What you are going to read, is essentially a call to revert back to the Qur’an.
In this work, I have explained the various misapprehensions concerning the Qur’an which are prevailing among those who identify themselves as Muslims and consequently, their rectification by Qur’anic evidence.
The fundamental reason for the origination of these misconceptions is that in the present age, the Muslim masses have given up the divinely imposed duty of intellectual analysis of the Book of Allah and instead have become blind followers of the teachings of the sect in which they are born into.
They consider whatever the religious leaders feed them, to be the absolute truth, without verifying whether or not the faith they have inherited or have been tutored to accept has been sanctioned by the Book of Allah.
The Qur’an is granted ceremonial or revered status and kept for recitation in a mere parrot like fashion, instead of a serious inquiry into its meanings and a everyday lifestyle based on its judgements. Any study or discussion about its contents is considered to be the domain of ‘experts’, rather than the ordinary Muslim. As a result the Muslim masses have been distanced from the Book and are devoid of its benefits in their life.
The consequences of such an attitude towards the Book of Allah have been very serious. Misconceptions about the Qur’an are rampant among the Muslims of today. Through such misconceptions, which are accepted by the majority, and patronised by vested interests, not only transformed the vigorous activity generated by the Qur’anic teachings into passivity, it rather changed the entire outlook of the life of Muslims. The passive Islam predominant in the Muslim world today is poles apart from the dynamic Islam presented by the Qur’an.
Belief in one God has been replaced by belief in a number of gods. The concept of sovereignty of Allah in human affairs has been changed to the concept of sovereignty of the people or the sovereignty of individual human beings.
As a result the Centralization of the Ummah has been lost, and the Muslim world is divided into numerous sects and parties. Instead of subservience to Allah, the Muslims today are subservient to man-made conjecture, sharp tongued orators, and all sorts of Economic and Political exploiters.
The mission of the messenger of Allah was to release humanity from the heavy burdens and the fetters that were upon them (7:157), and he demonstrated this by implementing the divine values decreed in the Book of Allah. But the enemies of Islam hatched up concepts and doctrines and injected them among the Muslims which resulted in completely defacing the ‘Deen’ brought by the messenger and instead replaced it with man-made Religion, and where ever the Muslims enjoyed power, it got separated into ‘Church and State’.
The Muslims of today are groaning under the pressure of the same weights and are bound by the same shackles from which the messenger (p) came to release them.
The ‘Pharaohs’ or the Political exploiters, the ‘Hamans’ or the Religious and intellectual exploiters and the ‘Qaroons’ the Economic exploiters are again rampant as much in the Muslim countries as in any other part of the world.
Instead of one central organization and one code of life given by the Qur’an, there are hundred and one ways of life which have made the Muslim Ummah, now divided into nations on territorial basis, fall steep into a state of fear and dependency. They struggle to get out of it, but without the guiding light of the Qur’an, fail to do so.
The people who were to be witnesses over the deeds of mankind, were to be the guarantors of world peace and were supposed to be the torch bearers of civilisation, science and technological progress are themselves in a position of ignominy and helplessness.
The only hope of their escape from their present day plight lies in the reunion into a stable and well knit Ummah and this objective cannot be achieved unless there is a conviction that the Qur’an has the final authority for all matters of Islam and is the complete, immutable and only message of Allah that exists on the face of the earth.
The day the Muslim world realises the Authority of the Book of Allah, and become consciously aware of its teachings, then that day would be the beginning of Islamic Renaissance.
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This work is aimed at the realisation of that Authority.
Kashif Shahzada
Karachi, July 1998
