Reasons for the Lack of Unity and Ways to Unite Muslim Ummah
By Aadil Farook, New Age Islam
10 December 2021
Unity Is Living With Love, Peace, Compassion, Brotherhood
And Goodwill Despite Intellectual Differences
Main Points:
1.
All Islamic
institutes should call themselves only Muslims - no further label at all
2.
The target should
not be to finish intellectual differences but to teach people how to live with
mutual respect.
3.
No ideology has any
special privilege towards Ultimate Truth.
-----
The biggest root cause of Muslim downfall is the lack of
unity in the Ummah. Everyone knows it already but no one has understood the
reasons for the lack of unity. Thus, no one can provide a solution as well.
Most people have this huge misconception that unity means uniting everyone on
the same opinions, same views & same beliefs. That is humanly impossible
and not the definition of unity at all. Unity is living with love, peace,
compassion, brotherhood & goodwill despite intellectual differences. The
target is not to finish intellectual differences but to teach people how to
live with intellectual differences with mutual respect. Right now, why there is
so much disunity in the first place? There are many categories of religious
Muslims.
Each category considers itself as right and others as wrong.
Thus each category teaches preaches endorses proves promotes only its own
version of Islam. Thus followers & students of each category naturally
develop a sense of superiority for their own group and look down upon others
consciously or subconsciously whether they openly express it or not. This
psychology is itself most destructive for unity and is sadly the perfect
condition for disunity. I have identified the problem. What is the solution?
Throughout the world in Muslim countries, all Islamic
institutes should have only and solely the following design:-
The governance/leadership/management/administration and
especially faculty members should have no affiliation or association with any
category at all. They should be 100% neutral. They should call themselves only
Muslims - no further label at all. Admissions should be equally open to any
person who claims to be a Muslim even if you don't consider him one. In the
same classroom, in front of all students, the teacher should teach point of
views of all categories whether Sunni (and its sub-categories) or Shia (and its
sub-categories) with equal intellectual honesty, arguments, and details without
any bias, prejudice, discrimination, and distortion of facts. Students should
not be forced by the teacher to subscribe to any single opinion at all. It is
totally the free choice of all students to subscribe to whichever point of view
they themselves find convincing. They can become whatever they want to be
without any fear. Qadiani's point of view should also be fully included but to
prove it wrong and show its flaws so that graduates can later do Dawah among
Qadianis. The only way to convert Qadianis is to speak to them and show them
politely that their opinion is wrong because good people are in every single
category - only Allah can judge them. We cannot judge anyone at all. Simply
calling them Kafirs is no solution at all. You have to show them why it's kufr
in the first place and that is only possible if you actually know their thesis
in full detail. Similarly, within the Shia sect, there is only one
sub-category: Kufr, and students should study it properly only to prove it’s
wrong.
The philosophy behind this unique idea is that Muslims of
every category should know clearly that the other categories are also sincere
and honest in their quest for the Truth. They are not bad or astray people at
all. They are not fools at all and have their own sound reasons for believing
in whatever they believe.
No category has any right to claim its Ahl-E-Haq at all. No
category has any special privilege towards Ultimate Truth. Only Allah knows the
Absolute Truth. Only He can decide on the Day of Judgment who is right or
wrong. Our job is not to judge people but to give them the benefit of doubt
that they might be right as well. If we find something convincing, we cannot
expect everyone else to be convinced with it as well. All we can claim is that
we tried our best to reach the Truth and our category appealed to us more than
others in the process but other categories may be right as well. Only Allah
knows it in the end. This is the psychology that generates mutual respect and
trust despite all the differences in thinking, which is perfectly natural and
needs this hour.
---
Aadil Farook, Winner/Nominee of 2 International Awards
(US & UK), is a Lahore-based blogger.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/ummah-unity-muslim/d/125941