To all those who have been associated with me in this thing we call Working for Allah, for all these years, I have always maintained the following:
1. Don't forget that your first consideration should be your personal safety and physical wellbeing -- along with your family's and dependents'.
And in fact your entire society's and the whole world's.
For, you are the keeper of not only your own personal interests but also of the best interests of all of human family and the whole world.
2. Second on the list should be your own economic wellbeing and prosperity, which of course automatically means your family's and dependents'.
And in fact your entire society's and the whole world's.
How in the world do you think you will ever fulfil God's Commandment of Wa Aatuz-Zakaata, when you can't even eke out a decent living for yourself and your dependents?
And when the social, cultural and economic life and wellbeing of your community and society and the whole world is in a perpetual slide downhill, right in front of your eyes?
3. Then, when you have attended to all this, you can say comes the turn of what you so casually call "Islam," by which you usually mean "Leave It To God, It Is Not My Business Anyway!"
Or alternatively, "Me and My Rituals." Whatever that means!
4. Or you can call the whole package Islam and marvel at how God Almighty made your own health, wealth and wellbeing -- and your family's and society's and the entire world's health, wealth and wellbeing -- not only a part but the very core of your Deen.
That is right: Deen! What so many of you so foolishly and stubbornly -- following the rest of a very misguided and misinformed world -- have been calling your "Religion."
The world may have a Religion. In fact, it has many. Much of which it made up all by itself.
But you don't have a "Religion." You have a Deen. Given to you by God Almighty himself.
And Islam is, and has always been, as you know or should have known, free from the false and malicious charge -- or blemish -- of being a "Religion."
If this does not prove to you that Islam is from God -- and the Qur'an is from God -- nothing ever will.
And, also, by the way, go and check how often God Almighty, in the Qur'an, couples the commandment to give the Zakat with the commandment to establish Salat!
Then you will begin to understand what Islam is really all about. (Dr. Pasha)
