They are those who believe in this guidance and lead a life of good

works according to it. For them enjoyment and happiness is in this world

as well as in the life yet to come. This is God’s unchangeable law.

Such is the greatest achievement.

[Verse: 10:63-64]

 

If Islam is true, why then are Muslims in such anabject state?

 

In the Quran, to those who follow His guidance, God promises peace, security, health, wealth and happiness. Indeed, Muslims are not too shy in telling the world they have the best religion – but do we not witness something that is totally different?

 

The Muslim countries are some of the least developed, the poorest, the most corrupt and the most tyrannised countries in the world.

 

God promises those who follow His guidance victory and success, yet what we see is that the majority of professed believers are living in failed nations and in dismal poverty. So why this blatant contradiction? Does God not keep his promise? Or is it that the Muslims, while believing they follow the Quran, are in fact not doing so?[1]

 

All over the world the professed Muslims are perpetually in a pitiful condition. This is still their predicament, even after the various infusions of fresh thoughts that are occasionally injected to transform their plight. Despite all efforts, they still remain intellectually restricted and materially poor. In the last few decades they have also become more demonised and despised. Their beliefs, culture and general living standards are considered to be backward and medieval. The media is continually shaming them for their actions, branding them terrorists and barbaric people. Indeed, their activities attract and often justify such labels.

 

This is not exactly the eminence God promises the believers.

 

Since their actions affect citizens of all countries, the time has now come for muslims, intellectuals and all people who want a better world to critically analyse and evaluate the whole of the ‘Islamic’ tradition, not only from the last few hundred years, but even the millennia before that.  And in this evaluation there must be no place for sentiments or prejudice.

 

Compared to the secular Europeans and Americans, the professed Muslims in all parts of the world are in total disarray. This is despite the boast that the current figure of more than one and a half billion Muslims are expected to outnumber all the Christians, and the fact that many Muslim countries, in terms of natural resources, are amongst the most wealthy nations on earth.

 

Within 100 years of Muhammad’s mission, the muslims rose up from being nomadic camel herders to become one of the greatest civilisations the world has ever seen. What happened to destroy that position of pre-eminence?

 

Many things we now take for granted were the discoveries of enterprising muslims. Amongst many other things it was the muslims who developed the ‘modern’ numbering system, including algebra. However, it has to be accepted that many of the inventions attributed to Muslims were in fact improvements to previous technologies and not new discoveries or developments. It is true though that these advances were made by muslims who were in their day at the forefront of science and technology. During the 16th. and 17th. century anyone in Europe who wanted to progress their knowledge in sciences such as astronomy, mathematics and medicine learned Arabic. Undoubtedly many ideas for social reform came from the Quran, as European renaissance scholars also studied it during and before this period.[2]

But now, from innovators and leaders, they have become foragers, beggars and stragglers. What happened?

 

In the Quran, (verse 47:38) God says when people drift from the straight and balanced path, others will replace them. And they will not be like them. Is this what happened to the muslims?

 

The key message in the Quran is ‘not to set up or accept any authority to rank with God‘. This also means not to accept and apply any laws or values that conflict with those given in the Quran, thus accepting authority other than God. To do so is tantamount to high treason and deemed to be an unforgiveable offence.

 

God promises victory to the believers, and God’s promises always come to pass. So why has God forsaken these people for the last thousand years? The answer is probably more obvious than it seems: people have deviated from the ambit of the verse – “It is Our assurance that We grant victory to the believers who follow this guidance.” [Verse 30:47]. In other words, victory comes to those sincere believers who apply their minds and hands to forge out a better future and those who disbelieve and do little or nothing will be left in the shadows to despair. This is God’s Law of Requital; the self inflicted punishment upon the drifters and rejecters, termed as God’s retribution. The Quran inspires people to put beliefs into action through good conduct and God’s promises always prove true.[3]

 

So if people have been ignoring God’s guidance, enough to earn His retribution, then what exactly have the Muslims been following since the 200 years after Muhammad’s death? What was it that removed muslims from the pinnacle of success that they rose to occupy so quickly after Islam’s resurgence?

 

In the last thousand years, people who claimed to be muslims have been in the darkest pits of ignorance, the heights of cruelty and wickedness, especially to their own people. They have also had their lands, their freedom, their cultures and even their beliefs and values taken away from them by mercenary invaders in the guise of traders and priests.

 

In order to understand this disgrace we must question the prevailing ‘Islamic system’, current ‘Islamic law’ and the traditional ‘Islamic heritage.’

 

Besides believing in the Quran, the traditions also require Muslims to believe in doctrines called the ‘hadith’ and the ‘sunnah’. These are the sayings and actions respectively attributed to Muhammad in books compiled around 200 years after his death. Few people realise, however, that the most binding precedents, rituals and laws were originated not by God Almighty, not by Muhammad, but instead by imams such as Bukhari, Tirmidhi and IbnMaja who assembled the numerous books of the hadith literature.[4]

 

It is the hadith compiled by these imams that needs to be scrutinised, because after all, is not this hadith the precursor of all ‘Islamic’ theology and its laws such as the Sharia and Hudud (including stonings, beheadings and the murders of those branded as apostates) that are implemented today?

 

Similar global calamity encompasses all people around the world, and not only those who go under the ‘Muslim’ umbrella. There does not exist even one nation in this whole world where people enjoy total freedom, justice and social wellbeing that can be even remotely comparable to the standards that  theQuran advocates.

 

And more sadly, there does not exist even one Muslim country in the world today which has achieved even a semblance of the social justice, equality in law, progress in knowledge, science and technology that has been achieved by the ‘infidel’ west. The real truth is that there are many Muslim countries which are the most backward and most repressive countries existing in the world today, that also provide a fertile ground for cruel dictators and corrupt governments.

 

Muslims still bear the yoke of colonialism of today’s superpowers who rule by proxy. While the Indians threw out the British after a difficult but relatively short struggle, the Arabs in North Africa and the Middle East, the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis in the sub-continent are still in economic bondage and servitude to their masters in the New World Order. Furthermore, 100 million Arabs have yet to free the Palestinian people from only four million in a struggle that continues after more than six decades.[5]

 

One of the main reasons for these relentless failures of the Muslims is their continuing disunity. Not only are they disunited against a common enemy, but they appear to have a wish to die at the hands of each other – as we see in Lebanon, Palestine, Iran and Iraq and recently Syria.

 

This disunity is further brought to global attention and attracts much derision when the annual Eid festival, a supposedly uniting event, after Ramadhan is celebrated on conflicting days by different countries, sects and communities, even within the same town, city or village. If the Muslims cannot agree on a relatively simple matter, how can they agree on other more important issues?

 

Muslims ridicule some Christians for believing in the trinity, yet they have ‘gods’ by the dozen. Scores of sects and splinter groups each blindly follows their particular saint or imam, authorities whose decrees they accept as equal to the Quran, and by implication equivalent to the commands of God. All this despite the fact the Quran explicitly forbids splitting into sects. The ‘gods’ are their leaders; the authorities they set up to rank with God, which according to the Quran is shirk: high treason.

 

These deviant beliefs have led to atrocities of the worst kind; for example: sectarian murders: Shia killing Sunni, and Sunni retaliating likewise. All this aggression causes displacement as well as impoverishment, economic oppression and exploitation. All this disunity and killing is against the Quranic guidance and severely condemned in the Quran as among things that are most wicked.

 

Is it not the drifting from the Quran, the revealed words of God, into the spurious hadith, the religious concoctions and the innovated rituals of the priestly mullahs, that have cut people off from the grace of God?

 

The traditions of the hadith are false, and worse than that, they are wickedly attributed to the good messenger Muhammad, and in many cases smear his honourable character.

 

For example, in a hadith of Sahih Bukhari (the so-called ‘authentic’ hadith compiled by Imam Bukhari), the messenger is accused of paedophilia, as he supposedly married Aisha when she was six years old and consummated this marriage when she was nine years old. Some hadith also accuse him of sexual depravity because he had more than one wife.

 

None of this is true and the Quran clearly emphasises his exemplary character. If the hadiths seek to confirm the messenger’s good character, would they be accusing him of paedophilia? Surely not. The Quran only condones marriage between physically and mentally mature adults and neither forbids nor encourages polygamy. Muhammad would never have drifted from Quranic guidance and it must be remembered that he was married to one woman for most of his life. It is only in the latter years, for political alliance, that he married more than one woman.

 

This is only one hadith, there are volumes more. You only have to read a few and it becomes clear that they are much like the stories in the Bible; a mixture of anecdotes, parables, myths and indecencies. Such narratives are difficult, if not impossible, to defend and no intelligent person would stoop to do so.[6]

 

Within 200 years of the resurgence of Islam, the muslims went on to become true examples for mankind. The muslims fathered much of the sciences and lent their names to many aspects of philosophy, physics, geometry, chemistry, astronomy, biology and physiology. All this at a time when Europe was in total darkness.

 

And now after a millennia of ignorance, Muslims recollect the messenger’s achievements to be something like a flash in the historical pan. The muslims of the period had prominence and distinction while today’s pretenders are barely a shadow of their predecessors, simply because they have deviated from God’s teachings. When it is said that they have deviated, this means that they have corrupted the messenger’s original teachings, the guidance entrusted in him by God. They have ignored the Quran and instead glorify the hadith.

 

Many intellectuals, open-minded but misguided men and women, recognised the failure of the hadith, and without checking, they also deserted the Quran, mistakenly thinking that all the profanity and cruelty in the hadith originated from the Quran. Rejecting the hadith, some despondent individuals went on to explore other equally fallible sources, religions or philosophies and ideologies of secular humanism for their sustenance.  And now they too are in the moral wilderness.

 

Other sincere but naive and trusting people, not finding any rituals in the Quran, or even understanding its focus, found solace in the hadith while keeping away from what they did not understand.

 

The fabricators put together the hadith that gave them everything they wanted. Now their hadiths shroud the whole Muslim behaviour right from prescribing the ‘correct’ method of sleeping, washing, bathing, eating, dressing etc. Under the mullah’s direction the Muslims effectively killed off their own intellect. For those imams looking for passive followers, the hadith became a most effective tool to achieve this end.

 

Among the many myths that also found their way into the hadith is the belief in the Mahdi. The Mahdi is a mystic saviour who is expected to appear towards the last days and will come to save all Muslims from their cruel oppressors; this same kind of saviour that is popular in many religions around the world.

 

The Quran informs (verse 13:11) us that God does not change the condition of any people, unless they invigorate what is within themselves. God tells people to strive and be pro-active to do good, to endeavour to develop their Self to make it fit for this life and for the life yet to come. All people are commanded to encourage good and to deter evil. This means continuous enterprise in the way of God guided by His laws and values.

 

Therefore to hang on to hopes of a saviour is actually a subtle attempt to make defeatists and pessimists out of people – the suffocating belief in fate – to make them submissive and to wait for someone else to come along to save them. The truth is that no one will come to help – you must help yourself.

 

The hadith about the Mahdi props up a passive, pessimistic and submissive community. It is all totally contrary to the Islamic spirit of dynamic endeavour for victory in the name of God and in the way of God. How could the advocating of pessimism and passivity guarantee peace and harmony, unity and justice – let alone success?

 

Although some hadith were promoted to simplify the tenets of belief, it soon became evident that these structures standing on shaky foundations would collapse. It was obvious that these questionable doctrines were clearly against the principles of the Quran. However, it would later become all too clear how easily the ruthless foreign rulers who invaded and colonised Muslim lands found it easy to overwhelm a docile and indolent populace that was perfectly moulded into its submissive and servile form through the indoctrination of all these false hadith. This was the cause of the downfall of those who believed they were muslims, but in reality were never enriched by the experience of Quranic values. Unfortunately, much the same is true today.

 

Did the Quran then not pose a serious problem for the hadith advocates? How did the Imams handle this potential threat to their hadith? The answer to this is very simple: they ruled to cut off all intellectual discussion and inquiry into Deen-Islam. They came up with the simple and effective idea that only the Imams, the priestly class, would be allowed to handle all matters of belief – they would teach people to call them the inheritors of the messenger’s mission. Despite the fact that Islam never allowed any hereditary monarchy or priesthood, the imams went on to successfully set up not only a priestly class but a whole hierarchy of priests. They imposed this upon the masses and denied them any access to the true understanding of the Quran. Unfortunately, even today, the imams are most successful in plying their trade – religion and charity are after all two of the highest income generators in the world economy. Unfortunately, most of the money never sees the light of day to benefit those who need it most.

 

The Mullahs also like to refer to a group of venerated men known as ‘four imams’ who have left their mark by instating the concept of taqlid – to follow in faith (i.e.  blindly) which effectively sealed off all questioning. The taqlid concept still has the traditional Muslims in its stranglehold.

 

In all their attempts to deceive people and cheat them out of their rights, the standard-bearers of ‘religion’, the imams and priests, have always relied mainly upon one technique: they attributed their own aims and ambitions as emanating from the ‘Will of God.’ This is the secret of the strong grip of ‘religion’ on the minds of the masses. The most effective way of maintaining this hold is to keep people ignorant, to cripple their sense of reasoning and render them incapable of independent thinking. People are indoctrinated into holding up ignorance, stupidity and blind submission as signs of piety and godliness. The leaders of ‘religion’ would have us believe that the more obscurely and incoherently a person talks, the nearer he is to God, and the more irrational and unscientific he is in his attitude and approach, the greater the esteem in which he should be held.

 

The only argument advanced in support of ‘religion’ is that it was followed by their parents and forefathers, which vouchsafes sanctity. If anyone has the temerity to question any religious belief or practice, the leaders of ‘religion’ try to arouse the ire of the people against him by accusing him of desecration and insult to their renowned ancestors. Fear of popular wrath has been used quite effectively by the leaders of ‘religion’ to muzzle their critics and hold them in perpetual awe.

 

It was to undo and break this vicious grip of religion, and to restore Deenas an effective Code of Guidance that God sent His messengers with guidance amongst communities from time to time. There will be no more messengers; that is why Muhammad’s mission culminated with the final detailed and complete guidance of the Quran, and it is the implementation of the Quran, and the Quranalone, that can now deconstruct religious thought of all description and replace it with God’s System, the Deen-Islam, the dynamic order for social reform.[7]

We have to question everything. God has given us the mind and the intellect to question and to criticise. Of course this means a quick demise of the taqlid and also much of the existing doctrines instated by the imams. But is it not the aim to get to the truth?

 

In Europe we have been successful because people are free to criticise one another. Now, people everywhere (including Muslims) should be able to question and criticise, not for the sake of criticising but for the sake of openly discussing ideas that have in the past been restricted.

 

It is therefore without any doubt that the people following the imams have been a backward and ignorant community. If ordinary people ever hope to rise again, as all good people must, and be worthy to call themselves muslims, they must make the effort to free themselves from all mental bondage and the lies that have been perpetrated by the fabricated hadiths.

 

Some alternative schools of thought did arise in Egypt and in India which sought to repudiate the hadith. People such as Muhammad TawfiqSidgi and Mahmud Abu Rayya, both from Egypt, questioned the acceptability of the hadith. In India the Tolu-e-Islam founded by Ghulam Ahmad Parwez arose during the 1930s to take Muslims back to the Quran. Dr Abdul Wadud, a surgeon in the British Indian Army also wrote many books to promote the Quranic guidance. The intrepid scholar Abdul HasanChekannur from Kerala also challenged anyone to show that the Sharia succession law was from the Quran.

 

Similar movements have sprung up in other societies throughout history and are indeed prevalent and more widespread today, especially with the advance of internet and social media. Criticism of the hadith is therefore not new and has always been in existence.

 

The process of the change from having an absolute conviction in God and the Quran to placing a binding (and blinding) faith in the hadith took a long period of time. It did not happen within a few decades, but rather through a slow process stretching from about the ninth century onwards.

 

There is no basis for the hadith falsely attributed to the messenger as a source of law or even guidance. This does not mean that all hadith are totally and completely redundant, far from it. Hadith that give proper historical information should be accepted and included as part of historical records. However, the guidance for laws and positive values must come from the Quran and Quran alone.

 

It was the Quranic guidance that within a short 200 years propelled the muslims to overtake the greatness and the magnificence of the Roman and Persian empires. Such is the power of the Quran.

 

At a time when Europe was in a quite abysmal situation, the muslims founded an intellectual and material civilisation that served as the model and source of knowledge for the rise of Europe. It was Europe that inherited the mantle from the muslims. The knowledge founded by the muslims was the spark that ignited Europe. Europe developed further on this borrowed knowledge and built up a leadership in the intellectual arena that perhaps has not been surpassed, even to this day.

 

The would-be-muslims settled into a complacency that would smother them for centuries to come. People have ignored the source of the past greatness of muslims and instead shackled themselves with superstitious and simple ideas. The Quran, an enlightening beacon, has been put aside. So is it any wonder that today, with a hadith of one kind or another in their hands, people are still groping in the dark?

 

This calamity of following charismatic leaders has always been an affliction that has affected the whole human race. Europe rose after the stranglehold of the medieval church was broken, only to fall again through different waves of secular humanism of many kinds, including Marxism, Liberalism and many other ‘isms’.

 

However, after Europe faltered, it woke up with a vengeance from the suffocating stranglehold of the church. Kant’s exhortation to ‘dare to ask’ helped to sever the church from all ‘worldly’ affairs. There began the distinction between the secular and the spiritual civilisation with unintended consequences. The complete severing of ties with God opened a Pandora’s box of ideologies and humanisms that brought the West to the present day, mired in a plethora of ideologies and philosophies with nothing permanent or true to hold on to. When they should have rejected religion, they rejected God.

 

The Christian west and the non-Muslim world, despite the wealth and power, still face many serious social, economic, moral and ethical problems. History as well as recent events have shown that in some ways they are no better than their lapsed Muslim counterparts.

 

History has recorded that the way Europeans treated their conquered people is no shining example of Human Rights: ask the native Americans, the Aborigines in Australia and the Nguni of South Africa. Guantanamo Bay is another example of unjust incarceration and barbaric torture by a supposedly civilised nation.

 

Closer to home and recently in 2015 there have been many child sex abuse allegations against establishment figures. Those who should be looking after our interests have been accused of depraved acts against the most vulnerable in our society.

 

Politicians have been regularly found to be involved in fraudulent expense claims, sexual indiscretions and many other unpalatable goings-on. There has been the systematic sexual abuse of hundreds of young girls while in ‘care’ of social services, and entertainers have been convicted of sexual offences while working in national institutions such as the BBC – all of which were never brought to light when it was all happening. Even major charities and corporations have not been left unscathed. And so the list of corruption and mischief goes on.

 

All this has taken place because in some cases not only does the status of the criminal appear to override the suffering of the victims, but mainly because the offenders involved did not believe in accountability to themselves or their society – let alone to God.

 

Many politicians, business operators and other people in power are sincere and have real concern for humanity, but others are devils who disguise themselves as saviours – complicating and obfuscating matters to extract the maximum benefit for themselves and their cronies.

 

We can thus highlight the inadequacies of a system based on Christian and secular values. But what about those who label themselves as Muslim? Between the bold identity statements of beards and hijabs of the modern and even post-modern Islamists, the common denominator is empty rhetoric, without any proper knowledge or intellectual backing. These Muslims are perhaps in a worse situation than anyone in the west. While claiming to have the Quran – God’s guidance – they are unwilling to apply it. Is it any wonder that on the day of accountability the messenger will lament that his people – indeed many people – have deserted the Quran?

 

It must be emphasised though that while our system in Britain has its flaws, it’s not totally rotten, and at least we have many tangible benefits and know where improvement can be made.

 

The Quran was sent as a mercy for ALL mankind. While many have adorned themselves with material successes, the Muslims have choked themselves with their rituals, the supposed spirituality of the hadith and their assumed fundamentalism.

 

The example which Europe copied was an excellent illustration of a muslim people unimpeded by any false teachings. These muslimsstrived hard and achieved great success here on earth which God promised those who followed His guidance: they have also earned their rightful place in the life yet to come.

Sometimes we have to review our position and discard our current beliefs because new information or a better  understanding demands a change of perspective, even if this is difficult to do.

 

Journalist RagehOmaar in his TV Series, Islam in America, noted that in the supreme court in Washington there is a frieze in the chamber where the chief justices actually sit and dispense justice. This frieze pays homage to the ideas and principles that inspired the American legal system: one of the foundation documents represented in this  frieze is the Quran. In the nation’s capital there are other references to Islam, largely unknown, rarely seen. The Thomas Jefferson building contains the library of Congress, the oldest cultural institution in Washington, completed in the 19th century. Around the dome of the reading room is a mural meant to represent the nations and ideas that contributed most to American civilisation. It may come as a surprise to historians, that amongst the ideas represented here is Islam.

 

Omaar also spoke to Congressman Keith Ellison who took his Oath of Office on a copy of the Quran originally owned by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America, the principle author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States.

 

Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the Quran, it is said, to understand the North African Muslims who the Americans were fighting against. When he had the opportunity to question a leader of his enemies why this war was being waged against them, he was told: because according to the Quran it was their duty ordained by God to kill all infidels.

 

However, if Jefferson had understood the Quran he would have soon realised how untrue this was – God never commands any aggression and unjust killing. Whatever the reason for Jefferson owning  a copy of the Quran, it would be impossible  for an intelligent and sincere person not to be positively influenced by the Quranic message.

 

While people can and should reject the absurdities of religion, no intelligent person can deny that we need order. Countries are consistently trying to progress by applying common standards of measurement, common principles of law and universal standards of human rights. We see this increasingly in Europe as well as internationally.

 

Agnostics and atheists may rightly believe that science explains our surroundings, the world and the universe we live in. Science reveals what things are and how they work, but cannot give any ethics or moral values of how we should use the power that such knowledge invests in us.

 

To make a just society we need laws and ethics that benefit all mankind and not just those who have the money, power and make the rules. We need Absolute Laws and Permanent Values. The Quran gives absolute standards for the total welfare and progress of mankind, for individuals and societies, without the need for any trial and error. Indeed, these Absolute Laws and Permanent Values from God ensure that each individual has rights and responsibilities. They ensure that each individual receives due benefit and is also ultimately held accountable by God.

 

Accepting the higher, consistent standards of the Quran raises the status of an individual and gives a solid foundation on which to establish a dependable and strong character. A weak individual with ever-changing values can never develop and progress.

 

The goal of each individual should be to become fit and ready for the next stage in life; a life yet to come. The Quran provides the blueprint to create such an environment in which each individual can realise his or her potential by replacing lower values with higher values and giving up something that is seemingly good for something that is truly great.

 

This book with the exposition of the Quran presents Islam: the Deen, not the religion. In changing times it gives unchanging principles to deal with the root causes of the problems that face mankind. The Deen-Islam is for all individuals, communities and societies who seek a just and progressive social order. Indeed it is a message of guidance for ALL mankind.

 

[1]The messenger confirms that his people have indeed abandoned the Quran. See verse 25:30.

[2]In 12th. century C.E. Robert of Ketton, a theologian from Lincolnshire, produced one of the earliest translations of the Quran. This Latin translation became the most widely used until the 17th. century. John Greaves, the Savillian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, also showed interest in matters well outside his scientific discipline. His notebook has excerpts from various chapters of the Quran which he translated into Latin, the scholarly language of the day. The mathematical system we use today also became known in Europe in the twelfth century, when Robert of Chester (often confused with Robert of Ketton) translated the writings of Persian scholar Al-Khwarizmi. Al-Khwarizmi, for whom algorithms are named, is known as the developer of modern algebra.

[3]Drifter: a person influenced by opinions outside his own mind. See verse and footnote 15:42.

[4]The Traditions of Hadith. See the Quranic Concepts section and verse 68:37.

[5]Four million Zionists against 100 million Arabs? Well not exactly. The four million Zionists have the might of the US military behind them, due to the strength of the Jewish lobby in America. But should muslims be overly concerned about this? See verses: 3:13; 4:75-81;  8:26, 39, 64-66; 42:39.

[6] The traditions of hadith are much like the stories in the Bible; a mixture of anecdotes, parables, myths and indecencies. There are many web sites – just surf the net and check them.

http://drshabbir.com/library/criminals.pdf

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/sex/long.html. http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/page/bible-contradictions

https://asimiqbal2nd.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/contradictions.pdf

[7]People must leave their own system and enter God’s System: the Dīn-Islam as found in the Quran: 8:5; 2:125; 22:26; 33:33. See also verse and footnote 71:28.