Re: Is religion a personal matter or not ?
Dear friends, the question is, have we understood the Quran properly, if so then why is surah Al Faatiha called by this name?
SURAH AL FATIHA=The Divine Proclamation
When a king wanted to make any public announcement or declaration, he used to send out his criers who would let public know what the king wants them to know.
Allah sent his messengers and told them what to announce to mankind in the name of Allah.
1)Proclaim in the name of Allah, the beneficent , the merciful that
2)Sovereignty belongs to Allah the sustainer of the world
3)Who is kind and compassionate
4)The one with sole right to rule in the jurisdiction
If we look at the interpretation of the quran this way then we can see that Allah leaves us in no doubt as to who he is and what right he has to do as he pleases.
This sense is not what mullahs interpretation of the quran gives us because mullahs were brought about to change islam from what it was to what we have today.
The reason they did that was because that is what muslim rulers wanted them to do.
Please look up for meaning of word ILAAH=God=KHUDAA. It means ruler of the universe. Setting up any other ruler in the kingdom of Allah is therefore like creating other gods. Which is SHIRK, the unforgiveable crime in sight of Allah.
By removing sense of sovereignty of Allah from the quran by way of interpretation imperialist mullahs like priestly classes in other religions could justify for their rulers their right to rule and abuse their people. This broke amongst muslims their brotherhood and they became enemies of each other. To revive brotherhood we must come back to the quran by disregarding what mullahs have been feeding us for last thousand plus years as islam.
This is just first half of the very first surah of the quran.
Basically this is a double declaration ie an agreement between Allah and mankind.
As is clear from the explanation Allah is not a monster to be feared but a father figure who advises mankind like his children as to how they should live in this world to remain safe from all sorts of troubles.
5)Declare/agree/confirm/announce/say, we shall only and only serve you/live by your rule of law or guidance and thereby we shall seek your help.
6)So show us from within your revelation the path that is firmly founded
7) The path of those who were blessed/prosperous because they followed it and went not astray therefore incurred not indignation/pain and and suffering.
If we read this surah carefully, it leaves us in no doubt as regard purpose of the quran and this surah tells us how to interpret the rest of the quran. It sets out context of the quran.
It tells us the quran is given to mankind for reading and understanding and then doing things so that we are blessed with good life in this world and better hereafter.
As one can see from interpretation of surah al faatiha, the quran is not about make beliefs and ritualisms rather it is about establishing the divine rule of law in the divine kingdom for the good of mankind and that is so because if there is peace in the out side world then there can be peace in your country, in your city, in your house and in side yourself. In this surah Allah is advising people like a father figure, letting them know that this is how I have set up my business so if you understand it and then work in it then you will not suffer but if you ignore my advice then you will mess up things from the way I have set them up and then as a result you will suffer the consequences so it is better for you not to do things that will lead you to pain and suffering and destruction by your own hands.
The quran declares war on religion and secularism both the question is why? It is because theocracy is about accepting the rule by mullahs and secularism is about accepting the rule by ruling elite. According to the quran both are root of all harm and destruction in the world and that is exactly what we are seeing even today and we can see the same thing from our history books. These are undeniable facts. This proves to us how right the quran was and how wrong are mankind who do not take the advice of God seriously. The quranic advice is to establish divine rule law and all live by it as a single family caring and sharing. Allah has created this world for people to test themselves as to how much they can struggle and what can they establish for the good of each other. Those who work hard in this struggle for survival with intact dignity will shine brilliantly and those who are hell bent on destroying each each other face doom and gloom in this life as well as in hereafter.
The purpose of divine revelations is to help mankind learn how and why to establish the divine kingdom here on the earth. It is all about Allah telling mankind how to live in this world so that people could have a great life because Allah created universe and set it up to work and explains all this in the quran very clearly so that we understand things and fit in. It is in a way like good parents giving a good advice to their kids and if kids are also good they make good use of this advice.
The point is that if there is no divine kingdom then nothing else can work because either you have stability or you have instability. So the world can be like a lawless jungle or a blissful garden, it all depends on whether we want law and order or lawlessness nd destruction. When humanity is in chaos then nothing else can be established because instability does not allow it. You grow crops putting hard effort in it but when it is ready some one comes along and takes it away or destroys it.
The divine messengers do not come to teach us things which we learn from our own life experience but to give us heavenly set goals to achieve according to heavenly guidelines ie moral values that are otherwise impossible to have.
We knew how to survive even with out divine messengers and we are doing that even today but what we lack is sense of proper goals that lead to peace and guidelines that teach us how to achieve those goals ie how to live properly and prosper. All living things are surviving but we have been given special brains and the divine revelations and are told to make effort to the best of our abilities to establish divine goals according to given guidelines. This is definition of deen in my view ie the bigger picture.
Mazhab on the other hand is an invented thing nothing at all to do with divine revelation. It was invented to derail people from deen. The questions we need to ask ourselves are;
1)Who invented mazhab?
2)Why?
3)when?
4)how?
Mazhab was invented by people who sought some benefit from it ie imperialists, whom deen stopped from creating castes and classes. By getting deen out of their way they could divide their people into castes and classes and thereby they could justify their use and abuse for their own ends in the name of God.
For this reason emperors created priestly classes and set them the task of brain washing masses of people so that people become like work horses or slave labour for them.
Mazhabs were therefore deliberately set up as ritualisms so that people could be made fool of in the name of God. Religions=mazhabs are therefore controlling mechanisms which kings used to control their masses through priests. This is how kings and priests enjoyed using and abusing ordinary people. This is well explained by socialist writers and some videos can be seen on that on youtube.
This also shows why kings built grand religious institutions and placed therein their own priests who furthered their own agendas rather than building educational institutions to educate their masses for their own good.
Mazhabs were a way invented to give people satisfaction without letting them have what was/is their birthright in material terms.
It is difficult to keep posts short when one deal with issues of such importance that need a lot of explanation unless one is well familiar with various religions and secularism as well as various political, social, cultural and economic ideologies, systems, structures and practices.
Mazhab is therefore make belief and full of myths, legends, superstition etc etc. The quran has absolutely nothing to do with mazhab. It is book about real things that really matter for humanity as a whole.
Most of the works on quran were produced during imperial periods and were according to ruler's wishes. This is why most of tafaseer and fiqh books for example are full of mythical stories, useless rituals and rewards that have absolutely no benefit for the individual or wider human society.
Therefore I take deen v mazhab seriously. It is a 2nd huge task on its own to learn the quran properly and then teach it to others properly beside earning one's livelihood. When does one get time to take a tasbeeh and sit in a corner to do thousands of repetitions for name of Allah that serve no sensible purpose. Reading the quran instead serves a purpose at least as explained. How? Because by learning the quran we are learning how to set up human society for its proper functioning.
We cannot please Allah by aimlessly mentioning his name rather we have been set a task to establish. If we leave the task aside and do other things in the hope of pleasing Allah then we are not thinking right at all. Islam is not about pleasing God but about serving humanity in the name of God. The best service we can do is take his message properly ourselves then deliver it as far and wide as we can properly. In short we are divine agents on behalf of our prophet.
The quran has been translated wrong because each translator tried to keep to the old interpretations that were done during imperial times. Thus they turned the quran in to a mythical, superstitious book. We have been brain washed to take the quran that way therefore we think that Allah will be angry if used our own brains. All this because people who derailed deen also ensured that they set up traps so that people are not able to recover original meanings of the quran without a big struggle. They did this because to recover the quranic message would mean end of their status as emperors and priests. Since the problem is with interpretations of the quran so we must decide whether islam is deen or mazhab.
The other reason that forces us to decide whether islam is deen or mazhab is our own existence. What do I mean by that? I mean we are physical beings with physical needs. Our physical needs come before anything and everything because only if we exist anything matters if we do not exist nothing matters. To exist we must have clean air to breath, clean water to drink and good food to eat. It cannot be any other way.
To come to existence and get our needs we depend on other people ie we are interlinked and interdependent. This means our all self interests depend on each other and the natural world out there. This mean we must sort out this between us first and foremost. So far there is no namaaz, no roza, no zakaat, no hajj at all. Why? Because if I don't let you live, you cannot do anything and like wise is the case for me if you start troubling me. Family feuds are always there and brothers kill brothers and children kill even their parents and parents kill children over these things so the whole world would be in chaos without peace=islam.
This argument should leave one in doubt as to why the quran was revealed. We are told Arab history and animosities between tribes as to how they were a war machine.
The quran was revealed to show people how they should live in peace with each other so that then they could get on with solving other problems of life.
This is why in surah al fatilah=proclamation or open declaration this context of the quran is made clear ie Allah sends his messenger to proclaim in the name of Allah. Who is Allah? Al Rahman, Al Raheem. and that sovereignty belongs to Allah alone because he is the creator and the sustainer of the world, Al Rahmaan, Al Raheem. He is the one who provided the yardstick for the mankind to judge their decision and actions by. This is so obvious from the first 4 verses of the quran.
The next verse tells the prophet to tell people to make declaration that they serve me alone and seek help from my revelation. Seeking a path that is firmly founded there from. Like those who passed away and were blessed because they did exactly that. They did not do what they were stopped from.
So anyone who accept the quran as will or plan of Allah for mankind is actually entering an agreement with Allah that he will do as told by Allah. It is like a father advising his children and then asking have you heard what I said and do you agree to use this advice.
If we look at surah 2, It is called AL BAQARAH, this word is from root BAA, QAAF and RAA. It means cow, sacred cow, cowardice, conflict, divide, dissension, separation, tearing apart etc.
Which of the so many meaning is correct for the title of this surah? If we read the surah it is talking about groups of people, land and resources, means of production and distribution right from the start after telling us that this is such a book in which there is no doubt. There are muslims, kafirs and munafiqeen. The reason for division is because some want peace so they work for peace in the land and others want wars so they work for wars and yet others conspire for their own goals and join either party that suits them ie change their alliance. This leaves us in no doubt that surah al baqarah is a chapter on conflicts between people, their reasons for conflicts and the term whereby these conflicts can be solved if all parties were made to realise the benefits of having peace.
This should now make one think as to why people translated the quran wrongly and who could it be? Also was it mistranslated deliberately or by mistake? This has been done to the whole of the quran. It is because imperialists always wanted wars and people who claimed to be muslims some of them were actually not muslims in their hearts. They were always trying to gain power and once they did, they showed their true colours.
The question is, why people fight? Over land and resources, means of production and distribution. Each party tries to take this world of Allah under its control because whoever controls these, controls humanity, because one becomes master of life and death of everyone else. This is why Allah does not give right to anyone to control his land and its resources because he created all and he created all this for all. Caring and sharing is therefore rule of law of Allah. Anyone who thinks that anyone else has the right to control the land and its resources, means of production and distribution is called a mushrik. It is because such a person would become like a god for the rest of the people to control them.
According to the quran all people are equal before the law of Allah ie prophets and followers just to make it very clear. It is not right for prophet that Allah appoints him and then he tells people take me as your master.
Once people start reading the quran in this context a lot of problems will disappear that are due to our make beliefs.
After explaining the fight between the people and conflict resolutions, the quran brings in stories of the past eg story of Adam, bani israel etc. Telling us what were their conflicts about and how were they solved.
Hopefully this also explains why the quran is the only solution and not any other ideology that is not based on principles of the quran.
So people who do not try to understand the quran in its proper context cannot benefit from it nor can they benefit anyone else. The quran is useless for people who do not learn what it is for and how they can make use of it.
If the whole house is on fire, hiding in the house in a corner is not going to be of much help. This is why we must ensure world out there is in right frame of mind that it does not burn itself out. We are all part of it so we better wake up and work towards saving it, that is islam. The message of the quran is irrefutable by anyone no matter a muslim or a nonmuslim. It is firmly fixed as no other thing.
I think it is of vital importance that we first put forth over all picture of what islam means to us personally as per our own understanding of the quran in light of whatever we know so far, because that is the very key to understanding bits and pieces and their place within the wider picture. In any map that is not laid out fully one has difficulty in trying to figure out where one is and where one wants to go and how or why. This is why in any map that is in pages eg global, national, local or any picture that is in pieces eg jig saw puzzle there is a key or picture with it because without having some sort of idea as to how to figure things out is not at all easy. This is why rules must be sort that keep us right as we go along. Just taking a meaning of a word randomly having no idea of what the over all concept is we can end up sticking wrong meanings to thing.
The other problem is due to conflict of interest between opposing parties there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation about. It is because each side wants to influence others and therefore anyone can drag things one way or the other so we need to have some fixed yardstick whereby we could judge why something is right or wrong. This is why some history of islam is important to know because it tells us what people have been doing to the book and how and why.
If islam was a religion then imperial forces regardless muslim or nonmuslim would have nothing to worry because religion is between god and man nothing to do with real world. There were plenty of religions before islam and after islam and are till around even today. People go in mundirs, gurudawaras, synagogues, churches, temples, altars etc. They all believe that there is ultimately only one source of all origin. They go through various ritualisms which they assume god told them through his chosen people eg prophets, saints and sages or wise men ad even god incarnates. In all this God is given a useless description and role by man and man has given a useless rule to himself. I am saying useless because it has no real benefit for mankind. A man sits in a jungle busy with his counter repeating name of his god or whatever one believes in. Likewise man prays to his god. Likewise people go through hardships thinking they are pleasing their god. May be stay hungry or stand on one leg or whatever pleases them. Likewise they may visit places to please their god. In all this there is no real benefit for others and hardly any for oneself. Likewise people may give a part of their earnings to help the poor but even that is useless because even if some give to some people, others take it away from them. It is like going to well to fetch water in a container that has hole in the bottom.
All this is useless for mankind unless first thing is done first ie the rule of law. Unless people live by a rule that makes life good for them there is nothing in life to live for or to establish regardless about next world or this world. It is because instability factor is a not something that we can ignore. It will be fatal for our existence and establishing anything at all. This is why Islam is not a religion but a DIVINE rule of law for mankind. This is why I know for a fact that my interpretation of the quran is correct and to the point because it makes sense and it works at least on the paper till we work to establish it in reality.
Before we manufacture a product it must be ensured at conceptual level that it will work eg we do not have to put a computer program to work on a computer to show that it works but even at development stage we can see that it will work and if odd thing comes up later that can be sorted out. Likewise before anyone could be asked to accept islam we need to be able to show them at least on paper how islam is a better than religious rule as well as secular rule. To do this we ourselves must sit and think it out ourselves and then explain it to each other and then to wider world. Once we are able to do that people will come running to it not because we will force them with guns but that they will be able to rationalize it if we succeeded in explaining it to them sensibly. This is how the world would become a better place wherein people will be free to do what they like within set divine limits ie values and guidelines.
Otherwise as things are going on in the name of religion and secularism, more and more people are getting more and more dispossessed and life is getting impossibly difficult and self destructive so man has no time for god. So many people convert from one religion to another, not because any religion is true but because the hope is that new community they join will give them worldly help that they need or that they are unhappy with religions and they are trying them one by one and ultimately people are turning to agnosticism and atheism.
It is for these like reason I thought I should contribute whatever I have learned in several decades of my life for the benefit of others. Some people may not like my ideas but I know they will come round because there is no any other way out of this trap that we are caught in.
This is why to me islam is a deen and not a dogmatic creed. DEEN=YARDSTICK for the world to live by if they wish to be free, just, fair, compassionate, friendly, progressive and prosperous therefore peaceful. Only deeni concept of islam can land us in good life in this world as well as in hereafter. Otherwise we are doomed to failures again and again till we ourselves come to same conclusion.
regards and all the best.