Our biggest problem is ourselves. That means the "Self" at the individual level and then all of us at the communal level. We are all at grave risk of being completely replaced by an Umma that will take life and this responsibility of Islam seriously.
I would venture to say that most scholars would agree with that, but then differ on how to rectify it i.e. bottom up at an individual/communal but personal level, or top down such as by enforcing political power.
But as I said, our biggest problem is us ourselves. We are our own worst enemies. And when we conquer our nafs or our selves, everything will change right there.
وَمَنْ يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِ فَأُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ
and
قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَنْ زَكَّاهَا
WAllahu a'lam.
Would we say that the reason why Allah (swt) delayed His Nasr from Rasul Allah (saw) and the Sahaba (ra) was because they hadn't conquered themselves?
Was their iman too weak at at year 5? Or maybe at year 7? Were they not good enough Muslims by year 9? Why did it take 13 years? Was it because they hadn't perfected themselves?
Or maybe it was because the political reality itself has conditions for change and that type of change takes time and great effort?
Maybe it is time we recognize that the world does not magically change just because we pray. The tyrants do not fly away like dandelions after our iman becomes some mystical tornado that blows them all away.
The political world changes when we take political actions and force the world to change. This is what we were taught by the example of Rasul Allah (saw). Even if we have the most perfect man leading us and even if we have the best of humanity among us, that still will not circumvent the laws of the universe, the laws of nature, the laws of political change.
The problem is us, yes, I agree. We keep making posts telling the Umma to focus on their iman and salat alone and delay stepping up and making real political change *based* on that iman and salat.
How long until we recognize that this claim to "focus on yourself" is a secular trick to put the Umma into a political coma, buying the secularists all the time in the world to keep controlling all our political affairs?
The absence of an Islamic state led to a social environment where foreign ideologies inform and shape our cultures, institutions and values, which in turn contribute to shaping us.
The lack of understanding this dynamic in how "we" are formed is a major issue, as attempting to change "ourselves" necessitates changing the society around us.
This lack of understanding then results in a poor articulation of the problem and the usual slogans of change from the top or bottom, both of which are meaningless and wrong.
The individual and society are symbiotically intertwined and interdependent and cannot be separated.
To break this impasse, collective public opinion is needed to change our social environments which in turn will allow us to reform ourselves and follow an Islamic way of life where society supports as opposed to hindering the process.
Firstly: I believe that Allah has power over all things and to deal with all the oppression and tyrany and every single problem that the umma is facing, is directly in the control, knowledge and power of Allah.
Secondly; it appears as though we as an umma are not recieving the help of Allah. The fundamental question we need to ask ourselves is WHY? Why is it that Allah is not helping us, why is it that our leaders are working at destroying us, why is it that we can never agree on anything with each other, why is it that the west (who were made subserviant to our forefathers) are now butchering us at their whims, why are we as an umma being disgraced across the globe?
Is it simply because our governance is wrong and that we do not have a khilafah? Only due to this one reason Allah's mercy, his help, his aid has stopped. That would be a naive if not foolish assumption. Is it possible that the all the Umma's problems will sort themselves out if we reestablished the khilafah today? No, because the umma itself is not ready to follow Islam. Less than 5% of the umma is established in even the first most important fard after iman, which is salat. Nevermind the other faraidh.
So what is the solution, we need to work on the umma itself, we need to work at establishing common ground with each other instead of picking each point we differ on and chosing to disunite the umma into thousands of more pieces than it already is, we need to unite the umma.
I believe such groups as tablighh jamat are doing an excellent job and trying to bring about this change, yes there are some flaws within them, but there methodology, on working at bettering the individuals relation to Allah is promising, they have a way of bringing about love for every sunna of our beloved nabi in to each individual, they strongly believe that success lies in following the commands of Allah and the way of the prophet pbuh? they do not discriminate between ppl of different fiqh, they teach tolerance instead of hate and debate, it is by far the only effort in this day and age that is steering towards a one umma concept.
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