Page 45 - Demo

No. 293 | May 202545spirit. Safa and Marwa test one%u2019s level of imaan (faith), which demands absolute obedience to Allah. Arafah is the ultimate achievement of purity and unity, annihilation of the self and ego, enfolding of the inner and outer forms of hajj; and the return to a state of fitra. Some Lessons of the Hajj Include:%u2022 Unity of all Muslims,%u2022 The role of the masses in unity,%u2022 The religious, political, and social dimensions of life,%u2022 Heightened consciousness of knowledge, and%u2022 Strengthening the Islamic character of individuals and society. Hajj softens the heart to the extent that differences of any nature are non-existent. Hearts are united. The Need for Two Acknowledgments1. The Holy Qur%u2019an says: %u2018O mankind! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you nations and tribes that you may identify yourselves with one another. Indeed, the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the most Godwary among you. Indeed, Allah is all-knowing, all-aware.%u2019 (Surah Al-Hujurat, Verse 13)At one level, this verse deals with certain Arab sociological factors, which were obstructions to Arab unity in the early Islamic timeline during the lifetime of the Prophet (SAW). At another level, it calls for unity among humanity. Islamic civilization can advance only in the context of the unity of humanity.2. There is also a need to acknowledge that WWII produced the military-industrial-fascist-media complex, centred on Wall Street, USA, as the new site for the obscene accumulation of wealth through the promotion of regional wars as the preferred alternative to another world war. Wall Street is the paradise of the billionaire class. Silicon Valley is the parallel paradise of the big tech companies. Islam is now demonised ideologically to justify the lucrative arms trade. These wars serve to divide humanity, politically and religiously. Humanity is always caught up in the antagonistic tensions between civilization and barbarism. The blood of martyrs continues to flow in the open veins of liberation history as a reminder to humanity to turn away from the misanthropic ways of barbarism and to turn only towards the sociable ways of civilization. Two Examples from HistoryThe Prophet of Islam (PBUH) himself had confronted the regional wars of his days. As a strategy, he yielded the entire city-state of Mecca to the powerful and oppressive pagans, took flight to the city-state of Medina, and began the recapture of Mecca through the historic Battle of Badr with imaan and 313 ill-equipped soldiers. Maulana Syed Mohammad Mian Deobandi was a prisoner of war on Malta Island in the Mediterranean Sea, which was the British equivalent of apartheid%u2019s Robben Island Prison in South Africa. In his spirited book The Prisoners of Malta, he records how the British engendered religious communalism to divide the rising new Indian nation. These two acknowledgements mean that while Muslims struggle for unity, they should also struggle for the unity of humanity by showing that they are against unjust wars and for world peace. This message must also reach non-Muslim majority countries.Global Population Trends as Factors of the Pro-Islamic Civilization ApproachThe Global Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, indicate:%u2022 The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians.%u2022 Muslims will constitute 10% of the overall population in Europe. %u2022 The Muslim population of India will exceed that of Indonesia. %u2022 In the USA, Muslims will be more numerous than Jews; Christians will decline from 75% to 66.66%. These projections show the challenge to develop education-in-motion in line with the population trends to build Muslim unity and as an overflow to reach out to potential embracers of imaan.