بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Let's Invest Ramadan in Understanding Islam Correctly, and in Doing Everything It Includes
(Translated)
Various forms of misinformation, distortion, and alteration have been practiced on the Ummah of Islam for decades, in order to obliterate their religion and divert them away from it, but Ramadan returns to us every year to confirm that goodness is still buried in the breasts, and that the confusion that has loomed over the hearts of Muslims will disappear, Allah willing, especially if the efforts of the conscious are combined on the pure concepts and treatments of Islam and nurtured the path towards their goal, which is to please Allah.
One of the ambiguities that the sincere sons of the Islamic Ummah must work to remove is the majority of Muslims limiting themselves to the spiritual and moral aspects of Islam, to the exclusion of everything else, and being satisfied with it. This matter appears clearly in Ramadan as well, with their willingness to pray, fast, and pray, and their haste to recite the Qur’an during the hours of the night and at the ends of the day, and give charity, and limit themselves to that. Also, the matter appears in times other than Ramadan in the misconception that only a committed Muslim is the one who perseveres in his prayers and people are safe from his tongue and his hand.
Islam, which Allah made the last of the religions, has sent it to shape all aspects of life, and that is why the Messenger (saw), intended to establish the Islamic state, and he and the honorable companions carried the call, sacrificing the precious in its way, so Ramadan was for them the month of obedience and conquests, the month of the Qur’an and the Furkan, in it, their tongues blare with supplication and recitation of verses, and their souls are sacrificed in jihad, upholding the word of Allah, and spreading the call. So, they combined the spiritual, moral, political, economic and other aspects in which Islam did not leave any loophole without clarifying the ruling that must be acted upon, Islam was planted and the land blossomed by the arbitration of Allah’s Shariah, and the Muslims had status, a shield, and a message that made them embody in them goodness and was witnessed by the rest of the nations.
Then the situation changed after that and there were successors after them who abandoned prayer, but rather abandoned the application of the Islamic system in all aspects of life, and the Islamic Ummah became exposed to the arrows of its enemies who attacked the legal rulings and the Islamic view of life and confused the truth with falsehood with lies, fabrication and forgery.
As a result of the Western intellectual attack and lack of awareness, the understanding of Islam weakened in the minds of Muslims, and the religion became spiritual and priestly, confined in between the corners of mosques and in noble morals. The rest of the rulings of the great Islam became obsolete and people neglected them, and that is why the one whose concern is pleasing Allah in this holy month must roll up his sleeves first to understand the truth of his Deen, so that he accepts obedience and hastens to perform the obligations as Allah commanded them, not choosing from them what he wants, taking some and turning away from others.
One of the greatest obligations that Allah commanded is the establishment of a state that governs by law and carries the call of Islam to the world. A Muslim must be well aware that engaging in politics, i.e., taking care of people’s affairs, is the work of our Prophet (saw), and that it is an act of worship. And that politics is not cunning, deceit, Machiavellianism, and impurity that defiles religion, as the enemies deliberately portrayed it, but rather it is a way to restore rulings that include the political and economic system and everything that would bring us back as we were a nation with sovereignty and authority, prosperous with the law of its Lord and His message sent as mercy to the worlds.
Therefore, it is necessary to act in the act with the workers to support the religion and reactivate it in life for those whose compass directs him in the right direction on the path of commitment to Allah’s commands and prohibitions. There is nothing better than Ramadan to declare repentance and a covenant with Allah to move forward on the path of obedience and acts of worship.
It is necessary to strive seriously to scrutinize Islamic concepts and hasten to do good deeds, and to carry Islam as a strong and influential burden. In order for a Muslim to be righteous and reforming those around him, Allah finds him where he commands and misses him where he forbids.
It is not in Islam that every person is preoccupied with reforming himself and does not do what Allah has imposed by enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong and being preoccupied with what would restore the rule of Islam.
It is abhorrent selfishness for a Muslim to be preoccupied with himself and not care about saving others. Selfishness that we did not see in our noble Prophet (saw), and his honorable companions, so that we follow their tracks. Rather, the Sharia’a evidence stipulates the opposite. Allah has enjoined enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil, and He has made it obligatory to take action at the hands of the unjust, and He warned against the destruction of societies if there is a lot of wickedness in them despite the presence of the righteous in them, and we have the whole lesson in the hadith of the ship, when he (saw) said:
«مَثَلُ الْقَائِمِ عَلَى حُدُودِ اللَّهِ وَالْوَاقِعِ فِيهَا كَمَثَلِ قَوْمٍ اسْتَهَمُوا عَلَى سَفِينَةٍ، فَأَصَابَ بَعْضُهُمْ أَعْلَاهَا وَبَعْضُهُمْ أَسْفَلَهَا، فَكَانَ الَّذِينَ فِي أَسْفَلِهَا إِذَا اسْتَقَوْا مِنَ الْمَاءِ مَرُّوا عَلَى مَنْ فَوْقَهُمْ فَقَالُوا: لَوْ أَنَّا خَرَقْنَا فِي نَصِيبِنَا خَرْقاً وَلَمْ نُؤْذِ مَنْ فَوْقَنَا، فَإِنْ يَتْرُكُوهُمْ وَمَا أَرَادُوا هَلَكُوا جَمِيعاً، وَإِنْ أَخَذُوا عَلَى أَيْدِيهِمْ نَجَوْا وَنَجَوْا جَمِيعاً»
“The example of the person abiding by Allah's order and restrictions in comparison to those who violate them is like the example of those persons who drew lots for their seats in a boat. Some of them got seats in the upper part, and the others in the lower. When the latter needed water, they had to go up to bring water (and that troubled the others), so they said, 'Let us make a hole in our share of the ship (and get water) saving those who are above us from troubling them. So, if the people in the upper part left the others do what they had suggested, all the people of the ship would be destroyed, but if they prevented them, both parties would be safe.” [Narrated by Al-Bukhari]. The hadith clearly states that the community’s survival is when they enjoin the right and take the wrongdoer’s hand.
O Allah, make us among the righteous, reformers, working to support the religion, and make us among those who enjoin good and forbid evil, and make us among those in whom Islam is embodied in word and deed, and among those who sell themselves seeking your pleasure. O Allah, make us among the soldiers and witnesses of the Khilafah (Caliphate) State, and do not let us die unless You are pleased with us, and bring Ramadan back to us with the flag of Islam fluttering high. Ameen O Lord of the Worlds.
Written to the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Minnah Tahir