Islam NOT banned in Angola

News has been around that Islam has supposedly been banned by Angolan government officials. However not only has the government denied this but now some of the leading Muslim figures from Angola community have come out and said that this news is not correct. The government has not closed or demolished all the mosques there and the religion is certainly not banned.

The government had simply started a crackdown on all religious buildings build without proper documentation and proceeded with the demolishing all of those that had not followed the due protocols. Amongst the buildings that were destroyed there were also a couple or so of mosques and even Muslims scholars in Angola admit and accept that these destroyed mosques were build on land not allotted for a mosque.

The way this news has spread like wildfire is a BIG reminder again to everyone out there that everything we read and see on the internet is not true and must be fact checked and verified before it is shared (especially when it has got anything to do with a sensitive topic that can lead people to react emotionally). This is not just moral obligation but a Quranic requirement, mentioned explicitly in Surah Hujrat.

It is equally sad that Muslims continue to abandon the great legacy our Prophet (saw) about due procedure being followed for constructing a mosque. When the Prophet came to Medina he bought the land on which Masjid Nabawi was built, although being the Prophet of Allah no one would have challenged him if he had build the mosque ANYWHERE, but he set the precedent so future generation of Muslims would do the same.

Yet through out the Muslim world, the trend of Muslims erecting mosques in non-designated areas and sometimes even illegally acquired land is rampant. And when these illegal mosques are later brought down a huge hue and cry is raised in the name of "disrespecting houses of worship". Surely building it illegally in the first place is much greater disrespect? When will Muslims learn?

The hoor pari and doctor/engineer bahu syndrome

I’m sick of all the sisters and aunties in the world wanting minimum five feet five inches, fair complexion and thin doctor, engineer, MBA daughter-in-laws for their average looking, averagely qualified and sometimes even below average job-holding/jobless sons and brothers, some of whom will even request that the girl be a “foreign passport holder”.   Are you ladies looking for actual human beings, or just a flesh and bones to exhibit as a bride in front of your extended family? This might offend some people on my list too but this has got to be said AGAIN and AGAIN for this stupidity to end. 

Half of my family members are doctors, but STILL, I’m sick of this false sense of social prestige attached to being a physician. Medicine is a noble profession, but so is teaching, so is fine arts, so is accountancy, so is geography, history, economics, chemistry and every other subject in the world. Ditto for engineers or business graduates, no profession is superior or inferior, and in any case what degree you have should only be ONE barometer for gauging your overall level of education and civilization. People could be PhDs and still be terrible human beings. The purpose of education is to reform and civilize, to open and broaden minds, not to close them, if you think marrying a doctor or engineer is superior, your education has failed in my opinion to open your mind to that fact that it is not.  

And to all the parents who made their daughters study medicine because this would bring them good proposals, seriously, what on earth where you thinking? You are part of the problem. You have been telling your daughter that it’s okay that someone wants to marry her because of a piece of paper that says she’s a doctor. That’s the worst thing you can teach her. Instead teach her to take pride in whatever she studies, and study it well. Teach her that whoever will marry her will marry her because of the qualities that make her a good human being. Strive to make your daughters good humans, not good “rishta material” for god’s sakes. 

Same feelings on the whole deal about searching for the ultimate hoor as your spouse. Sure you have the right to get married to someone you are reasonably attracted to, but stop looking for Katrina Kaif and Mahira Khan. They’re exceptions. Besides, if the media wasn’t here to bombard you with images of these women all the time, you wouldn’t even know what they looked like and would be more easily attracted to women of less then hoor-standard. And please look at your own self in the mirror! Are you Fawad Khan? If no, then stop expecting Mahira.  The girl has the right to look for someone SHE will be reasonably attracted to too, you know. She too is HUMAN BEING after all.

I know that might seem difficult to remember in your quest to find the perfect spouse, but please do. Human beings have feelings, and when you reject people simply because they’re not tall enough or fair enough, those feelings are hurt, fear Allah with respect to hurting people’s feelings about things which are not in their control. When you sit and criticize the way girls look, you’re actually criticizing Allah who made them this way.

And whatever happened to looking for inner beauty? Where are all the girls with more tanned complexions suppose to go? Majority of the sub-continent is not naturally supposed to be fair skinned you know.  And who in the world said fairness equals beauty?  Why can’t we appreciate that everyone is beautiful in their own special way?  And to all those dark skinned boys looking for gori bewayan so that their children can be gore, give it up already, you could get married to a woman with milk toned skin but if Allah doesn’t have it in your qadr that you children are light toned, they won’t be. In any case, being light toned does not make you a better person in the eyes of Allah, piety does. Look for piety, look for character, look for inner beauty …not degrees, not a specific colour of the skin or a specific height/age/weight group! ACT and think like you are educated, not just degree yafta.  There is a word for people who think fair skin is superior, its RACIST. Yes, gulp this down!

Oh and yeah, please be courteous. This business of meeting the prospective bride cannot always be avoided, but don’t turn into ordeal for the poor girl, this is not a job interview.  Oh and yeah, don’t bring along your entire extended family to meet the girl, whilst conveniently forgetting the boy. The girl and her family would probably have some questions for your son too.  Have the basic table manners to finish whatever eateries you took and respond with a courtesy call if you think things will not work out, don’t leave the girl’s family wondering on for weeks on end what you’re thinking.

And to the girl’s family, don’t invite over someone whose looking for a hoor in the hope that they might, just might, still like your dark toned daughter. Frankly they don’t deserve your daughter if the only thing they’re looking for in a bride is light skin tone (because your daughter is more than a hoor, a hoor which their stupid limited vocabularies of beauty cannot encompass).  Give your daughters confidence about how they are and how they look. Do not make them feel guilty; it is not their fault that our society has sick double standards and false definitions of prestige.

I know every parent tells their daughters they’re not a burden on them, but when you worry sick over any delays in their marriage, that’s not how they feel. There is a time and place for everything.  Stop acting desperate and don’t stop everything in your daughter’s life just because she is waiting for the right proposal. If she wants to go do a job in the meanwhile, let her. If she wants to study more, let her. If she wants to just spend her time at home, let her.

Let her live her life. And the other aunties, please get a life! Remember how it was when you were behind the trolley, when it was your daughters turn or your turn, put yourself in her shoes. Be kind. Show mercy.

In the end, when relationships spawn out, when people begin to live with each other, it is the character traits of human beings that help nourish the relationship, not the skin colour, their height, weight or degree. Relationships break down because people don’t get along, because there is lack of compassion and compromise, lack of understanding and patience, a lack of love. Look for a girl or boy who has all these qualities, who can love your child, respect him or her, keep her or him and your family happy and raise a good family. Not a showpiece. PLEASE think.

On Hakimullah's death and finding the middle ground

It is really disappointing although not surprising to see people like Munawar Hassan and Fazal-ur-Rehman terming Hakimullah a martyr. I am relieved that the more learned and virtuous of the scholars in Pakistan, the likes of Mufti Rafi and Taqi Usmani (who also responded to recent events with statements that condemned drones) have not done the same.

Martyrdom unfortunately is a really abused term in the Muslim world, especially in Pakistan. Everyone from Bhutto to Benazir to MQM’s target killers to the suicide bombers are termed martyrs by people of different socio-political and ideological backgrounds. Strictly speaking, a martyr is someone who died in the field of battle, but more generally, anyone who is unjustly killed while upholding the truth, the good, or their rights can also be considered martyrs of the Hereafter (based on Prophetic narrations which allude to this). Based on this criteria, does Hakimullah qualify as a “shaheed”?

While it may be true --as the international community has generally affirmed with respect to the illegality of using drones--that the way he was brought to justice and killed was unlawful, and ultimately harmful to the situation on the ground in Pakistan -, it would appear to be a stretch at best, and a travesty of justice at worst, to consider him a "martyr" or any kind of Islamic hero.  Let alone, every one killed by America, not even every act of defiance makes one a hero or a man of honor,  it is what you stood for defending and how you defended it that qualifies you to be a hero.   

Those who believe that Hikumullah was a hero should really sit down and evaluate their definition of a hero. He may have wanted to enforce the Shariah, but that alone does not make him a hero.  How he interpreted the Shariah, and how he went about enforcing it, killing anyone who opposed him, was a clear misconstruction of the ideals Islam upholds. How can a religion in which Allah equates the killing of an innocent soul (any soul, not just a believer) with killing all of humanity sanction or endorse the kind of mass murder TTP have been involved in by their own admission?

However, it is equally disappointing to read just how many people have fallen to the level of the Taliban and prayed (or more accurately) cursed Hakimullah to "burn in Hell forever" or for a same fate to befall his community and his family that he has been responsible for inflicting upon scores of innocents in Pakistan.

Why you might ask? What could be wrong in hoping that someone is punished by God for their evil actions (and yes of course they were evil)? This is wrong because our Prophet stopped us from doing this. When the early Muslims in Makkah had asked the Prophet to pray to Allah swt to curse the Quraysh idolaters who were persecuting them, the Prophet had responded by saying that he was sent not as a curser, but as a mercy. One of his alqab is that he is "rehmatullill alameen", a mercy for all of the universe, all its creatures, believers, nonbelievers, even animals. In the same way, Allah swt says in the Quran, that he loves those who restrain their anger and pardon the people, both in times of ease and difficulty (3:134). Yet we feel compelled, even with our weak emans, and even weaker record of good deeds, to chastise and curse others for retribution in Hell!

By Allah, He is neither unjust, and, nor is He cruel, whoever does an atom's weight of good, or bad, shall see it. It is just that the punishment for some is delayed, and for others it is immediate, and in this too there is wisdom, which only Allah knows. Similarly, Allah alone knows the state Hakimullah died in (whatever anyone might say). But the fact is that Hakimullah is gone, we gain nothing by playing God and saying that “all his sins are forgiven”  or that “he will burn in hell forever”.  It is Allah’s position alone to decide his fate. How he will be judged by Allah is a matter of ilm ul ghaib, and we should refrain from commenting on it (so yes, we shouldn't pray that he burn in Hell, because we shouldn't pray that for ANYONE, even if they have killed many people).

The Prophet said that believers are not those who curse, and cursing the dead is even worse then cursing the living.  The way of the Prophet and of his righteous companions, is that we hate the ACTIONS of the people, not the people themselves. So our hate should be directed at the injustice, the cruelty and the misrepresentation of our faith, not at Hakimullah, the individual.

I know this requires a lot of effort and may even sound absurd to many, but this is what Sunnah is. I myself have strong feelings for a lot of individuals (Altaf Hussain for example) but then when I read these things about how the Prophet dealt with his worst enemies, I just felt like my reaction was totally uncalled for. If the Prophet could forgive Hindh, if he could forgive Abu Sufyan, if Ayesha and Abu Bakr could forgive those who had wrongly thrown mud at the noble stature of our mother, then who are you and I to say that Hakimullah should burn in hell, irrespective of whatever wrongs he did. Nothing can surpass the sin of claiming Divinity for oneself. Yet when Moses (alaihe-assalaam) was sent for the guidance of Pharaoh, he was ordered thus: "And speak unto him a gentle word." (20:44) And what did Allah swt say to the Makkans, "And let not the hatred of a people, who (once) stopped your going to the Sacred Mosque, incite you to transgress." (5:2)

Yet WE do transgress, whenever we hate something or somebody, we want the worst fate to befall them. Supporting drones because you oppose Taliban is a transgression. Not condemning the wrongs of the Taliban because we oppose American imperialist designs in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world is also a transgression. There is a middle way, and we must reflect on what it is.

The tide of extremism in our society is across both spectrums of religious and political thought. On the one hand you have the right wing extremists like Taliban, who will use the kafir and munafiq label to kill anyone who disagrees with their methods of establishing Allah’s dean in the land.  On the other hand you have liberal extremists who argue that death penalty should be abolished or at least put on a moratorium, but simultaneously advocate drones, which not only gives capital punishment, but that too without due process of law (one person or group identifies someone as a potential terrorist, that person gets no chance to defend himself, no trial, no lawyers, and just guilty verdict followed by immediate death penalty by drones). 

All those numbers we see in reports of “suspected militants”, none of them were ever put through a proper trial to ascertain those claims. While the high profile causalities are usually those who have publicly confessed to their crimes, the majority of the numbers are made up by the word “potential” or “suspected”. For the liberals in Pakistan, it is right to kill these people even if they are simply “suspected” of being terrorists by a third country, because some people who belong to their tribe or who live amongst them killed others without any reason.  If all criteria for justice and liberalism (which is what they’re trying to uphold) are ignored in the process, so be it. For the Taliban, it is right to kill anyone even if they “suspect” they give any kind of support to any kind of ideology apart from their own, or even if they have nothing to do with either them or the people who oppose them. If innocent men, women and children are killed (which is prohibited in the religion they want to uphold) so be it. There is clear hypocrisy at both ends of the spectrum.

Indeed we are living in times of great fitnah, and this is one of them, where the boundary between good and evil, between right or wrong, is blurred. The Prophet is reported to have said in a sound hadith that there will come a time when holding on to your deen will be like holding on to a piece of hot coal. Unfortunately, for Muslims, I think with fitnas like these, those times have come already. 

 May Allah swt make it easy for everyone of us to hold firm on to the deen in these troubled times.

Ya Allah, you are the Haqq, the one Truth of this life and the next, you message is true, your deen is true, your Prophet Mohammad was true and the Quran is true. Ya Allah swt make the truth about the affairs of our ummah clear to us, as clear as the sun is on a cloudless day. Ya Allah enable the haqq to succeed over batil, and give us the capacity to understand, accept and support the haqq, and reject, oppose and defeat the batil.