All praise is due to Allah (j.j), who showed us the way of rising, peace and blessings be upon Rasulullah (saws.), who achieved great victories within a short time by following the method, that Allah showed him, and peace be upon the companions of this Rasul (messenger) and upon all my brothers and sisters who share the sorrows of our ummah.
In the penultimate article, I explained what an ummah is, its mission, the conditions of being an ummah, the advantages of being an ummah and what we lose when we lose our ummah. And in the last article, I pointed out how our ummah came to this state, that there are laws of Allah swt. regarding societies, i.e. Sunnatullah, and that it is obligatory for us to ascertain these laws. And I had stated, that in this article we were going to point out the reasons for our decline and address the divine laws in this respect. I would like to start by firstly explaining, which are not the reasons for our decline.
The Quran Al-Kareem states in the Surahs Al-Araf1 and Yunus2: “And for every nation is a [specified] term. So, when their time has come, they will not remain behind an hour, nor will they precede [it].” The verse does not show, that the death of an ummah is inevitable like the death of a human and that there is no way for an ummah to escape death, but it states that in most cases, the ummahs make deadly mistakes and do not take a lesson from the previous ummahs. I.e. that humans die whether they make mistakes or not. But if ummahs do not make mistakes and if they take precautions against senescing, they can prevent death. Thus, the reasons for the death of an ummah are not natural but caused by microbes. If it protects itself from microbes or if necessary treatments are immediately implemented, it can survive until the Day of Resurrection.
It is obligatory for all those, who struggle to resurrect and rebuild the Islamic ummah, to detect the diseases that made the ummah fall, and their reasons correctly. Otherwise, all our efforts and all the years and money we invested will come to nothing, and our ummah will not be saved from this disease and from this oppression. Consequently, the mission that Allah gave this ummah on earth, to be the leaders of humankind, to rescue them from being servants of other servants, and to show them the way of civilisation, will not take place.
While detecting the reasons of the diseases we must know the difference between reason and symptom. Reasons are hidden like a microbe or a virus. Detecting them is only possible by a close analysis. But symptoms are visible. They can be seen without close analysis. Just like a microbe or virus, which make a person ill, can only be detected by the analysis of specialists, whereas the symptoms of that illness are visible for everyone and are mistaken as reasons. Such as the fever… However, the fever is a symptom and a consequence, not a reason. Reasons are hidden and can only be revealed through scientific analysis. Those, who do not show the willingness to make such analysis and implement a real treatment in accordance to their analysis, or those, who do not have the experts to do so, or who take it as a matter of pride to consult those experts, will never find the real reason and they will think, that they can reduce the fever and cure the illness by washing the patient’s hands and face.
Just as some among us think, that the real reason for our ummah to come to this state is our scientific backwardness, that we did not attach importance to science… But in the past, we were the most advanced in science. Consequently, in the past we must have had something, that took us forward in every area, and that we lost later. And when we lost it, we must have fallen behind in science, too. Falling back in scientific development is not a reason, but a result. We must find the reason.
Those, who do not find the real reason, will also not find the real solution. They will develop wrong solutions, they will be misled into wrong directions by others, and waste their money and their time. They will say, that to reach our salvation, we must raise scientists. They will neglect Islamic sciences and madrasas and will put emphasis on building schools and on natural sciences. A wrong diagnosis will lead to a wrong treatment. Indeed, scientists cannot point society in the right direction. Those, who can guide society, are intellectuals and scholars. Thus, what we need are intellectual scholars who acquired the qualities of both, an intellectual and a scholar. We need cadres, who studied natural sciences to analyse substance, who know world politics and social psychology, and who are specialised in Islamic sciences, at the same time. Those, who can detect the microbes, that made us fall sick, are people with intellect and heart, who are educated in sciences, but who are able to look at everything from the perspective of the Quran and through the microscope of the Quran.
Others see poverty as the reason for our ummah to come to this state and say, that the Muslims must becomerich. However, in the past, we were the richest state in the world. So, what happened that made us become poor? There must be another reason. Which prophet recommended becoming rich as a solution and advised to build holdings for the salvation of society? On the contrary, the prophets advised piety and taqwa, and they taught that richness and love of life destroy societies. Those, who see becoming rich as a solution, want to inject us a microbe that is going to cause us death. Hence, they mistake poison as medicine. They do not want to understand and see how this poison destroys the Muslims. Because their nafs wants to be rich. The enemies of Islam know this and they saw, that it is possible to passivate the Muslims and to drag them into superstition systems by secularising them and they paved the way for them. The richer the Muslims became, the more did they deteriorate, forget their dawah, and they supported systems they opposed and human ideologies. I.e. they were transformed. While these Muslims are happy with their wealth, those, who secularised them and paved the way for them, look at these Muslims, who transformed into slaves of materialism and moderate supporters of the system, and they laugh about these Muslims. So, this is the result of wrong diagnosis and wrong treatment… Moderate, liberal, and laicist, i.e. transformed Muslims…
Should the Muslims stay poor then? Of course, this is not what is meant. It is meant, that uneducated Muslims do not need wealth but education. It is meant, that there is a fault in the chronological order. How can uneducated people be dragged into the path of richness, when this path is even for educated people a risky and dangerous path? How is such a burden bearable?
Besides education, the Muslims, who become wealthier, need a jamaah in order to prevent themselves from slipping. They must pass a period of intense ibadah (worship) and they must feel love for praying. Because such as a car, that drives through a snowy road, needs snow chains, a Muslim, who proceeds on slippery ground, needs chains, as well. And there are three chains that avoid a person from slipping: 1. Knowledge, 2. Ibadah 3. Jamaah. Without taking any of these precautions they lead the people on slippery grounds and caused their destruction.
Some others saw hadiths, which they consider as untrue, as the reason for the decline and breaking down of our ummah. Without any scholarly qualification and without being a muhaddith they denied every hadith that did not seem logical to their small minds. Even if these hadiths took place in the two most important hadith sources, Bukhari and Muslim, and even if all hadith scholars defined them as sahih… They thought, that they had to rescue the ummah from these false hadiths, make them achieve the real understanding of the Quran and consequently, rescue the ummah. Poor Muslim, who thought, that he found the microbe this way, was not aware that he made the matter worse while trying to be helpful. Just as he was not aware of this, he did also not think about the fact that with these hadiths we were successful for 1200 years and built a world state. He only tried to find a way to understand the Quran correctly. However, the Sunnah or the hadiths are indispensable for us to understand the Quran correctly. Those, who do not want us to understand the Quran, will raise suspicion about the hadiths and will show their refusal as only solution for the ummah’s salvation. This is a trap.
Those, who do not want us to find the real reason and the real solution, will show us other reasons and solutions. This way they; 1. Avoid that the Quran is understood and without the hadiths they are able to give the Quran whatever meaning they want. 2. They cause arguments and conflicts among us. 3. They occupy us and make us lose time. 4. They create a type of person that questions everything. 5. They make us think, that we found the real microbe and prevent us from finding the real microbe and the real medicine.
Some others among us thought, that the most important reason for our ummah to come to this state were the madhaib (sects). They claimed, that the existence of the madhaib blocks mind and thought, that the door of ijtihad (judicial opinion) must be opened, and that the adherence to one madhab is making that madhab to a religion. Just like the hadith deniers, they claimed to intent to activate the Muslims and to rescue them from dullness and inactivity. They talked like this without thinking about the ummah’s past. The madhaib started immediately after our Prophet Muhammad saws., and the four big madhaib, which are the biggest ones, were built about 150200 years after Rasulullah saws. Did the Muslims rise or decline after that point?
Due to these madhaib the Muslims made progress in Islamic sciences, they achieved scientific discipline, mind and thought developed, the ummah escaped from deviating and from false sects, and by solving tens of thousands of scientific issues, the madhaib rescued the Muslims from working on them, so that they could find a lot of time to spend on natural sciences and on jihad. Today, those who try to make the madhaib be denied and refused, and who try to make the people be without madhab, who say that the door of ijtihad should be opened – did they raise people, who could do ijtihad, and their ijdihat was inhibited? A mujtahid (interpreter of islamic law ) makes ijtihad and does not ask anyone for permission.
Is not saying, “Let us do ijtihad, let us open the door of ijtihad” without raising mujdahit scholars, leaving a qualitative and high scientific activity to the hands of uneducated people and does not this lead to the destruction of Islam and the Muslims? Moreover, even if there were mujtahid scholars today, which secular state would take their fatwa and ijtihad into account? And in how far do today’s Muslims follow Islam, even in matters that are clearly defined by Quran and Sunnah, without the necessity of ijtihad? Is everything complete but mujtahid scholars are our only deficite? Those, who say, “Do not follow the madhaib, everyone should study Quran and Sunnah on their own and decide for themselves”, do they not know that not everyone is on such a scientific level and never will be?
These words are not even right for scholars. Because this demands everyone to discover America once again and by their own. Why do those, who think this way, consult an expert in every other issue, but say that in regard of Islam, everyone can and must act on their own? Why do they tell everyone to research for themselves?
This way the enemies of Islam; 1. want to get rid of the madhaib and destroy Islam. Because the madhaib are one huge barrier in front of their plans of changing and destroying Islam. The madhaib build a scientific discipline and prevent everyone from acting and speaking the way they want, so the religion continues without being altered. 2. They want to start arguments about Fiqh among the Muslims and split the ummah. 3. They come from the right like Shaytan comes from the right and try to keep us occupied and lose time on scientific issues. 4. They create arrogant, uneducated, and shameless people, who think they know everything best and do not hesitate to speak about topics they do not know about, starting arguments with “In my opinion”. 5. They want to occupy sincere people, who try to find the reasons for the decline of our ummah and solutions for our resurrection, with false reasons, and prevent them from finding the real reason and solution.
With the hope to continue by starting to explain the real reasons for the decline of our ummah in the next article… May Allah bless you.
1. Al-Araf, 34
2. Yunus, 49
