Islam Is a Movement
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
Islam is a movement.
Islam is a movement because it begins with one person – an individual – and seeks out the many: all of humanity.
And it does not rest or take a break till its message of love, peace, joy, mercy, happiness, success and goodness, and universal service to all of God’s creation, has reached everyone everywhere, in every part of the world.
Islam is a movement because it is dynamic and revolutionary. And the revolution that Islam as a movement unleashes on the world is as total and sweeping as it is the very soul and spirit of tranquility and security and beauty and decency for all.
Islam is a movement because it works with a leadership that is both capable and committed.
It is capable leadership because it has mastered the ways and affairs of Duniya – This World.
And it is committed leadership because it has decided to make success in this world an instrument of success in the Next World: Aakhirah.
It is leadership that is not artificially imposed from above, but leadership that is organically evolved from below. It is leadership that is freely elected by the People – ordinary people.
Such leadership embodies in every aspect of its life and mission and approach the Aayah Karimah of the Qur’an:
Rabbanaa Aatinaa Fid-Dunya Hasanatan,
Wa Fil Aakhirati Hasanatan,
Wa Qinaa Adhaaban-Naar!
As a result, such leadership can neither be fooled nor bought. It cannot be fooled or bamboozled because it is simply too smart and too capable and too highly skilled.
It cannot be bought or bribed because it cares more about the lasting blessings of the Next World than it cares about This World and its fleeting benefits.
As a result, no price is big enough to buy such selfless and competent and qualified leadership.
Islam is a movement because it works with a carefully crafted and tested plan. As a result, its actions are not episodic and random, but deliberately chosen and systematically choreographed.
Islam is a movement because it works with resources and finances that are fluid and dynamic and ever-flowing and self-regenerating. And those resources and funds are marshalled and mobilized with remarkable diligence and extraordinary sense of responsibility.
Islam is a movement because it invites and absorbs torrents and torrents of new blood and talent from every race, religion, ethnicity, nationality of both gender backgrounds: men as well as women.
Islam is a movement because it operates in full public glare. And it does so with the greatest sense of accountability to all those right here on earth and to all those in heaven: God Almighty and his angels.
Islam is a movement that upholds not only God’s Law that came from Heaven but also Man’s Law (using Western-Judeo-Christian language), as duly constituted human bodies and agencies craft, construct, enact and legislate that law.
Such a movement, the movement of Islam, or the Islamic movement if you want to call it that, is the bearer of God’s Will on earth. Not in any profound or mysterious theological sense, but in a very ordinary sense of doing the Right Thing, as much as humanly possible, based on widely regarded and tested human canons and norms of morality, legality, decency and civilized conduct.
In the past, this movement used to be headed by a Prophet from God, such as Ibrahim, or Moses, or Jesus, Alaihimus Salaam.
And finally, to cap it all, by Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
In later days, our own times included, ordinary people are selected by God to lead this movement.
Such new or modern leadership elements, in our own times and lands, while God’s hand selects them in Heaven, right here on earth they are elected by human hands through free and honest elections.
Islam as a movement – Islamic Movement if you will – does not have a secret plan or hidden agenda, to take over God’s world and do something terrible with it; or to convert everybody to Islam using coercion, force or duplicity and deceit; or to force its version of what many in the media call the Shari’ah Law on any society, nation or community.
The point is simple and it is obvious: If you are truly and genuinely working for God, you do not need to resort to either force or fraud.
How much more clear can it get?
God said in the Qur’an:
Laa Ikraaha Fid Deen!
Why?
Because:
Qad Tabayyanar Rushdu Minal Ghayyi!
That is to say:
Truth and untruth have become clear and distinct from each other. So, what is the point of forcing people, one way or the other?
So, let people choose freely. For, that is Islam: Freedom of Choice.
Not choice in its modern incarnation of whether to keep your baby or kill it, but in its eternal, immortal, universal and fundamental sense of whether to believe in God or not to believe in him.
Before Magna Carta.
Before the American Revolution and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Before the French Revolution and Rights of “Man.”
And before Milton, Locke, Mill, Voltaire, Paine, Jefferson, Patrick Henry and all the other modern crusaders for Liberty.
Consequently, the Qur’an sums it all up as:
Fa-man Shaa-a Fal-Yu’min,
Wa Man Shaa-a Fal-Yakfur.
That is:
“Those who wish to accept,
Let them accept;
And those who wish to reject,
Let them reject!”
The world never saw that level of clarity and that kind of precision before – or since.
And is it fair, then, to say that it is a reasonable hypothesis to argue or posit that the world got much of what it got in terms of Liberty and Human Rights, it got from Islam – Islam as a Movement or what we can call the Islamic Movement?
And yet this movement of Islam – the Islamic Movement – does not have a free ride, even as it is busily engaged in doing God’s work on God’s earth. Its entire tenure on earth is a test after test after test from Allah.
And these recurrent tests take their toll.
Every test collects its own share of booty as it were: lives lost; treasures stolen; lands ravaged; and people subjected to starvation and exile and to misery and pain of all kinds.
Wa La-Nabluwannakum Bi-Shaiyi-in Minal Khawufi,
Wal Joo’I,
Wa Naqsin Minal Amwaali,
Wal Anfusi,
Wath Thamaraat.
That is Allah speaking in the Qur’an:
We are going to test you – in all kinds of ways imaginable.
And in addition to all that, this:
“We have carefully selected, identified and marked down individuals from among you. And we are coming for them. And we are going to cull and pick them like ripe fruit.”
Wa Li-Yattakhidha Minkum Shuha-daa’.
They are God Almighty’s quota of Shaheeds – martyrs – this time around, from among you.
It is on account of the existence and working of this movement – the Movement of Islam – that the denizens of this world get their water from above and food from below.
To help such a movement, and support it, and to work hand and hand with it, is to take a direct road to Allah’s pleasure right here in this world as well as in the next world.
To oppose it and fight it is to pick a direct fight with God.
Wallahu Ghaalibun Alaa Amrihi!
“God always wins his fights.”
END
