When you study the Seerah, ask yourself what the fundamental nature of the message of Rasoolullahﷺ was, which resulted in such overwhelming opposition to begin with and then total transformation of society. In my study of the Seerah, and I have written two books on this, the reason for the extent and severity of opposition was that the Quraysh realized what would happen if people accepted his message. The opposition was not to the theological content of the message but to the political change that it would create. The message of Islam is and was a call to total societal change. A change of the bases of social and political action and norms. Therefore, a change of social and political hierarchies and power structures. Islam is about action. Not about talking.
Power comes with territory. Contribution defines territory. The world respects and listens to contributors and uses consumers. When Muslims slipped from being net contributors to consumers, they became a commodity to be used. Which brings us to our present state, where despite being one in four, we are like foam on the flood. Without weight or value, to be ignored, exploited, and discarded at will. Allahﷻ said that He sent us for the benefit of people to teach them how to live a life of virtue and goodness, compassion, and justice. Allahﷻ’s book is witness. Allahﷻ declared:
كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ
A’al Imraan 3: 110 You are the best community ever raised for humanity—you encourage good, forbid evil, and believe in Allah.
Remember you can only change what you own. You can live in a rented house and complain until you die about all that is wrong with that house and what needs to be done. You will be totally right but totally helpless because you don’t own the house. Same thing with the society you live in. Until you start thinking of it as your society, you can’t change anything. Here’s a self-test. Ask, how many people complain about the political system in this country? Then ask how many of them register and go to vote? Ask, how many complain about schools? Then ask how many stand for elections to school boards? Ask, how many complain about local administration? Then ask how many volunteer on committees? How many volunteer to work in the Fire Service and the Police? Ask, how many complain about Muslim refugee children coming here through Christian and Jewish Refugee Assistance programs which are State funded and then going into non-Muslim foster homes? Then ask why there is no Muslim Family Service organization and why Muslims don’t volunteer as foster parents?
Those who seriously want change, don’t blame others, but ask themselves, ‘What can I do?’ That is what Islam teaches us. To do something. Not to simply complain. Problems need solutions, not complaints. In the life of every man and woman comes a time when a window opens, and they have a unique opportunity to make an impact. To succeed we need to anticipate, prepare and act with courage. Our window is open now. When the window shuts, our life is over, even if we remain alive. Because to live is not merely to draw breath but to leave behind a legacy of honor.
For Muslim society, to use TA terminology, the Parent-Child Ego state was (and is) the preferred state of being and all attempts to develop the Adult Ego state are repressed. It creates in us a tendency to blame others for our situation, be it local or global. Listen to our conversations and you will almost never hear statements owning responsibility for our problems. The rule of life is that only owners can change what they own. If you don’t own it, you can’t change it. So, if we don’t take ownership of our problems, we condemn ourselves to living with them in perpetuity, until we decide to accept responsibility. This is our single biggest problem and the biggest cause of our dismal and very painful state as a nation. We must not allow what is not in our control to prevent us from doing what is in our control.
Solutions: There is no example better than that of Rasoolullahﷺ. Deriving lessons from it, here are four things we must do urgently.
- Unity: It is time to stop paying lip service to unity and actively work to promote it. Stop preaching or supporting those who preach divisions and sectarian politics. Reject anyone who tells you to hate anyone, especially another Muslim. Remember that whatever be our Aqeeda, we have critical, even existential problems that are common to all Muslims. I am not talking about reconciling different ideologies or converting anyone. That is impossible and unnecessary. I am talking about working with people with a different ideology. That is possible and critical. Leave the Aqeeda to Allahﷻ. We must work with others here, or we will perish.
- Central Fund: No long-term strategic planning can be done without an assured source of funding. Sporadic charity is not sufficient. In Islam we have Zakat, but the use of Zakat funds is strictly governed by the Qur’an. Therefore, I propose that a separate fund be created to which every Muslim, man, woman, and child, must contribute a small amount every day. This is where we can leverage our numbers where the compounded result will be significant. Just the price of one cup of coffee per day i.e., $ 5/day cumulative for 10,000 people, amounts to $ 18,250,000 in one year. Are we, every single one of us, ready to do this?
- Education: We need an education system that bridges the gap between theology and science. Add to this education in manners, ethics, values, morals, leadership, communication, conflict resolution and the whole host of critical life skills that do not form part of any school curricula. It is out of the scope of this lecture to go into detail, but I will suffice to say that it is all doable, enjoyable, and eminently possible if we have the will. We must feel the urgency of the situation and pull together as one.
- Collaborative Leadership Structure: This consists of two major things. One is the structure itself where leaders must have fixed terms of leadership and the CTS requirement to develop successors. Success depends on developing successors better than we are. The big challenge will be to break out of our feudal mindset and embrace collaborative leadership. The second is the process of decision-making. We must practice the Shura method which Allahﷻ commanded and which Rasoolullahﷺ practiced and taught us. This automatically supports successor development and builds good interpersonal relationships. I must sound a warning in advance. We are talking about writing the destiny of the Ummah. It will take time, tears before Allahﷻ, patience, and investment. Be prepared for pushback from current leadership but they and we must fear the day of no return when we will meet Allahﷻ and be asked, “What did you do?”
Rasoolullahﷺ worked ceaselessly and so did his Sahaba. His mission succeeded, and we are sitting here 1400 years later and saying Ashadunna Muhammadar Rasoolullah because of only one thing: they gave everything and changed everything and took every pain and punishment without looking for any worldly reward, only to please Allahﷻ. They followed the Sunnah because it was Sunnah. We leave the Sunnah because it is Sunnah. They demonstrated their love for Allahﷻ and Rasoolullahﷺ through their actions. We sing Anasheed and celebrate Mawlid instead. Allahﷻ demanded action as evidence of love which is a condition of Emaan.
I want to end with my dream for when I meet Rasoolullahﷺ. I want to say to him, “Ya Rasoolullahﷺجزاك الله خيرا for the example you set, to keep going from disaster to disaster, from difficulty to difficulty, from pain to pain. You kept going. You didn’t despair. You didn’t stop. You didn’t see the outcomes, but they happened only because of you. They happened because you refused to give up. You refused to stop. You refused to despair. You refused to be intimidated. You never lost your cool. You didn’t respond in kind, but you maintained your high moral ground.” The message therefore to us, my brothers and sisters, is to follow Rasoolullahﷺ and emulate him.
Never give up. Never seek safety when injustice must be challenged. Never fail to risk your today for others’ tomorrow because you know that what we risk from our today is really investment in our own tomorrow. Never fail to act and raise your voice against oppression because oppression anywhere is oppression everywhere. Never fear, never despair, never give up, because Rasoolullahﷺ never gave up. Courage is not the inability to feel fear or pain, but to continue through because we believe that the cause is worth it.
I remind you and myself of the Hadith where Anas ibn Malik (R) reported: Rasoolullahﷺ said, “I wish I could meet my brothers.” The Sahaba asked, “Are we not your brothers?” Rasoolullahﷺ said, “You are my companions, but my brothers are those who have faith in me yet they never saw me.”
Finally, remember that we never walk alone. We walk as representatives of Rasoolullahﷺ. We walk secure in the knowledge that Allahﷻ is watching us, hearing us and is with us. And that one day we will meet Allahﷻ and meet Rasoolullahﷺ. I hope on that day, Rasoolullahﷺ will say, ‘Ya Rabbee, forgive them, because they are mine.’ You want to change the world? Then complain to Allahﷻ alone in the night. And in the morning, act, invest, sweat, and work yourself to a standstill. That is the Law. Success is Allahﷻ’s promise.
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