WORLD MUSLIM CONFERENCE

With all the handicaps which accompanied the birth of Pakistan, and which are still besetting its path, the Pakistan Govt. has been forging ahead with the programme of national reconstruction with commendable zeal and ingenuity. The idea of calling a conference of all the Muslim countries of the world is the latest of its attempts in this direction and will be welcomed throughout the world of Islam. Islam throughout the world is passing through the most critical times, politically as well as culturally. Politically the very existence of Muslim countries is in the balance. Standing alone they constitute no factor in present-day political forces of the world and owe their very existence as states to the mutual rivalries of the big powers of the world. Their only chance of survival lies in their closing their ranks and forging a united front. As the largest Muslim country of the world, Pakistan has given a much-needed lead to the Islamic countries. The Conference, if it materializes, will go a long way to make Islam a positive force on the political chessboard of the world. The Pakistan Govt. must be congratulated on conceiving the idea to rally the scattered forces of Islam and weld them into a power that may have to be counted with.

The Conference will no doubt emphasize the essential unity of Islam. This may appear a very ordinary thing on the face of it, but it is not. The downfall of Islam as a political power is directly traceable to the fact that the unity which was the greatest gift of Islam to Muslims was thrown to the winds and factional spirit and factional interests took the place of the solidarity which was the pride of Islam. The Quran condemns this tendency in most unsparing terms. Those who cut up the faith into factions, it declares, have nothing of Islam in them.

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ فَرَّقُوا۟ دِينَهُمْ وَكَانُوا۟ شِيَعًا لَّسْتَ مِنْهُمْ فِى شَىْءٍ

(Al-An’am (The Cattle) 6:159)

And yet what is the legacy that we have inherited through the tallies of our remote forefathers? An Islam split up into sects and factions; Sunnis and Shias, Hanafis and Whhabis, Muciallids and Ghair Mugallids, Qadris and Chishtis – all these are follies of a decadent age and the very negation of Islam as expounded in the Holy Quran. The world of Islam has already outgrown these stupidities. The Conference will, however, be doing a great good should it formally outlaw this faction-mindedness as un-Islamic and detrimental to the highest interests of Islam.

As a matter of fact, Islam is one indivisible whole. The moment you split it up into compartments, it ceases to be Islam. Unity and solidarity form the burden of the Quranic teachings: The clannishness to which the Arabs were given has been described as a pit of fire by the Quran whereas the brotherhood which was brought by Islam has been spoken of as a blessing of God. It is unintelligible how in the face of these emphatic teachings, Islam came to be cut up into pieces. The priestly class, the Ulama are mainly responsible for this historical fraud they have played upon the Muslims in the name of Islam. It will be up to the Conference to reassert the broad unity and brotherhood which Islam originally meant. Whether Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani who is to be the presiding genius of the Conference will be able to rise to the full height of the occasion and declare the essential unity of Islam is yet to be seen.

In case the Conference confines its emphasis to the political unity of the world of Islam, it will not carry things very far. A house erected on the sands of political expediency is but a house of cards. The unity which Islam vouchsafed to the Muslims was a unity born of faith and conviction that all Muslims are one brotherhood. That is the kind of unity which alone constitutes real live dynamic force. Hence the imperative need of emphasizing this aspect of Islam if the Conference is really to serve the purpose for which it is to be called. This kind of unity and solidarity, rooted in faith and conviction, can alone forge the force which the world of Islam must become if it is going to hold its own in the game of power politics of the day. The politician’s skin-deep unity is not worth much and cannot carry us very far. What the world of Islam needs is to rediscover the faith–unity which the Prophetﷺ bestowed on Muslims, and which was a standing miracle of Islam.

There is another and a weightier reason why Islam must rise now, not as a mere political force, but as a religious force. This lies in the challenge of Communism which is becoming day by day more and more imperative. Communism is no mere political power; it makes a bid for world domination as a philosophy of life – a kind of religion. Islam cannot ignore this challenge for the simple reason that Islam itself claims and on divine authority – that with it is bound up the real and highest good of human society. It will be another call on the deliberations of the Conference to find ways and means to combat these new false deities that are being fashioned in Moscow and making a definite bid in all the countries of the world for human allegiance. Lands in the immediate neighbourhood of Pakistan, both towards the West and the East, are fast singing hallelujah to this new cult. In Pakistan itself, the raw undergraduates are falling victims to this false creed. Communism is thus becoming a live issue, so far as Islam is concerned. And the World Muslim Conference, if it is to justify its name, must focus attention on this challenge to Islam and devise ways and means to meet this challenge. Communism is a challenge to all that the seers and saints of all ages have suffered for and fought for and died for. Islam alone is capable of meeting this challenge and serve as an insurmountable darn against its onward rush. The Conference will be failing in its work if it does not take note of this challenge and awaken the Muslim countries to this danger.

M.Y.K

(Tuesday, February 8, 1949)