Let Us Be Muslims. Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi

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Let Us Be Muslims - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi


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in society, never bothering to ascertain from the Qur’ān and Sunnah how to run their affairs, or refuse to accept the teachings of the Qur’ān and Sunnah by saying: “They do not appeal to my reason”, or “They are against the ways of my forefathers”, or “The world is moving in an opposite direction’”. For them Sayyid Mawdudi has this to say: ‘Such people are liars if they call themselves Muslims.’21

      Iman has two levels. Sayyid Mawdudi makes a very sharp and very important distinction between the two: faith at the level of profession – what he calls ‘legal Islam’, and faith at the level of fidelity and actualization – what he calls ‘true Islam’, which God desires, which assures us His rewards in this world and the Hereafter. His concern in this book, he makes abundantly clear, is ‘true Islam’, for it is what counts in life and in God’s scale.

      But at the same time, he stresses, very wisely, the importance of legal Islam. For faith thus defined forms the basis for membership in the Ummah. By clarifying the important distinction between Din and Shari’ah, he strikes at the very root of sectarianism which results in mutual excommunication. For all his stress on true Islam, and for all his rhetoric – ‘You are not Muslims’, ‘this is sheer hypocrisy’ – it must be noted that Sayyid Mawdudi never issued or signed any fatwa (edict) of Disbelief against anyone in his entire life.

      Actions: Real Iman, once installed at the centre of life, once lodged in heart, must flourish into a mighty tree of righteous deeds (as-ṣāliḥāt). Unfortunately, something which was important for the vitality and true worth of Islam – the relationship between imān and ‘amal – became an issue, quite unnecessarily, for the jurists and philosophers. Muslims have no need to assume a prerogative that is God’s: to determine any particular person’s place in the Hereafter. Or, to engage in the business of excommunication. But they must never lose a vision of Iman which can retain its power only when linked with deeds.

      On the other hand, acts of worship, if correctly performed, must result in claiming the whole of life for Iman, and bring all of it under God. We only have to read the discourse on ‘True Meaning of ‘Ibadah’ to appreciate fully how forcefully Sayyid Mawdudi argues this important point.

      Sayyid Mawdudi inveighs heavily against ‘religiosity’ hoisted on empty hearts and divided loyalties. ‘What would you say about a servant’, he asks, ‘who, instead of performing the duties required of him by his master, just stands in front of him with folded hands and keeps chanting his name?’ For example ‘his master commands him to cut off the hand of a thief. But the servant, still standing there, recites scores of times in an extremely melodious voice: “Cut off the hand of the thief, cut off the hand of the thief”, without ever trying to establish that order under which the hand of a thief may be cut off’. However, when you see a person who ‘reads from dawn to dusk the Divine injunctions in the Qur’ān, but never stirs himself to carry them out, chanting instead the name of God on a thousand-bead rosary, praying uninterruptedly and reciting the Qur’ān in a beautiful voice … you exclaim “What a devout and pious person he is!”, you are misled because you do not understand the true meaning of ‘Ibadah’.