholars, otherwise we’d have been obliterated by now and replaced.

ALLAH (SWT) knows best!