5. Al-Maaida

Within Madinah there were two kinds of people who opposed the Islamic mission—one the hypocrites and the other the Jews. The hypocrites, feeling that the real Islamic mission was harmful to their interests and purposes, merely put on a show of having adopted Islam. The Jews for their part, occupying as they did the thrones of the representatives of religion, felt that the Islamic mission was pulling them down from their elevated positions. Both these types of people considered the true Islamic mission to be their common enemy. Therefore, they joined hands in running a campaign against Islam. The more prominent of them, considering it beneath their dignity to attend meetings held by the Prophet Muhammad, stayed away from them, but their inferiors were set the task of hearing him and conveying the happenings to their leaders. These people used then to invest them with wrong meanings in order to defame him and his mission. Their arrogance had made them so brazen that they did not hesitate to take God’s message out of its proper context and draw from it inferences which suited their interests. Such are those who do not bow to God and His Prophet, their attitude being to accept only whatever suits their interests. This is the most disturbing trend for a man. Those who give preference to their vested interests and personal considerations over the Truth, who want to see themselves in high positions at any cost, who devise destructive plots to suppress the Truth — to the point of distorting God’s message to justify their action — develop a mentality which blocks their capacity to accept the Truth. They desert God, so God deserts them. Such people, being deprived of God’s guidance, remain enmeshed in falsehood, until they reach the world of the Fire. The servant of God, who has arisen with the message of God’s true religion, should not become discouraged by opposition. The activities of opponents are not actually against the missionary but against God, and can therefore never be successful. What God requires from missionary activity is that people should be made fully aware of the real facts. And this task is certainly fulfilled with God’s assistance.

The common form of bribe (suht) is that which is taken directly as such. For example, there were ancient religious scholars who used to give false decrees and opinions after taking bribes. However, there is another form of corruption in which there is no direct give-and-take transaction but it is the biggest and worst out of all the various forms of corruption. This is the distorting of the provisions of religion by opportunists to suit popular tastes so that they may have honour and glory conferred upon them by an admiring public, and receive contributions and offerings from all and sundry. Presenting religion in its pure form is always at the cost of unpopularity with the public. On the contrary, a version of religion which without materially disrupting people’s lives, confers the advantages of religion, is very popular and attracts large crowds. The purveyors of a ‘religion’ which does not oblige potential followers to give up or modify their world-oriented lives, and guarantees admission to paradise with the help of some trivial formalities, very soon become the favourites of the public. The same is true of those who present a ‘religion’ which gives sanctity to national and communal interests and all the accompanying frenzy of material activities; which gives a man the opportunity, under the banner of religion, to engage himself in glory-seeking activities.

The ancient Jewish leaders had become a centre of attraction for the people by dispensing this type of religion. They presented to the people the religion of their choice and the people responded with everything from monetary co-operation to the conferment of honours and glory. Given these circumstances, the raising of the voice of true religion by the Prophet Muhammad seemed intolerable to them, as this amounted to the demolition of the structure of their vested interests. They were so displeased with the Prophet that they were in no way interested in hearing anything good about him. On the contrary, if they heard any bad news about him, they took immense interest in it and spread it with their own additions. The condition of those who fall victim to such evil is that even if they are inclined to take a religious decision on any matter, they do so in the hopes that the outcome will be in line with their own desires. If not, they disassociate themselves from it, in spite of knowing full well that the real decision makers are God and His Prophet. They forget that their rejection of the matter in hand amounts to a denial of Faith and Islam itself.

The purpose of God’s Book coming to the world was to guide the people to the way of eternal welfare, and to bring them out of the darkness of desire-worship and into the light of Truth-worship. Those who are God-fearing consider the Book of God as a holy covenant between God and His subjects, and as such, they know that there cannot, on their behalf, be any increase in the benefits it confers or any lessening of the strictness of its ordinances. As it is in the nature of a trust with them, they carry out its instructions. God’s Book conveys His will with regard to His subjects. Its guidance must be followed in all matters and disputes must be settled in accordance with its instructions. Allowing worldly desires and self interest to reign supreme and only playing lip service to God’s book amounts to a rejection of God’s word. Self-styled Muslims who act in this way are sinners in God’s eyes. As rejecters of God’s supremacy and defaulters on their pledge to obey God, they are destroyers of Truth. Intentional violators of Islamic law, can lay no claim to God’s approval.

In connection with justice (and the relevant penal action) it is the requirement of the Islamic law that its rules should be enforced without any individual’s status being taken into account. However, sometimes a man’s violence is not the result of his mischievous intent, but occurs accidentally under the influence of emotional stress. Under such circumstances, if the victim of violence pardons the perpetrator of violence, that will be deemed an act of magnanimity towards the latter and will contribute to creating an atmosphere of broad-mindedness in society.

In connection with justice (and the relevant penal action) it is the requirement of the Islamic law that its rules should be enforced without any individual’s status being taken into account. However, sometimes a man’s violence is not the result of his mischievous intent, but occurs accidentally under the influence of emotional stress. Under such circumstances, if the victim of violence pardons the perpetrator of violence, that will be deemed an act of magnanimity towards the latter and will contribute to creating an atmosphere of broad-mindedness in society.

Here ‘the Book’ means the original and basic teachings of religion. This Book of God is a single entity and has been revealed to all the prophets with some changes in respect of language and the order of commandments. However, as regards the outward structure in which the realities of religion are presented, there are differences in the teachings of the various prophets. The reason is not that there are stages in the revelation of the religion which indicate the actual evolution of the religion itself, i.e. it is not that prior to this a less developed or imperfect religion was revealed and thereafter a more developed and entirely perfect religion was revealed. The truth is that with any considerable passage of time, the internal reality of religion is lost and public rituals and formal ceremonies assume the strength of the internal reality, eventually becoming ‘holy’. People begin to consider the repetition of such rituals, accompanied by external trappings, as real worship. That is why the external framework was changed from time to time, so that the mentality of considering this framework as the real substance of religion should be eradicated and so that nothing other than God should become the centre of one’s attention. According to the Quran, this came about simply for the purpose of putting people to the test. The reason for this strategy is the Divine Wisdom of putting mankind on trial and not the Divine Wisdom of the evolution of religion. An example of this is the change of qiblah. The Children of Israel were commanded to turn towards the ‘Holy House’ (Jerusalem) while saying their prayers. This command was only for the sake of being consistent about the direction. But thereafter they gradually developed the idea that prayer meant simply facing towards Jerusalem. Then the earlier commandment was changed and the Ka‘bah was made the qiblah. Now, some people adhered to the earlier tradition, while others followed God’s guidance. In this way, the change of qiblah made it clear as to who worshipped walls and doors and who were the genuine worshippers of God (see 2:143). Now there is no possibility of the occurrence of such a change, because the structure would have to be changed by a prophet and now no other prophet is going to be raised. However, as far as the real purpose is concerned, it is to remain as it is. Even now, before God, His true worshipper will be the one who, though following the structural formalities, will not give them the status of real purpose; who, freeing his mind from outward ceremonial, will say his prayers directly to God. This has to be achieved through rigorous mental discipline. The disputes existing in religion in the name of outward formalities have arisen because people’s negligence has made them ignorant of the true facts. If they were to become aware of the truth — as it will present itself in the Hereafter—all the disputes would come to an end right now.

The Quran and other Divine Scriptures are not separate books. They are the different editions of a single Book of God which has been named al-kitab here. All editions of the Book revealed by God were one and the same as regards content. However, the bearers of the previous scriptures could not in the later periods preserve them in their original form. Therefore, God revealed His Book (muhaymin) i.e. the Quran, the authentic expression of His will, — a touchstone which reveals which sections of the other scriptures have retained their original form and which have been changed.

The Jews had formulated a new self-made religion by mingling their own innovations with the true religion of God. Their self interests were linked with this self-devised religion. Therefore, they were not at all ready to give it up and adopt the pure religion introduced by the Prophet. Instead of bowing down before the Truth, they took to harassing the flag-bearer of Truth, so that he should kneel down before them, give up the true religion of God and accept the religion devised by them. Had it been the will of God, He could have tied the hands of these transgressors at the very first instance and they would not have succeeded in harassing him. But God allowed them some respite to put their evil plans into action. This was done so as to make it abundantly clear that these claimants of so-called righteousness were the worst type of irreligious people; being devotees not of God but of their own self-interests. This act of God, though it constituted a hard test for the missionary of Truth, was the only way a decision might be reached as to who deserved paradise and who deserved hell. It is the weakness of the human being that he wants to fulfill his desires. Being governed by God’s commandments is, therefore, not tolerable to him. He then goes so far as to use self-devised interpretations of the Divine religion to make it conform to his desires. Pure religion is acceptable only to those who do not view things in the light of their desires, preferring to make the moral choice of rising above them. The word of God is undoubtedly the truest word. But in this present world of trial, every Truth is hidden behind the curtain of doubt. It is the test of a man that he should be able to tear asunder this curtain, that he should be able to make the unseen observable to himself, so that he may be in possession of the Truth. One who is caught up in outward doubts is a failure and one who brushes aside the veil of apparent doubts and finds the Truth has achieved success.