ID-AL-ADHA SERMON BY MAULANA MUHAMMAD YAKUB KHAN, IMAM, THE SHAH JAHAN MOSQUE, WOKING, ENGLAND
Modern Man Just A New Brand of A Pagan
DEMOCRACY DIVORCED FROM GOD IS MOBOCRACY: KINGDOM OF GOD THE ONLY ANSWER TO MODERN PROBLEMS.
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ هَلْ أَدُلُّكُمْ عَلَىٰ تِجَـٰرَةٍ تُنجِيكُم مِّنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ
(As-Saff (The Row) 61:10)
This is a passage from the Quran which tells us: ”Shall I (says God), lead you to a trade or business which may save you from a dire calamity?” What is that business?
تُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ وَتُجَـٰهِدُونَ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ بِأَمْوَٰلِكُمْ وَأَنفُسِكُمْ ذَٰلِكُمْ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْلَمُون
(As-Saff (The Row) 61:11)
“Have faith in God and His Messenger”, the verse goes on to say, “and strive in the cause of God with all your will and with all your heart. This is best for you, if only you knew.”
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُونُوٓا۟ أَنصَارَ ٱللَّهِ كَمَا قَالَ عِيسَى ٱبْنُ مَرْيَمَ لِلْحَوَارِيِّـۧنَ مَنْ أَنصَارِىٓ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ قَالَ ٱلْحَوَارِيُّونَ نَحْنُ أَنصَارُ ٱللَّهِ
(As-Saff (The Row) 61:14)
“O you who believe”, the passage goes on to say, “Be helpers to God, just as Jesus called upon his disciples. “Who will be my helpers in the cause of God” – and the disciples said: “We shall be the helpers of God.”
This is the literal meaning of this verse that I have recited just now, and in these times when humanity is groping for a light and a way out of all the mental conflicts, tensions and frustrations, there could hardly be a more reassuring message, saying: “Here is that way, the way of faith in God – the same way, which was pointed by Jesus Christ, as well when he called upon his disciples and said, “who shall be my helpers”, and the disciples replied, “we shall be your helpers”.
Human vs steel Machines
We live in an age of inventions. Islam has also made an invention, and the workmanship of that invention on a small scale is just now before you. Here we see before us, in this congregation, people from all corners of the world, and of all complexions, and all languages. They have been welded into a common fraternity. People in the West make machines of steel, Islam makes human machines, welding human beings into brotherhood. Islam’s invention is two-fold – just, no more than that. First, to produce a mental climate to inculcate a deep sense of the sovereignty of God and second, equality and brotherhood of man. Behind all the rituals and forms that you see and the prayers that we say, and the Fasting that we keep, runs this main purpose – viz., the establishment of the brotherhood of man under the sovereignty of God.
I leave it to you to judge which is the more important of the two machines – the machine made of steel, which may serve a useful purpose and just as much a destructive purpose, or the human mind that can properly work that machine for a good purpose. Certainly, more important than a steel machine is the creation of such mentality that a man who drives the steel machine should use it for a good purpose. And that is the need that Islam supplies.
If you put at the wheel of a motorcar a man who is drunk, certainly you must be in for some big road crash. I am afraid the Western civilization is just now being driven by people who are similarly drunk with power-politics, oblivious of the higher purpose for which man has been created, and for which this world has been created by God. The world is watching with bated breath what people in Geneva are likely to produce, and many people fell that it would be much better if they kept on talking rather than come back without achieving anything.
The Islamic Factory
Islam produces this two-fold climate (mental climate) through the institutions which God has prescribed. We meet five times a day in our daily prayers. We stand together side by side without any distinction and bow before our Creator. What we recite in these prayers is nothing but the glorification of God. Then, Islam goes a step further and brings more people together on a bigger scale on Fridays, and then, on a yet bigger scale on the Id occasions when people from far and wide come to meet their brothers from different parts of the world. The biggest gathering of humanity takes place at the time of the pilgrimage at Makkah of which this Festival marks the climax. At the time of the pilgrimage, even the dress distinction is wiped off, and every pilgrim is dressed in just two plain sheets of cloth. The main idea is to create a psychological climate that God is greater than all the worldly riches, and the things we have, and the gorgeous dresses we love, and the big way of living that we appreciate so much. This is the idea which is driven home at the pilgrimage – the insignificance of all worldly possession before God.
The Prophet’s Last Message
We Muslims remember very well what the Prophet’s ﷺ last message was, about the end of his life. That sermon which he delivered is known as his last message to humanity. He delivered it to a congregation of over 100,000 assembled at the big plain of Arafat. What was that last message of his to mankind? Among many other things, he said, “I declare today that there is no superiority for the Arab over the non-Arab or for the non-Arab over the Arab. Also, there is no superiority for the white people over the black people, and vice versa, no superiority for the black over the white.”
Now this sovereignty of God and equality of man has become a second nature with a Muslim, and no politics, no economics, no science and no philosophy can delude him away from his devotion to God.
General Kassim’s Firm Stand
The world witnessed this all-out devotion of a Muslim to his Faith when, some-time ago, Cairo, despite its dependence on Russia for economic and technical aid, did some straight-talking to Moscow, when the latter tried to import its Godless creed there. And recently when Communism, having failed in Cairo, turned towards Baghdad, the Muslim world noted, with much relief and satisfaction General Abdul Karim Kasim firmly calling a halt to it. This is the invention of Islam, the greatest gift of Islam to mankind. I should say this unquestioning loyalty and devotion to God is the greatest contribution of Islam to the onward march of civilization.
Democracy: A Political Machine
I am not unaware of the fact that people in the West attach very great importance to their ideologies of Democracy and Communism. But if you just analyse both these schools of thought, what are they but political and economic machines. Just as the Western people invent machines of steel, they have invented political and economic machines, and given them the names of Democracy and Communism. But have they led us anywhere? Has even Democracy anything in common with the teachings of Jesus Christ, who said he had come to establish the Kingdom of God on earth? The reason is that the aim is as much materialistic in democracy as in Communism. In the Kingdom of God which prophets came to establish, nothing but God’s will is the highest value of life and the main objective of man.
The “good things” of life, the things of the flesh, which we are wedded to, and which we installed as deities, are not the way which can take us to the Kingdom of God on earth. The Kingdom of God can only be established on earth by making God’s will sovereign in the hearts of men. Whole-hearted self-dedication to God is the only road to peace of mind, and social good. Communism and Democracy both are wedded to the advancement of purely material prosperity and creature comforts. Democracy pays lip-homage to God, but the object of its pursuit in daily life is just the same – the pleasures of the flesh. That is not the path of Faith, which means having all our love and loyalty for God and nothing but God. Jesus taught against love of wealth. But look at your big business, your banks, your insurance companies, your thinking in terms of dividends and money making.
Kingdom of God
For a real Kingdom of God, we must turn to Islam. It may sound stranger than fiction, but it is a fact of history that in the Kingdom of God which Islam established, the king himself – the Caliph Umar carried a bag of flour on his back to a starving family, which he discovered, during one of his nightly incognito rounds of the Capital. One of his servants said, “Oh, Caliph, I will carry this for you”. What was his reply? “Will you carry my burden on the day of judgement? It is my burden that as Head of the State, I should provide food to starving people”.
Here is something which shows what Democracy in Islam, rooted in the sovereignty of God, means. A Democracy rooted in the peoples will ultimately leads to mob rule. You in the West have some very big democracies, but even in these democracies the poor negro is still lynched. In the Prophet’s Day, the blackest man, Bilal, was one of his bosom friends and most respected companions. Now this is the contribution of Islam which I would strongly urge upon leaders of thought in the Western countries to give serious consideration to. Unless you get out of the conventional modes of thinking which has led the West into so many difficulties, where will we end? No one can say that the future is anything but dark, or that we have really even turned the corner, so far as the threat of nuclear war is concerned.
Islam: A Bridge Builder
Now this is the message of Islam, which, as I said by quoting the verses of the Qur’an, was also the message of Jesus Christ who is mentioned in the Qur’an many times as one of the prophets of God, whose righteousness has been extolled and faith in his Divine Mission made an essential of faith for a Muslim. A Muslim has to believe in all the prophets of the world. The Qur’an devotes a whole chapter to Mary and her son Jesus, speaking in glowing terms of their spiritual eminence.
Now here is a gesture of Islam which, if reciprocated, can show way out of the present gloom and give an altogether new turn to the trend of contemporary history, by bringing the followers of Islam and Christianity closer together. Islam extended a hand of fellowship to Christianity at its very inception. And if inherited prejudices are removed, this principle of the acceptance of all Prophets may yet prove a bridge-builder between the west and the world of Islam.
Plea to introduce Islamic teaching in British Schools
I would suggest that something constructive should be done in this direction, and practical ways and measures should be adopted to bring about better understanding between these two great Faiths. My impressions of talks on Islam in this country to students in the Universities, Colleges, and Schools have convinced me that the rising generation is anxious to find out the truth about other religions, especially about Islam. I would strongly urge upon the educational authorities in this country to introduce some sort of textbooks in schools to give rudimentary knowledge to students about the teachings of Islam.
We quite appreciate the economic and technical aid that the underdeveloped Muslim countries arc receiving from the Western democracies, but if the bonds are reinforced by the more abiding links of religion, by promoting better understanding of Islam in the Western countries, perhaps the whole trend of history might take a turn beyond our imagination. These are big possibilities that lie ahead of us, if the West should in right earnest set out to discover the Kingdom of God, as taught by Jesus. Islam alone shows the way in that direction by making God’s will the highest object of human endeavour.
Modern man: A New Brand of Pagan
The Qur’an places mankind into two categories – believers and non-believers. It recognises no other distinctions between man and man. I don’t know where to put the modern Western or Westernised man. With all the lip professions, who cares for the teachings of Jesus Christ? His only right place is under the category of non-believers. With God confined only to the lips, with the heart in the grip of the things of the flesh, the modern man is only a new brand of a pagan. The fact that, he happens to be very educated, and is better dressed and better behaved makes little difference. Faith in God is the only dividing line between a believer and a pagan – the kind of faith I have just depicted before you, a whole-hearted devotion to God, which knows no divided loyalty. There is no halfway house between believism and un-believism. You either believe or you don’t believe. You can’t deceive God. You have to worship Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, as was taught by all prophets, if you want to be in the category of believers. That is exactly what the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said, when he declared, “My prayer, my sacrifice, my life, my death – everything is out and out for God”.
There lies the crux of the problem that confronts modern man. No man-made wisdom, no science, no technology, no philosophy, no politics, no economics can show the way out. The only way out, the most profitable business deal, as proclaimed in the verses I recited to you, lies along the path blazed by the Divine Teachers of the world, to be found stemmed up and preserved in the pages of the Qur’an. That is the path of making God the be-all and end-all, the sheet anchor of our life.
ID-AL-ADHA AT WOKING
The Imam’s Address was listened to with rapt attention by a cosmopolitan gathering, representing every Islamic country. Col. Abdullah Baines Hewitt, President of the British Muslim Society, and Major Farooq Farmer, Chairman of the British Muslim Society, Prince Sami of Turkey, Col. Hashmi of Bahawalpur, Dr. Sunario, the Indonesian Ambassador, a large contingent of Turkish Cypriots and a coach-load followers of His Highness the Agha Khan, and the Iranian divine Hazrat Khurasani were some of the prominent figures to be seen in the congregation.
Among the distinguished non-Muslims who attended the function were Prof. John MacMurray, formerly head of Philosophy in Oxford and Edinburgh Universities; Dr. Barnes of an American University, Mr. Gordon England, sponsor of the Conference of “Science and Religion” at Oxford.The Sermon was recorded by the British Government’s Central Information Office “Voice of Africa” service.
A young lady, Miss Stokes of Portsmouth came up to embrace Islam, and when the Imam made her recite the Kalima-i-Shahadat at the microphone, three times in Arabic, followed by English rendering, quite a little crowd besieged the platform with their cameras turned on her. She was given the Muslim name Maryam, and the moment she stepped down from the stage, she was almost mobbed by enthusiastic men and women, anxious to give her a handshake.
(The Light – July 8, 1959)
