Confronting the Trials of Our Time – Between Extremism and Passivism
*Link to complete coverage of Gaza Massacre on MM*Â
Growing up as a Muslim in the last thirty years has been a trying experience for all of us who have lived it. We are confronted almost on a daily basis with catastrophes in multiple places throughout the Muslim world – so many that you start to lose count. Your own “issues†of trying to grow up sane and balanced in the 21st century pale in front of the practical genocides that we have witnessed (Srebrenica) as well as those we continue to witness (Palestine, Chechnya, etc.). It is enough to lead some into clinical depression, others into losing their faith and yet others to acts of terror and extremism. There seems to be a great amount of confusion regarding the correct Islamic response to these tragedies – what would the Prophet (saas) do in such circumstances? That question though is not as hard to answer as some imagine it to be – at least in theory.
Among the wisdoms we can first look to, are those contained in the Book of Allah. Many Muslims wonder why there are so many references to the Children of Israel in the Quran – why is their story and the story of Musa (as) is repeated so much more than any other story in the Quran? Among the reasons considered by some scholars is due to the fact that the history of the Children of Israel is so similar to us in so many ways. They were the first ummah charged with battle. Their history fluctuated between periods of defeat and even slavery, and periods of great victory and authority in the land. They shall be great in number on the Day of Judgment as shall be the ummah of Muhammad (saas) and their history was long as is ours. We have much to learn from their experiences – from their failures and successes – so that we don't end up like them.
They were the only people on Earth at one point who worshipped Allah, yet He allowed them to be enslaved by a people devoted to open shirk. One might wonder why Allah would ever allow such a thing to happen, but the reason may become more clear when you read the following ayah:
And when the two hosts saw each other, the companions of Musa said: “We are sure to be overtaken.” [26:61]
The Children of Israel had witnessed nine great miracles from Allah at the hands of Musa, miracles that literally brought Fir'aun (Pharaoh) and his people to their knees, to the point that they released the Children of Israel from their bondage and they took with them the riches of Egypt as they left. Yet standing there with the Red Sea before them, and Fir'aun and his entire army behind them kicking up the dust in a raging attempt to slaughter them once and for all – they lost whatever trust they had in Allah. But not Musa; his trust in Allah was unwavering and he confidently replied to them:
“Absolutely not! Verily with me is my Lord and He will (certainly) guide me.'' [26:62]
From this inspiring story in the Quran, we learn our first lesson in dealing with trials; and that is firm trust in Allah. It is no different from the calm attitude and demeanor of our beloved Prophet (saas) when he was in the cave and the pagans were about to discover him, when he calmly said to Abu Bakr, “O' Abu Bakr! What do you think about two, with Allah as their third.†They were illustrating for us the practice of trusting in Allah – that Allah will not allow bad to come to us unless it is to purify our sins or raise our degrees in the Hereafter. And that in reality what we saw as bad will actually shine forth as a source of good when we look back upon it later.
The second valuable lesson that we can take from the Book of Allah is His ayaat:
So do not become weak (against your opponent), nor be sad, and you will indeed be superior (in victory) if you are indeed (true) believers.
If a wound has touched you, be sure a similar wound has touched the others. And so are the days (good and not so good), We give to men by turns, that Allah may test those who believe, and that He may take martyrs from among you. And Allah likes not the wrong-doers)
And that Allah may test (or purify) the believers (from sins) and destroy the disbelievers.
Do you think that you will enter Paradise before Allah tests those of you who fought (in His Cause) and (also) tests those who are patient? [3:139-142]
Ibn Kathir reports regarding these beautiful ayaat, (And so are the days, that We give to men by turns), and at times – out of wisdom – We allow the enemy to overcome you, although the final good end will be yours.
When it comes to the issue of the Zionist occupation of Palestine and their oppressive behavior with the people of Palestine and the religious relics of both Christian and Muslim significance, we certainly might wonder – “why?â€. Why would Allah allow this to happen? This wouldn't be much different then the question that Umar ibnul-Khattab asked the Prophet when he concluded the treaty of Hudaybiyyah when he asked, “O' Messenger of Allah, are we not on the truth and are they not on the falsehood?â€
What he was politely trying to say is why have we accepted their conditions and why will we turn back and not make the 'umrah as we intended? Why are we allowing the pagans to dictate to us when we are upon the truth of Islam and they are on the falsehood of association?
 Yet, this treaty was mentioned by Allah in the Quran as a “clear and evident victory†in the first ayah of surat al-Fath. At the time, Umar didn't have the vision to see what this treaty would allow the fledgling Muslim community to achieve. It created a cease-fire that allowed the Muslims to devote their time to spreading the teachings of Islam, and indeed in the few years that the treaty was maintained, the Muslims more than tripled in number.
 So why is Muslim blood seemingly so cheap today, why do civil rights seemingly apply to everyone except us, why do human rights seemingly matter to everyone except us? There is a wisdom in this that most of us cannot fully understand at this time.
So what can we do about it in the meantime? The human being was created by Allah as a hasty being – we always want immediate gratification. We have difficulty with patience and we have an even harder time understanding that what took some time to happen will take some time to undo. We didn't arrive at our current state of affairs in a few days and it is foolish to think that we can get back to the days of authority and security in a few days. This matter is clear in the following authentic hadith:
Narrated Khabbab ibnul-Arat: We complained one day to Allah's Messenger (saas) [of the persecution inflicted on us by the infidels] while he was sitting in the shade of the Ka'ba, leaning over his covering sheet. We said to him, “Will you not seek help for us? Will you not pray to Allah for us?” He said, “Among the nations before you a (believing) man would be put in a ditch that was dug for him, and a saw would be put over his head and he would be sawed into two pieces; yet that (torture) would not make him give up his religion. Another would be combed with iron combs that would remove his flesh from his bones, yet that would not cause him to abandon his religion. By Allah, this religion (Islam) will prevail till a traveler will go from San'a' (in Yemen) to Hadramaut fearing none but Allah, or a wolf as regards his sheep, but you (people) are hasty. (Bukhari)
This hadith provides us with many benefits alhamdulillah. The first of them is that we can see that we are not the first people to suffer for the sake of our religion and that indeed there were those before us who underwent great trial because of their imaan. We also see that even though the noble Companions have such a degree of excellence over us, they were still human and still wanted things to improve immediately. They didn't understand the wisdom behind what they were experiencing just as we cannot fathom the wisdom behind our current global condition.
The Prophet (saas), whom Allah described as being, “for the believers full of pity, kind, and merciful†[9:128] was not as concerned though about this situation and was not moved to ask Allah for immediate relief. He knew that victory was coming, that Islam would indeed spread to the far reaches of the globe; and he also knew that the patience the Companions needed to have through these trials was what they needed to make them into the great ummah they were to become.
The word fitnah that we commonly understand as meaning “trial†or “tribulation†had a meaning to the Arabs before the dawn of Islam. They used to call the process of heating metals to purify them as fitnah. Thus, a blacksmith would heat a certain metal to a certain temperature where a certain impurity would melt off, and then raise the temperature some more to melt off the next impurity until finally the original ore was pure. Thus the fitnah that the Companions underwent was a means of purifying them from all the impurities of Jahiliyyah.
In the centuries that have come after those noble early generations, those impurities of Jahiliyyah have slowly crept back into our ummah. We are filled with them in fact. Open shirk is practiced throughout many segments of the Muslim world through grave worship, saint worship, black magic and superstition to name only a few. We are beset by the diseases of nationalism, racism and sectarian conflict. We defeat an outside enemy only to be consumed with killing one another for leadership. Our “Muslim†lands are flowing with alcohol and zina is once again a reality. We have fulfilled the prophecy of the Prophet (saas) where he said that we would indeed follow those who came before us in all of their steps – all of their mistakes, distortions and acts of disobedience.
Those who imagine that “Islam in the West†is somehow more pristine are only deceiving themselves as it is a bold reality that part of our failure in dawaah is because of the evil manners non-Muslims have witnessed from members of this community.
How many Muslim men have impregnated a non-Muslim “girlfriend†only to disappear and ignore the consequences? How many Muslims cheat in their businesses daily and treat their employees cruelly without compassion or concern? How many Muslims float their businesses by selling that which Allah has prohibited? How many non-Muslims have come to understand the beautiful phrase of insha'Allah to mean “never†because we don't keep our promises or guard our oaths? How often have we, through our own behavior, become what the Prophet (saas) described in one hadith as “munafireen†(those who drive others away from Islam?).
 Indeed, Allah has said in the Quran what means:
That is so because Allah will never change a grace which He has bestowed on a people until they change what is in their own selves. And verily, Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower. [8:53]
Ibn Kathir states in regards to this ayah,
Allah affirms His perfect justice and fairness in His decisions, for He decided that He will not change a bounty that He has granted someone, except on account of an evil that they committed. Allah said in another Ayah,
Verily, Allah will not change the (good) condition of a people as long as they do not change their state (of goodness) themselves. But when Allah wills a people's punishment, there can be no turning it back, and they will find besides Him no protector.[13:11]
So it seems then that the only way out of the mess that we have created for ourselves over the past millennium is to work ourselves back to righteousness and to obedience to Allah. Indeed, one Muslim da'ee once reviewed the history of Jerusalem and concluded that whenever the believers disobeyed Allah and transgressed His boundaries that they would lose Jerusalem, even if it meant losing it to a people who disgraced it and put it to ruin.
The Children of Israel were forbidden to enter it for forty years because of their transgression of Allah's laws and for disobeying Allah's commands as given to them through Musa (as). Only when that wicked generation passed and the next one that had been instructed and disciplined by Musa and Harun (alayhim as-salaam) came to prominence did then Allah give them victory and entry into the Holy land. We see that the same thing happened with the coming of the Prophet Muhammad (saas) and that after him the generations weakened and weakened until Salahidin was sent. What many Muslims don't know though is the extensive effort made by Salahidin's predecessor Nurideen Zenki who prepared the ground for Salahidin's victory by disciplining the Muslim community.
It is for this reason that many wise scholars of this Ummah commented in the 1990′s that they discouraged demonstrations, protests and specifically forbade waging war against the leaders (coups). The issue with demonstrations is that in general they do not achieve significant gains but they do something more dangerous – they give the person who demonstrated the feeling – albeit a false and deceiving one – that they “did somethingâ€. They “didn't just sit back and do nothingâ€. Sure, they went outside and yelled, held up signs and blocked traffic. Maybe a few people became aware of the cause, but it is certain that many more were annoyed and put off by the demonstrations. How many times have you seen a picture of a Muslim holding up a sign at a protest that made you cringe? Just think how that ripple effect goes through the internet or news media turning hundreds of others away from our deen.
When these same scholars advised young Muslims to turn their efforts to dawaah in their own communities; to work at purging the evil that had crept into our communities, these young Muslims snapped. How could these “old, out-of-touch scholars†tell us to ignore what is happening around us and “just do dawahâ€. So they instead turned to extremism and terror, as they did for example in Algeria. The effect of these terror tactics backfired terribly and the condition of the Muslims worsened significantly as the country enacted emergency martial laws which deprived the citizenry of many civil and human rights as they have done in other countries like Egypt and Syria. Terror strategies have faced similarly poor results in all places where they have been tried.
What these young, enraged and energetic Muslims couldn't understand is exactly what leaders like the Prophet Muhammad (saas) and Nurideen Zenki did understand – change doesn't happen overnight. It takes a concerted effort directed towards tarbiyyah (disciplining) and correcting what went wrong over the past centuries. It requires us as an ummah to rid ourselves of the filth that prevents our du'a from being answered and that can only happen by starting with ourself.
It was not uncommon in the past to find some of the scholars and worshippers of this ummah blaming themselves for the difficulties faced by their brothers and sisters be it storms or enemy victories. It is a sad sign of the times that today we do the opposite, by blaming everyone but ourselves for the failures of this ummah. We should really ask ourselves, “If everyone was like me – what would the state of our ummah be? If everyone sinned like I did, if everyone was as weak and deficient in worship as I am, would our condition be worse or better as a whole?†The answer to those questions should push us harder to reform ourselves first. If each one of us just did that then we would be in better shape. If each one of us looked inward and corrected their own many deficiencies and weaknesses instead of only seeing their brother or sister's inadequacies then we might take a step in the right direction.
The cold reality to this whole issue is visible in our ever worsening next generation. Every statistic, every study that we do of the next generation brings more worry and sadness. They are straying from Islam in large numbers and we would be fools to think otherwise. They are not necessarily straying to other religions, but to atheism and secularism instead. This is a direct reflection of our own parenting skills and our own failures as role models for the most part. If we really were as good as we think we are then the next generation would be better.
The next question that we should ask ourselves is from where the victory will come? Do we really expect that screaming and protesting to non-Muslim governments will secure victory for us? Are we really that humiliated of a people that we will look to them for relief from our problems when supposedly on a daily basis we turn to the Lord of the Universe and say “Iyyaaka na'budu wa iyyaaka nasta'een†(You Alone we worship and You Alone we ask for help)? Are we not presenting a clear case against ourselves regarding whom we really place hope in and whom we really trust? Have we forgotten His words:
Is not He (better than your gods) Who responds to the distressed one, when he calls Him, and Who removes the evil, and makes you inheritors of the earth, generation after generation. Is there any god with Allah? Little is that you remember! [27:62]
Or when He commands us:
And put your trust in the Ever Living One Who dies not, and glorify His Praises, and Sufficient is He as the All-Knower of the sins of His slaves. [25:58]
 So, the real demonstration should not be out in the streets but on our prayer mats. How many of us have spent hours debating, discussing and arguing over the condition of the ummah but otherwise can't seem to get up in the latter half of the night to beg for Allah's mercy or even to get up on time for fajr? What is the longest sajdah (prostration in prayer) you have ever made on your own? Have you ever spent so much time in a sajdah begging Allah for His mercy, for His aid, for His guidance – so much time that your arms began to hurt? If not then when are we going to do that? If you think this is something unusual then remember that the Prophet (saas) was not a stranger to such long sajdahs and that once he prostrated for such a long time that 'Aisha thought he had died in prayer. And wasn't he the one (saas) who used to stand so long in prayer that his feet would swell? Yet he was forgiven and we are not, he was aided and we are not. Can you see the connection?
One last reminder on the whole issue of du'a is something that some may not have heard. It has been reported by many of the oppressed Muslims that they can “feel†our du'a in Ramadan just as much as they can “feel†its absence outside of Ramadan. We increase our worship and obedience to Allah so much in this blessed month and we also increase our supplications for our brothers and sisters locally and world-wide in this time to the extent that their victories are palpable in Ramadan. But with the coming of Eid, the masaajid become empty again and the sins pile up once more and the du'as stop and the oppression returns to the state it was before Ramadan. It is an aspect of the unseen, calling upon our Lord, and so many of us have become non-complacent and weak in regards to it to our own destruction.
So in conclusion, here is a review of the practical steps can we take to confront the trials that face us in these challenging times:
- Putting our trust firmly in Allah and being patient with His decree. Trusting in His wisdom and His mercy upon us and all Muslims. Not putting our trusts and hopes in other than Allah.
- Remembering that Allah gives authority to different nations at different times to test them. As Muslims, we once held authority but presently Allah has given it to those nations in the West among some others. They will be held responsible for their decisions and we will be held responsible for our response. We must avoid the two extremes of extremism and passivism in our response.
- Placing the blame for the failures of this ummah squarely on our own individual shoulders and reforming our own souls first before moving on to our own families in particular. This comes from the understanding that Allah will not change our condition to that of good until we rid our own souls and actions from the evil that is presently consuming them. Special emphasis on being good role models to the younger generation and not asking them to do something until we have ingrained it into our own character first.
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Getting serious with our du'a and our worship. Exerting ourselves by calling out to Allah in the times in which du'a is most likely to be accepted (during the last third of the night, during the last hour of jumu'ah, when traveling, when ill, while making sajdah in prayer, after reciting the Quran, etc.). We should also be sure to praise Allah before making du'a and sending peace and blessings upon the Prophet (saas) afterwards as this is part of the etiquette of du'a in the Sunnah. Remembering that it is not the exact words that we use but more the sincerity and humility of the du'a that matters.
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Increasing our istighfaar (seeking forgiveness from Allah) and repenting to Him. It is reported in the Sahihayn that the Prophet (saas) used to seek forgiveness from Allah 70-100 times a day. How many times do we really ask Allah for His forgiveness everyday (and when we say it, our hearts should reflect upon the statement deeply and consciously as opposed to saying “astaghfirullah†100 times without even thinking about what you are saying or without due concentration, humility and sincerity)?
And Allah is the source of all strength and success and Allah knows best.
Ali Shehata
Dr. Ali Shehata is the author of Demystifying Islam: Your Guide to the Most Misunderstood Religion of the 21st Century. Dr. Ali is an Emergency and Family Medicine physician currently living in an area of central Florida. He was born in Maryland to parents who had immigrated to the US from Egypt. He has studied Islam mainly through traditional methods among various scholars, du'at and students of knowledge here in the US.
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