What Is It We Really, Really Want?
Let Us Try It One More Time,
And See If We Get It Right This Time!
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time.
Trying to Take the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And Which One Does Not?)
Islam means Peace and Justice and Truth. For all of Allah's Creation in all forms.
And that means giving everyone of God's Creatures their Rights. And treating them all fairly, justly, equitably.
Opposite of this is Zulm. In English, the best you can do is Tyranny. Mental, physical and in all other forms.
That is why Thomas Jefferson, though not a Muslim, declared:
"I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal Hostility
to all forms of Tyranny over the mind of man."
And that is Islam in a nutshell: Eternal Hostility to All Forms of Tyranny -- Physical, Mental, and in all other forms.
So, what do we want? Why do we do what we do? And do it the way we do?
One simple thing: We work tirelessly to make Justice, Truth, Compassion, Kindness, Equality and Dignity prevail on earth for all human beings, regardless of their race, religion, nationality, gender or any other marker of difference.
Pasha Hour International, books, lectures so-called, special sessions, and a host of other things we do in the name of Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It, what is it we are trying to do and what exactly is it that we are trying to achieve?
Simple!
Our goal as Muslims is to be the Best Managers of Allah's Earth that we can possibly be. And that means to make Truth and Justice prevail on earth for All People.
That is Islam 101, as Americans would say.
Allah created us for that purpose. And he set us down on this earth for that purpose.
And he gave us everything we need, and everything we have, for that purpose. Our health, wealth, education, family, jobs, houses, businesses, and everything else.
Islam, therefore, means accepting that Mandate from God and proceeding full steam ahead to accomplish its purposes.
There are no substitutes for this work. Understand that clearly.
Islam also means the formula or the law or the system that God supplied us by which Allah's Earth could be managed in the best possible way, to the benefit of all of God's Creation that lives on God's Earth.
So, it is clear that God's Earth can be best managed only when human beings use God's Formula of Islam for managing it.
Kufr means rejecting that Divine Mandate and that Divine Formula and then proceeding to manage God's Earth using all kinds of formulas and rules and regulations and philosophies and ideologies other than Islam.
It never works. I mean Kufr as a way of living life on earth, and as a way of managing God's Earth, can never work.
Kufr can never deliver the noble purposes and goals people expect from it. Such as Peace, Social Justice, Human Equality, Truth, Justice, Love, Fairness, Equity, Just and Fair and Equal Treatment of All Human Beings, and so many other great and wonderful things of that nature without which God's Earth can never turn into the kind of Earthly Paradise which it was meant to be.
And to create which God commissioned the Human Race, when he declared Innee Jaa-'ilun Fil Ardi Khalifah.
Yes, Kufr can still deliver benefits, but only piecemeal. And only on temporary and fleeting basis. And, get this, only to selected groups and individuals. And not to everybody.
Under the System of Kufr, Justice and Prosperity and Abundance can still happen. But only to "Your People." And not to the "Other People."
And certainly not to All People.
So also, with regard to all the other Virtues that human societies seek and need.
That is because Kufr divides people into Us and Them, Me and You, Mine and Yours. And gives all good things to Your Own Kind and Your Own People, People of Your Own Race or Religion or Country, and denies them to those perceived as "The Other People." People outside your own fold.
And Kufr frequently steals from "Other People" to give to "Our People."
And this method of treating people unequally and unfairly and unjustly, and robbing one set of people, "The Other People," to give to another set of people, "Your People," is called Zulm.
And Zulm is the choice methodology of Kufr. Zulm means oppression and tyranny.
And Zulm is the exact opposite of Islam. And the purpose of Islam is to replace Zulm with Adl: Justice! And to make God Almighty's Earth free from Zulm.
And Allah does not like Zulm or Zaalim, those who commit Zulm. People should go and check out -- and actually count -- how many times Allah mentions Zulm and Zaalim in the Qur'an.
Allah says: Innallaha La Yuhibbuz-Zaalimeen: Allah does not like Zaalims at all.
But in the English language, there is no exact cognate or equivalent for the Arabic expression Zulm.
As anyone with any kind of a brain in their head can see, this precisely is what is wrong with the world today.
Zulm, Zulm, Zulm!
Individuals, people, nations, societies and countries trying rob and steal from each other. And plundering each other. And defrauding each other. And then beating each other up. And subjecting each other to all forms of tyranny and abuse and oppression and injustice and cruelty.
And that is also what was wrong with the world when Islam came. And Islam made it the central purpose of its mission to wipe out Zulm from the face of this earth. And to replace it with Justice, Fairness, Compassion.
That was one main reason why the oppressed people of the world everywhere flocked to the justice and mercy and kindness of Islam and to the equality and dignity that Islam offered All Human Beings.
So, from the very beginning, population on earth has been divided into these two major groups;
(A) Those who accepted the Divine Mandate of Islam and proceeded to manage Allah's Earth -- and also live their own lives -- based on the guidance and requirements of Allah's Formula of Islam.
The Qur'an calls them Muslim.
And the main job of Muslims is to work tirelessly to establish Justice and Compassion and Equality prevail on God's Earth for all human beings.
Everything else is a correlate of and incidental to this larger and sweeping purpose.
(B) Those who rejected the Divine Mandate of Islam and then proceeded to manage Allah's Earth -- and live their own lives -- using whatever home-made formulas and rules and regulations and concoctions they could find.
The Qur'an calls them Kafir.
And Kufr is mostly about Zulm and Injustice and Cruelty and Oppression and Tyranny and Exploitation and Domination of one set of people by another.
So, for those who wonder what we are about, and what we want, and what we work for, that is our goal in life. We live and work for it and we hope to die working for it. We work to replace all kinds of Zulm and Tyranny on earth with Justice and Truth and Compassion for all.
We are not peddlers of "Religious" mumbo-jumbo. For, Islam is the Divine System of Universal Justice on Earth for All Human Beings, and not "religious" mumbo-jumbo designed to cater to the special needs of any group.
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