One Day At a Time

temporal sahib - you write ``These pseudo aalims have turned this religion into a mockery. ``

I am frankly tired of this daily mullah bashing that occurs. We seem to be taking out our personal failures in following Islam on that segment. It helps us vent, makes us feel better about ourselves and off we go next day to report to our managers at work.

Honestly speaking, if the current crops of ulemas bothers us THAT much, why don`t we ever encourage our own children to become one? Wouldn`t that solve this issue to a great degree? But instead, we spend millions of dollars on our children` education so they can become doctors and engineers, and lawyers - so they can buy big houses and bigger cars.
But we never encourage our children to do perhaps a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence or Fiqh.

So the only people in our society who become an `alim` are the ones who could not become anything else. And then we have the nerve to attack this group as a self serving ``interest group``. It is as if we ourselves are the most selfless and sincere people!

Shame on us hypocrites!

Temporal,

I can understand your concerns. And my answer is that we need a centralized body to articulately and intelligibly mass educate the Muslim (and willing non-Muslim) denizens of a country of the history and nature of Islam. And why Muslims must follow virtues of Islam and avoid its vices. And the most important thing on part of every Muslim is to understand the essence of Islam, the only reason that grants it sanctity to exist, at once, and liberty to a soul to transcend mortally while adhering to it.

The only time I actually remember to have enjoyed a Friday sermon when I went to Pakistan was when the Wa`iz (one who conveys a sermon) talked about Islam and intricately intertwined it with the world of today. He elucidated upon dogma and demonstrated it to be practically applicable. I believe that the test of a true religion is that is must be applicably capacitated with the changing times of the days.

Peace!

`Roza` like `Nimaz` is actually the name of the Zartushti rituals adopted by the mullah of the subcontinent. The zartusht mullahs never objected to the use of the names of their rituals as the Islamic ones do about their use by other sects especially by Ahmadies. The Quranic name of Roza is `Som` and that of Namaz, Salat, but the mullah is wary of these names. God knows why?
Som, unlike Salat, is a purely private and individual ritual as only God knows about it. I had never seen any Christian making a show of observing fast though I had many Christian colleagues. So one day I asked a Christian colleague of mine whether they observe fasting. I was surprised to learn that they do obseve fasting and their fast was for 24 hours but as showing it off is strictly prohiited in their religion no body comes to know of it. They also observe Eid which they call Easter after their fasting. Isn`t the Muslim Eid also the adoption of the Christian Easter?

temporal sahib - you asked ``Should Muslims not strive to be good human beings in other months? Why this overt emphasis in Ramazan only?``

Absolutely, muslims should strive to be good boys all year around.

However, the emphasis on Ramadan is for `training` purpose. It is the same thing when your company sends you on training or a refresher course. I am sure you would not ask your manager ``why must this emphasis on learning / refreshing skills only during this one week training course. Why don`t you send me to training all year around``. Your manager, after getting over his initial shock and rage, will tell you that this week long training should help you improve your performance for the rest of the year.

So off you go to that training. You work really hard during that training course, knowing fully well that your manager lacks the budget and your wife lacks the patience to have you gone for training frequently. So you make the best of that training session. You come back a week later, with new skills, and new ways to improve your performance at work. Your manager is happy with you, your co-workers are happy too that you are not only a better worker yourself, but you are also helping and motivating them to improve their performance.

Of course, if you are a slacker, you might just sleep through the training, have nice company paid dinners, and then come back to job no better than before you took that training.

“The more we study Islam, the more they would lose their hegemony over us.”

So, I have to spend time to learn Islam now, just to beat up on a guy who is trying to make some money with his limited abilities? Is this the right approach? That would just give control to the mullah. I would rather ignore him when he is talking rubbish and I know it. And that’s what people need to do. Learn to ignore the simpletons instead of trying to beat them.

Politically or even ideologically, a mullah in the mosque holds no threats, but when different vested interests try to build political capital out of a religion, the whole religion becomes dynamite.

“How difficult that simple egalitarian message is to grasp for us today?”

How the message was egalitarian when it was meant for simpleton? May be I can’t grasp the point here but in the current world there is nothing egalitarian about Islam and or for that matter any religion. The focus should be to turn a religion into a personal issue rather than the community issue.

“Deep down it is a (simple) code of living that ensures we become better insaans.”

I respect your opinion but becoming insaan has nothing to do with religion. No religion wants one to become a good insaan. Religion would like people to become good followers. Good insaan innovate and create new world for themselves and rest of the folks.