One Day At a Time

“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.

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.

`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,

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!

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!

If theres one thing i dislike more then a fundamentalist muslim its a moderate Muslim. The fundo at least can hide behind the fact that he is an idiot.

But the rest of you. How can u defend limiting ur lives to the letters in some ancient text?


By natural progression we go from sometimes being sunnu or shia, to seeing all of islam as one, to seeing all of humanity as one.

Should Muslims not strive to be good human beings in other months?

This questions bothers in mind of many people. But Fasting is a ritual which cannot be extended in other months as it has been forbidden in Islam that undue fasts must be avoided. But the cause of Ramzan is to develop internal sympathy for the hungry and needy people. If we start thinking in the way that those formal procedures which are essence of ramzan should be applied and carried out in every rest month then we would be killing the theme of Ramzan.
In fast it is confirmed valid if its done fullfilling religious basics and fundamentals. The lesson given in Ramzan should be enhanced in other months like not lying, pray five times a day. Help needy, poor and feel hunger so do productive work which could help in decreasing poverty.
But what we see actual practise is that with start of Ramzan, the prices of edibles (Basic) shoot and uneasiness among poor start rising. Ramzan sometimes is considered a burden then. Secondly you can see shopkeepers selling with good costumes , practising to sell clean goodies but as Ramzan ends they come back to original states.
So the whole matter is that the good things we practise in Ramzan should also be adopted in other months.
This also carries out a valid point towards ``Aiteqaf``. I myself used to see people sitting in total solitude cut off from world so that with least possible contact to world results in max possible probability of Gunah.
But in comparison a man surrounded by thousands of thing in this world but dutifying the things factually and not sinning s/he should be considered more rewarding. So the conclusion is that ceremonies like Ramzan n Shab-e-Qadr provide man/ woman a margin to pray heartedly to God. And this is a silent contact with man n gd, not letting any matter come in between. But thinking that good things should be acted in few times of month is a wrong idea.

So I agree n say:
Have a good Ramzan! No, have a good day! One day at a time for the whole year!
n Ghalib:
Baskih dushwar hai her kaam ka asan hona
Admi ko bhi moyassar nahin insan hona

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…thanks for the responses so far…will pick two for response…

malik99

..am not disagreeing with the training aspect of ramazaan…my beef is only about the gross superficiality of the whole exercise…instead of cleansing of the soul and body this exercise has become a futile ritual…lip service…here now, gone tomorrow…what do we have to show for the training from the last 1425 ramazaans?

I am frankly tired of this daily mullah bashing that occurs
…agree here also…I have not stopped at mullah bashing…I lay the greater blame on us – on us Muslims who have ceded territory by default – it is we, the semi-educated Muslims who have stopped learning about our religion…as we become aware of our religion clergy’s importance would diminish proportionately…

HP

…in an earlier post you wrote: Throughout the Muslim history, nobody had ever claimed that Islam is a complete system…It is a religion like many other religions and there is nothing superior about it.(104 A Dangerous Gift on August 3, 2004)

…this is contrary to the beliefs ingrained with the majority of Muslims…recall Muhammed’s (saw) words from his last sermon on the mount calling on Allah and Muslims to bear witness?

…So, I have to spend time to learn Islam now,…
…briefly, yes…or let them hijack your religion and suffer the consequences by default

rgds

t

You can`t blame the system, its the followers you have to blame. As Malik99 rightly said it is for the training, because before the next ramadan arrives, our good habits may have rusted. Ofcourse you havent seen any `Muslims` changing after Ramadan because, as you`ve precisely put it, some do use it as a tool just to shed the surplus kgs, then there`s the social status issue, iftar parties [again-some do this for the cheap thrills of social status] etc..
Ramadan is there for us to get our training, but if we`re not careful, we might just end up wasting our time. Its about self-analysis rather than scrutinising other`s actios.

The question why something supposedly good for you is prescribed only one month of the year is an interesting one. I remember endlessly tormenting my poor mom with this question.

But I think it makes sense, if you accept that cetain practises or forms of discipline that might help us be better people (but not being good/virtuous per se) might just be too much to do all year round. Fasting all year `round, for instance, might not be good for your health, to say nothing of the loss to the economy, if carried out the way it is in Pakistan. So, perhaps one month out of twelve might be a good way to recharge our spirits, if we can do what we do for the right reasons.

Ideally, one day of the week might even be better, i think.

tempu :
well thought out article. aik sahib aie aur kissi sey poocha `masjid kidhar hai `? doosrae aadmee ney jewab diya ... aap shia hain k sunni konsi masjid mein jaana pasand karein gaien. jub pehley shakhs ney jawab mein arz kiya koi see bhi, tau phir doosrae ney poocha ` tau yeh baatein, k aap borre hain ya memon ?` by this time asr kii namaz ka waqt jaata raha .

`Sar peetney walla icon`

P.S. I read one of yr interracts, where you were replying [to i forget who] on your ethics of posting ... `aisee k kissi k agae sharminda na hona parey kiya likha `

tempu you have always been Da Man :)

Ramzaan Mubarak..... lamha lamha ;) pul pul

Uniformity is a fond hope.

The roza itself. The Qura`an itself is very clear about when the fast should be broken. ``Attimmuss sayaama ill al layl`` ``aur rozay kou tamaam karo raat kou`` yet different brands of Muslims break their fast at different times.

Interestingly, the time of iftar is one of those very few tings regarding which the books is totally unambiguous and states its position in categorical imperative . . . yet, the Musulmaan . . .

All religions are full of dogma, absurdities, oppressions, and injustices. Islam more than most other religions but not uniquely so.

Islam`s uniqueness, and its greatest evil, lies in darkening the hearts and minds of `moderate` and `dormant` Muslims.

The `moderates` and `dormant` followers of other religions work hard to escape the limits of outdated dogma, economic, social, political injustices and divisions prescribed by their religions. The `moderate` and `dormant` Muslim dedicates his or her life divining justifications of these Islamic evils and absurdities.

After reading the same ``teachings and purpose`` for fasting year after year, I am convinced that namaz teaches basic algebra like 2 + 2 = 4 rakats for fajar and 4 + 4+ 2+ 2 + 3 + 2 = 17 rakata for Isha.

They are nothing but pre-Islamic existing rituals practiced by the Bedoin Arabs that were accepted and regimented with some changes.

One does not have to learn the stuff of grade II morals and ethics - to be taught by teacher in a lecture or two - through crude, hard and harsh ways of daily and a month yearly observing rituals at age 40, 50, 60 or even above 70. If a person did not learn insaniyat in first ``formative`` 75 years of his life, is not going to learn it from fasting in the years 75-80.

The pupose of this or any other ritual is - well just plain and simple - rituals, which means keep renewing the belief of submission to a religious ideology or philosophy.

#9 by temporal
nobody had ever claimed that Islam is a complete system-HP

“recall Muhammed’s (saw) words from his last sermon on the mount calling on Allah and Muslims to bear witness?”

The prophet said: “religion is complete”. He never said it is a “complete system”.
You can spin it whichever way you want but nobody expected from a simpleton, as you put it, to force some to read more than what he said.

The issue is: you are suggesting beating up on a barely educated mullah who derives livelihood from religion. I doubt that you have any formal religious education still; you know a whole lot more about religion than mullah could ever dream off. You are suggesting competing with mullah, IMO, there is no need for that. For a person or persons, who defiantly had access to better education, mullah is not the competition. The competition is with the groupthink that he has become symbol of.