Islamic Social Change
This is what is called social change at its best – a most amazing and thoroughgoing social change. Islamic social change if you ask me.
Call it development if you will. Or call it a quick course in modernity. For, that is what it is: social change, development and modernity, all rolled into one, each at its best. The way Islam first introduced the core of these ideas in the world and the way Islam is waiting and working to make these things happen again.
And that is precisely what Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, accomplished in this world during his own lifetime. And he did it all in about 20 years or less. Social change, development and modernity are all boons and blessings that he and his followers – Companions he called them – conferred upon this world.
And don’t forget to include globalization in that list. We invented this entire family of concepts and words, the whole vocabulary of bien etre on earth, not just for you and your tribe, nation or country, often at the expense of all the others, as most other people like to do things, but for all of humanity: for everyone everywhere. For your people, whoever they may be and for our people whoever they may be.
That is the good thing about Islam: it is good news for all. Not just for this or that group, but for everyone everywhere.
Tell me you have a better model, a better plan, a better idea than that.
As Muslims, that is who we were when we started this game of Islam on earth 1400 years ago. That is who we want to be again, over and over again, for as long as this world lasts. We want to be the agents of the best kind of social change this world has ever seen or can possibly ever see for as wide a gamut of humanity as possible.
Don’t forget that when applied to Islam, Muslims and the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, all of these expressions must be taken in their very best sense and in their most benign and noble connotations and not as fig leaves to mask exploitation of man by man or to camouflage domination of people over people.
And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, ushered in this unprecedented era of the most comprehensive and inclusive social change with no schools, colleges, universities, television, radio, newspapers or the Internet being available to him. And he did it without standing armies or teeming treasures and resources at his disposal. While all of what he did was a miracle from God, at the same time, all of what he did was also as completely human as possible. Everything was being done right in front of everyone’s eyes and in the most natural way.
That is what is so amazing and so great about this amazing social change that Islam produced under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. On the one hand, it is all divine and miraculous. On the other hand, it is all human and natural. Divine or human, it is by far the best and the most complete that this world has ever seen or can ever see.
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, produced this unprecedented and thoroughgoing social change by using the Qur’an to give the people of his time the best character and the best education possible. He said it was a mission for the accomplishment of which he was sent into this world.
In doing this, he made these people the best they could be, able to rise to every occasion and challenge and capable of doing anything and everything. They were the best and the greatest generation of humans this world has ever seen. They were the finest flowering of humanity on earth during, before or since their time.
And thus Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam guaranteed a better life for them – what the Qur’an calls Hayaat Tayyibah – in every conceivable way, both in this world as well as in the next world.
And for the rest of humanity as well.
That is the kind of social change Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam produced using the Qur’an as his master-plan – in less than 20 years. And that is the kind of social change that needs to be produced now by changing the character and education of Muslims – and the rest of the world. For, that is the kind of social change the world is waiting for – the Muslim world as well as the non-Muslim world.
How Could the Rest of the World Not Join This Caravan?
How could then the rest of the world not join such a group of people?
Or how could any enemy defeat such a people or put them to flight in combat or destroy them?
And that is exactly what happened: people joined and followed them in wave upon wave – Afwaajaa. And those who out of their arrogance or greed picked a fight with them without just cause or reason were pushed back and made to change their ways. They were reduced to dust on the pathways of history.
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam did all this using the two-fold strategy of character transformation and educational reform and restructuring. Using this strategy, he changed a nation starting out with the Arabian Peninsula and he changed the world.
We can do no less.
Or we can’t and shouldn’t be called Muslims. For, Muslims without character is an oxymoron just as Muslims without education is also an oxymoron and anomaly. These are contradictions in terms. And yet, unbelievable as it may sound, that is precisely what we have happening today: Muslims with flawed and questionable character and Muslims with no education worth the name.
“Does Not Compute!” some may say.
So, that is the short answer to the question how to change the condition of Muslims in India and everywhere else: We need to change Muslim education and we need to change Muslim character.
(1) Ta’aleem.
(2) Tazkiyah.
Right now Muslims have neither. So, we need to start at the ground level and build the whole edifice up one brick at a time.
Let us now go to the long answer. To the details of what we mean by education and character and let us see how we can go about making them both happen in Muslim lives in our beautiful and beloved India – and all over our beautiful and beloved world that Allah made for us and placed at our disposal.
