The Unpretentious Muslim
This article first appeared in The Dawn’s Al Fajr Magazine (Issue 8)
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ, said: “Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange, so give glad tidings to the strangers.” His listeners then asked, “Who are those strangers, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “Those that correct the people when they become corrupt.” In another narration of the hadith, he said in response to the same question, “They are a small group of people among a large evil population. Those who oppose them are more than those who follow them.”
[Sahih Muslim:145. The second response was reported by Ibn Asaakir]
The strange religion seeks its strange adherents! We are witnessing massive societal changes penetrating faith communities at all levels. We are contending with the challenges of an era where reason and stability is taken less seriously as facts have become so malleable. Instability — social, psychological, financial and religious — threatens to take our sanity away and there is confusion about where the ultimate ‘Qiblah’ or direction is.
We live in a time where modern ideologies and fads have left people confused and their emotional and psychological instability is being passed off as “wokeness” or finding one’s “authentic self”. Young people are giving in to the pressure of social expectations, contemporary fashion/outlook and are eventually left having feelings of anxiety and despair. An existential crisis ensues whereby young people are forced to revisit their parents’ assumptions about life. Questions such as “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, “What is right and wrong?” bothers the young soul into Nihilism. They are constantly trying to reconcile the dictates of their faith with the world around them, their aspirations, outlooks, feelings and a popular cultural & social environment that significantly differs from that of their parents.
For younger Muslims today, the modern outlook and the anxieties about their lives, careers, and their future intensifies. They worry about judgment from every corner; from family to how corporations will judge their fitness for employment, and how friends will respond to seemingly trivial slights. I am aware of how some friends are on constant guard when they post on social media; will a friend, acquaintance, or complete stranger object harshly? Will some take the post as a mark of narcissism or see them as backwards. Even benign remarks are posted with apprehension and disquiet. Many, through the popular culture, have turned to different social trends as a way of grappling with these questions, be it identity politics, gender politics, alt right red pill sentiments or other social movements. People have taken up, consciously or unconsciously, the culture wars emanating from the global north and their human “idols” considered to be role models today and are dressing them up with the garments of Islam.
Popular culture now takes center stage through media platforms and relegates traditional Islamic values as medieval or “outdated”, “rigid” and “patriarchal,” or hierarchical in comparison. To be deemed “progressive enough”, the inclusion train demands for Islam to assimilate; thus, “Islamic symbols” are entering mainstream culture in the form of Headscarves on fashion runways, being the “first Muslim” in the limelight, and the banal of whatever is deemed viral of the moment. Through these platforms, the power of Neo-liberal agents and their agenda-driven institutions are perfecting cultural “recalibration”, designed to outshine “third world resistance” more than the might of “state intervention” can. Instead of military might, the conveyor crafts usher social justice tools and NGO’s to do their bidding.
At the home front, adherence to Islam can be a performance on the stage to appease an audience. Ideas of secular humanism and progressivism are portrayed as the preserve of the enlightened elite versus religion as the domain of the ignorant masses. Muslims are being forced to capitulate their Islam to be modeled in the frame of the former. Such an Islam must satisfy empty but egoistical buzz words of “freedom” and “self-love” either against the archenemy “patriarchy” or to validate somebody’s “sexual autonomy”. “Who am I to say what is right?” is now a common retort amongst young “Muslims” who have bought into the “subjective truth” market. This is not merely a nonjudgmental or neutral expression. It indicates uncertainty, confusion and a lack of moral clarity. It indicates the wholesale adoption of languages and ideas that originate from philosophies and worldviews antithetical to Islam as opposed to investigating and having conversations about what Islam’s direction is about those things.
More so, the self is now made supreme. A self which is fueled by multiplicity of desires, all given value to motivate action in which none of these desires need to be repressed by external constraints. The completely free self, safe for its servitude to its own infinite desires. Indeed, the nafs is the god of the millennium.
Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah? Then will you not be reminded?
[Quran 45:23]
How do people find themselves exchanging their Islamic values for popular culture? There are a number of verbal, psychological and societal narratives that push the popular culture agenda into the consciousness of Muslims, all of which cannot be elaborated upon in a short writing. One of them is the virtual space.
The virtual space has enabled a boundaryless universe with so much information unfiltered. The interconnectedness has enabled rapid exchange of cultures ranging from food recipes to language as well as the awareness of news as it happens. The merits of information come with its demerits, more so as not all information qualify as knowledge. As the internet space is not a neutral product, the culture of the originator by no surprise becomes the de facto judge and jury of values “foreign” to it. It is no surprise that religion and Islamic values especially becomes the center of scorn for the post-modern fury.
Such post-modern discourses employ “deconstructive tools” to challenge whatever is found to be collectivist without material benefits and at odds with a sense of “freedom” and independence. As a result, Islamic commands and legislation are framed as either backwards or are agents of oppression. Hijab is thus “repressive” the same way premarital sex and a host of post-modern-normalized mores are empowerment. Alcohol and drugs usage are now part of expressing one’s self. Critics are now marketers who universalize their values through platforms that penetrate into the hearts of their consumers directly through gadgets without the state or institution. Our books, movies, facebook, and twittergrams are thus saturated with idols and tenets of popular culture.
Recalibration: “Follow Back” the “Divine GPS”
As believers, it is impossible to hide ourselves from popular culture’s products or to retreat and concede to its judgement of right and wrong. We are not a religion of Monks and “Worship only” as stereotyped. Customs blended with Shariah principles has been the definition of several Islamic Civilizations in history. Like our predecessors, the responsibility of striking a balance while striving to hold on firmly towards our eternal salvation befalls us.
We do not sail aimlessly by the tide or the winds, we have a determined “straight path” to journey through the Divine GPS we ‘unfollowed’ briefly. We are vicegerents of Allah who are confident in their belief and mindful of what they feed their souls with. We should be able to answer basic questions bordering on the “nature of our existence” and “how we come to know”. Why do we think the way we think? What is right and wrong? How do we know what is right and wrong? This is to assist us understand our vulnerability and how we are Losers by time (Suratul Asr). These basic questions aim to recalibrate our worldview to “keeping our eyes set on the prize” of the hereafter and not exchange it for that which is ephemeral. This is the Abrahamic Path of intellectual liberation.
[Musa] said, “Would you exchange what is better for what is less”.
[Quran 2:61]
What is our Worldview?
A worldview is a comprehensive view of the world we live in and how we interact with it. It provides guidance about reality — physical and metaphysical. It is the lens through which we see, understand and interpret life. A worldview provides meaning and purpose for life. Questions like “who am I?” “Where am I from?” and “Why am I here?” are the foundation of what forms a worldview. When a person does not have a grasp of their own worldview before interacting with the world, they become like a sponge, absorbing every water that it is dipped into.
The Abrahamic Roadmap (Millatu Ibrahim)
As Muslims, the Qur’an is the manual of our worldview. It is a book of guidance that appeals to both the mind and the heart and gives a person an unmatched guide to life. The Islamic worldview is a view of the world rooted in the Islamic vision of life and reality — through the example of a “Walking Qur’an” in the Prophet ﷺ. It provides a comprehensive framework of concepts and perspectives regarding the Oneness of God (tawḥīd) and His relationship with the world, man as the vicegerent (khalīfah), and dutiful worshiper (abd) on earth. Between the Qur’an and the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, a Muslim has everything that is needed to ascertain their individual positioning and navigation system (GPS). The Qur’an is a book of guidance (hudā) for humanity and a criterion (furqān) to distinguish between good and bad.
Alif, Lam, Meem. Allah — there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of existence.
He has sent down upon you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel.
Before, as guidance for the people. And He revealed the Qur’an.
[Quran 3:1–4]
Unfortunately, today, the simple, straightforward guidance of the Quran and Sunnah has been displaced in the mainstream. Exhortations like “Speak well or remain silent,” “Don’t get angry,” “Don’t go near zina,” “Fear Allah,” “Spread salaam”, “Pray at night when others sleep,” “Maintain the ties of kinship,” and “Respect your elders and have mercy on our youth”. “Pray, give in charity, fast, and perform the Hajj if you can”, have all been replaced by so called “post-truths”. Once upon an era, these were the simple yet profound counsels that shaped the best generation of this ummah.
For every Muslim who wants to have control of who they are and to hold on to their Islamic values in the face of rising infiltration of our consciousness, it is important to understand yourself, and understand what your worldview is. This is the height of wokeness.
Is it really Self-love?
The greatest knowledge is the knowledge of Allah. The knowledge of the One True Creator, the Nourisher and the One to Whom the dominion of the heaven and earth belongs. Every form of “self-love” should be pivoted on “knowledge of self”. For self-love to be meaningful, it has to stem from self-knowledge. “Knowledge of self” has an interdependent relationship with the knowledge of Allah for only in knowing Allah does a slave truly knows himself. To correctly know Allah, I have to know myself and understand my limits. To know myself I have to adequately know Allah and his limitlessness.
Self-knowledge starts with the realization that:
“I’m created from NOTHING, and therefore, ultimately, I’m NOTHING. The realization that I’m a faqiir (the one who is in need) and this doesn’t mean I’m poor, it means I TRULY own NOTHING. It means I am completely dependent in EVERY moment and breath upon the one who has no need. And the one who is the exact opposite of all these? who TRULY owns something and is at every single moment completely INDEPENDENT? It is Allah!”
To Him belongs what is in the heavens and what is on the earth. And indeed, Allah is Free of need, the Praiseworthy.
[Quran 4:131]
“Knowledge of Self” is a necessary component of self-love. When we understand the attributes of Allah, other parts of the religion become easier to understand as well, that to “submit” to Allah is to truly love one’s self. We would have mounted a shield between us and the alternative life that popular culture is trying to sell to us. Against the tide of ideologies and ignorant arguments, we are able to stay confident in the knowledge that our Islamic values are not inferior to the trendy culture.
Your Tribe and Your Vibe
The social media conversations we engage in, the people we hang out with offline, the places we visit, are all things that can affect our state of mind and the type of biases we adopt. Little wonder ibnul Jawzee said in one of his classics: the heart is like a thief that steal from everyone he comes in contact with, so be careful.
And the Day the wrongdoer will bite on his hands [in regret] he will say, “Oh, I wish I had taken with the Messenger a way.
Oh, woe to me! I wish I had not taken that one as a friend.
He led me away from the remembrance after it had come to me. And ever is Shaytan, to man, a deserter.”
[Quran 25:27–29]
Today, tribes and friendships are formed based on foundations other than islam, most prominent of which is social justice and human rights. Every relationship is now seen through the lens of power struggles. The oppressed and the oppressor, Labelling and categorizing. And as humans, we identify with a lot of them as they are part of our own lived experiences also, but we must be willing to submit our worries and passions to holistic frame and exhortations of Tawhid.
Is not Allah the most just of judges?
[Quran 95:8]
The call is not for us to become dispassionate, indecisive people who don’t have opinions about anything at all in the world we live in. It is for our passion and yearnings for justice to emanate from a place of deep moral commitment to Allah and mercy for His creations. This is what is sustainable and eternally fulfilling.
And your Lord does injustice to no one.
[Quran 18:49]
Are you truly woke? Helpful tips to interrogate non-Islamic sources of Knowledge/Culture
● What assumptions — about life, about human anthropology, about the nature of moral duty — have they made?
● Have I interrogated the validity of these unspoken moral assumptions?
● Whose purpose am I serving socially and politically by adopting this thought?
● How does this idea contrast to Allah’s Shariah?
● What are the benefits of adopting this thought?
● What are the arguments for and against this thought?
Conclusion
As the handicapped ummah is ushered into the liberal universe of “multiple truths” and “You only live once, so enjoy, find, discover and assert yourself”, the soul becomes much more vulnerable than ever and the self is thrown into perpetual anxiety and mental health crisis. We must know that freedom cannot be a philosophy for life. The human soul needs order, clarity, and a mission if it is to be truly liberated. Ultimately, it needs a connection to something greater than itself. Its Lord.
Thus, in a culture of licentiousness, we must seek out clear boundaries of meaning and purpose and stick to it. It is as the legal maxim goes:
When a matter is too constricted, it needs openness, and when a matter is too open, it needs to be narrowed (idha daqa al-amr ittasa’a, wa idha ittasa’a daq)
We need our young people to be able to speak and carry themselves with conviction. But to do that they also need role models who do the same and inspire them. For many, Islam has become an object of frustration, difficulty and repression instead of purpose and submission, this must change. We must move away from an Islam filled with complexity and complication. We owe it to the next generation not to bring them a faith without belief and practice.
Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship.
[Quran 2:185]
The guidance of Islam is fundamentally uncomplicated. It asks of us submission and obedience. It provides for us moral clarity, with lines and boundaries. It gives us everything that we need to live a life of fulfilment rooted in obedience to Allah and not the desires of people. It gives us everything we need to be confident ships sailing on the sea, not abandoned boats drifting everywhere the winds blow. It is important to hold on to what Islam gave us, so that we do not transgress the limits of Allah.
Indeed, every king has a preserve, and the preserve of Allah is found in what He has forbidden. So do not go near them!
These are the limits of Allah, so do not transgress them. And whoever transgresses the limits of Allah — it is those who are the wrongdoers.
[Quran 2:229]
