Islam — Religion of Life
May 16, 2005
The number ‘2′ bus plies a route I have known for years. It gets me where I need to be in predictable Singaporean efficiency. Comforted with the fact that I’ll reach my destination without any incident, I stare blankly out the window.
‘Opium for the masses,’ was how Karl Marx described religion: an escapist fancy to help the downtrodden bear their burden and accept their lot. I wonder what Marx would say if he were alive today. As society tends towards non-religiousness, are our consciousness sharpened? Or are we more dulled in narcotic stupor? Where, then, are we heading?
This little book, Islam — Religion of Life completely answers this idle question of mine. I shall begin where the book ends:
“Our sports cars, holidays and pension plans, all the status symbols of the modern manner of living, seem tasteless and without meaning. The reason is understood intuitively by many, but few know how to respond. We have lost contact with the mystery that lies within ourselves; we have forgotten what we are… Science cannot tell us how to live. ‘The blank space in the modern heart,’ said scientist Julian Huxley, ‘is a God-shaped blank. And life without the transcendent is not only desultory and without meaning, it is miserable, as the Quran tells us. We can only become robots, anaesthetized by television, drink, and our leisure preoccupations if we fail to hear the insistent inquiry of the Quran: ‘Where, then, are you going
What intrigues me about this little book is the fact that it draws the reader into a world within a world. We forget, for a moment, the collective state the umma is in. We are allowed a long, inspiring glimpse at the majesty and beauty of Islam. No. It is no opiate. Rather it injects energy into the reader both outwardly and inwardly.
Insightfully written by the former deputy Shaykh of al-Azhar and edited by eminent Cambridge scholar and historian, Abdal Hakim Murad, this book seeks to show the true nature of the deen and challenges stereotypes which reduce Islam and Muslims to caricatures. It describes the fundamentals of Islam (not, I must add, by mere listing of do’s and do not’s) as the bedrock of Muslim life, as a means through which Muslims attain peace in a maddening milieu. I found the following description on prayer to be exceptionally breathtaking: “Five times in every day the Muslim turns his back on whatever has been preoccupying him and bows and prostrates in submission before his Creator. In ten minutes’ time, he will be back at work, but with an evident burden lifted and a new expression on his face. For the regular act of Salat is a powerful aid to the constant, unceasing remembrance of the eternal presence of God. Islam forbade monasteries: it never needed them…”
Islam is not an opiate. Rather it is more vital than oxygen. We now live in a time when the killer does not know why he kills and the dead do not know why they are killed. We must climb out of our stupor. We will never be able to do it, if left to our own devices. Perhaps this is why the first step into Islam is to recognise that Man is in complete need of God.
You might be interested in these:
- Traditional Islam: What’s In A Name
- What’s Right With Islam Is What’s Right With America
- An Overdue Review: The Islamist
- Muhammad: The Messenger of Islam
- Rumi, The Slave of the Quran
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