Worship and Social Service

Ghar se Masjid Hai Bahut Door Chalo Aisa Karein
Kisi Rote Hu-e Bachche ko Hansaya Jaa-e-
(Far away is the mosque from the house
(Hence can’t offer the prayer)
Let us do this, then
(We pick up) a weeping child
And make him laugh.
The only problem I have with this powerful Urdu couplet is that it seems to suggest that prayer and social service can not go hand in hand. My humble and limited understanding of the Quran, however, suggests the otherwise. That it is possible to pray and also carry out the desirable social work. It is not necessary that one offers prayer only in a mosque; it can be said at any clean place within or outside the house/immediate locality if the mosque happens to be far away. My apology for this Maulviana comment but, then, I felt it was necessary.
The Holy Quran is full of verses which urge believers to establish prayer and pay the poor due in the same breath. In one Surah (chapter) those worshipers have been severely criticized who deny small things to the needy. Quoting the whole Surah would be in order here:
Have you seen him who denies the Recompense?
That is he who repulses the orphan (harshly)
And urges not on the feeding of Al-Miskin (the needy)
So woe to those performers of Salat
Thos who do good deeds only to be seen
(Of men). And withhold Mau’n (small kindness)
(like salt, sugar, water)
The idea is that it is impossible for a true worshiper of God to be harsh towards fellow human begins, especially the weaker sections. The generosity of the Prophet (Pbuh) is famously well know. He was known for his kind nature even before he was blessed with the responsibilities of prophethood. When the Prophet (Pbuh) received the first revelation in the Cave of Hira, he rushed to his beloved wife shivering with the sense of realization of the big responsibility he was asked by Allah to bear. What Khadija, the Prophet’s wife, spoke on the occasion bears testimony to the great character of her husband. She consoled him saying that your God will never forsake you because you establish relations (and fulfill their rights) and bear the burden of the weak.
Moreover, you give people what they do not have, you welcome guests and treat them well and also you help the right or stand for truth during troubles or tragedies. It is easily discernable that Khadija did not make any reference to her husband’s habit of meditation and worship but enumerated numerous good works he used to perform for the needy and the poor.
The fact of the mater is that social service occupies a very high place in Islam. Helping the needy has been described as an essential consequence of true worship. That a true worshiper can not be blind to the sufferings of those who have been left behind in the race of life. This aspect of Islam has been highlighted in various ways in numerous Urdu couplets. One such famous couplet reads as follows:
Darde dil ke waste paida kiya Insan ko
Warna taat ke li-e kuch kam na the Karrubian
He created man (and endowed Him with) a heart to ache.
For, God’s (chosen) angels
Were quite sufficient for worshiping Him.
Another Urdu poet has captured this same spirit of Islam in the following beautiful couplet:
Meri hawas ko aish-e- do aalam bhi tha qabul
Tera karam kit u ne dia dil dukha hua
Acceptable to my lust
Was the pleasure of the two worlds.
It is your blessing
That you gave me an aching heart
God has, no doubt, created man to worship Him. Worship in Islam means complete surrender to the will of Allah both in spiritual and mundane matters. There are two key Quranic terms which present before us the essence of Islam. The two terms are Salat and Zakat. Salat symbolizes man’s attempt to fulfill the rights of Allah and through Zakat he tries to fulfill the rights of fellow human beings. This is Islam, nothing less and nothing more.
It is sad to note that today’s Muslims have not been able to maintain the desirable balance between the rights of man and those of God Almighty. There are Muslims who neither pray properly nor do they pay the poor due. There are also Muslims who stand the whole might in prayer but do not pay attention to the poor the way they ought to. Then there are Muslims who are good in the arena of social service but fail to fulfill the rights of Allah. These imbalances are not desirable in Islam.
There are countless illiterate and poor people in India. They need and deserve the attention of those who worship Allah sincerely. Sadly a good number of prayer-sayers have ignored this aspect of Islam. We have no intention of committing Kufr by undermining prayer and worship. Our intention rather is to impress upon the Muslims that both worship and social service are important in Islam. Due to a variety of reasons Muslims have not been doing well in the sector of social work. They need to treat social service as worship thinking it is as much required by Allah as He wants men to worship Him. God would surely love Muslims championing the cause of the poor. God’s beauty is that He never rejects the erring men and welcomes them whenever they return to Him. Perhaps this is what Parveen Shakir has tried to capture in her famous couplet:
Who Kahin bhi gaya lauta to mere pas aaya
Bas yehi baat hai achchi mere harjai ki
Wherever (he liked) he went
But when he returned, he came to me
This is the only good thing
About my unfaithful (beloved).

[September, 2009]

Congress Owes it to Muslims

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s assertion during his independence day speech that taking welfare measures for the minorities is not appeasement is a welcome development. Undoubtedly a lot many people would raise their eye-brows that it was Congress’s shameless attempt to win back the Muslim community which had deserted the party in the wake of Babri Mosque demolition. Not in a distant past the PM was criticized for having said that the minorities had the first claim on nation’s resources.

We Indians have got in the habit of looking at every thing from a political prism. Therefore, the PM’s concern for minorities can’t be seen as genuine, but only as a gimmick for political gains. Here the question must be asked if there is anything apolitical in the country?

Dr Manmohan Singh is heading a Congress government and the party must do a great deal to atone the wrongs it has done to the Muslim community. Members of Congress were in great majority in the Constituent Assembly which took away political, economic and educational reservations which was promised to the Muslims in the draft constitution. It was the long uninterrupted 30-year rule of the Congress Party from 1947 to 1977 which brought about the all round decline of the Muslim community. It was the Congress government in U.P. that issued a secret circular instructing officers to deny jobs to the Muslims in the police force. Elsewhere, it was open practical discrimination which robbed Muslims of many gifts and benefits that others received as of right.

According to 1940 Census the Muslim population of undivided India was 94.4 million which may have crossed the 100 million mark in 1947. Some 60% Muslims were in the areas that formed Pakistan and the remaining 40% remained in India. They had the option to go to Pakistan but they preferred to stay in India believing in its age-old golden tradition of tolerance, accommodation and cooperation.

But the Muslim hopes and aspirations began to be frustrated immediately after independence. They discovered to their surprise and horror that many Congress leaders, who earlier believed in composite politics, became brand communalist overnight. They shocked the Muslims when they blamed the community for partitioning the country. Soon they began maltreating Urdu language and culture. They gave Muslims the right to establish and manage their own educational institutions but threatened and undermined the minority character of Aligarh Muslim University. They allowed the community to practice its religion but hanged the sword of uniform civil code over its head. In sum, they did and undid things which harmed Muslim interests in one or another way.

The Muslim leadership did not help the Muslim cause either, especially immediately after independence. They held a convention in U.P. in 1948 which was attended, among others, by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Some two lakh Muslims gathered to hear their leaders who told and advised them in unambiguous terms to shun “Muslim politics” and espouse “composite politics”. Maulana Hifzurrahman advocated to join the Congress Party, for he considered it to be the best for Muslims. For thirty years the Muslim community followed the advice of their leaders in spirit and letter and voted for Congress in election after election. It required the Emergency and its excesses to shake the Muslim belief in Congress.

The point to be made here is that while Muslims continued to be loyal to the Congress, the party, or at least a section of its leadership, presided over its speedy decline. Today the Muslim condition is the worst in the country. The majority of Muslims live below the poverty line. Their share in white-colour jobs is less than three per cent and in industrial loan it is even less than 2%. Politically, too, the Muslims are under-represented both in Parliament and state assemblies. And their poor literacy record is a universally acknowledged fact.

What is, then, wrong if the Congress has chosen today to address the Muslim problems. In view of the facts presented above, the Muslim community deserves special welfare measures. May be, it is a political gimmick, so typical of Congress. We shall welcome such political gimmicks by the BJP and other political parties as well as long as it serves our purpose. The Muslims are in dire need of help to get out of the situation they have fallen in. Please do not give us the boring advice that under the constitution every one has got equal opportunity. Is it not BJP’s political gimmick to keep the Muslims in perpetual backwardness.

[August, 2009]