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Meaning of Islam
The meaning of Islam is : Obedience and
dutifulness to God. To give over oneself to God is Islam. To
relinquish one's freedom and independence in favour of God is
Islam. To surrender oneself before the authority and
sovereignty of God is Islam. One who entrusts all his affairs
to God is a Muslim, and one who keeps his affairs in his own
hands or entrusts them to someone else than God is not a
Muslim. To hand over one's affairs to God means to accept the
guidance sent by God through His books as well as His
messenger and to refrain from raising the slightest objection
to it. Further, it is essential to follow only Qur'an and
Prophet's Sunnah in every problem of life. Again, only that
person is a Muslim who puts back his own wisdom, worldly
customs and everybody's advice except that of God, and
consults in every matter God's book and the sayings of the
Holy Prophet to know what he should do and what not to do,
and accepts without demur whatever guidance he gets from
there and rejects whatever guidance he gets from there and
rejects whatever he finds opposed to it because he has wholly
entrusted himself to God and this very act of total
entrustment to God amounts to being a "Muslim". In contrast
to this, a person is certainly not a Muslim who does not
depend on the Qur'an and the Holy Prophet's Sunnah but
carries out the dictates of his mind or follows the practice
descending from his forefathers, or conforms to what is
happening in the world without caring to ascertain from the
Qur'an and Sunnah as to how to handle his affairs, or if he
comes to know the specific instructions of the Qur'an and
Sunnah and reacts to it by saying: "It does not appeal to my
intellect, so I will not accept it; or my forefathers have
been pursuing an opposite course, so I will not follow these
instructions, or the practice of the world is opposed to it,
so I will follow that practice only". Such a person is a liar
if he calls himself a Muslim.
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When you recite the Kalima : La ilaha
illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah, it amounts to your
simultaneous affirmation that the only law for you is the
Law of God, your sovereign is only God, your ruler is
only God, you have to obey only God, and only that thing
is true and right for you which is vouchsafed through
God's book and His messenger. This means that you
relinquished your independence in favour of God as soon
as you became a Muslim. Consequently you have forfeited
your right to say now: "My opinion is this, the practice
in the world is this, the family custom is this, that
gentleman and that holy person advises like this". In the
face of Allah's Word and His messenger's Sunnah, you
cannot put forward such excuses. Now your duty is to
judge everything in the light of the Qur'an and Sunnah.
Accept what is in conformity with these and throw
overboard what goes counter to these, irrespective of its
being anybody's order or anybody's practice. It is an
exercise in contradiction to call oneself a Muslim on the
one hand, and, on the other, give preference to one's
opinion, or worldly custom, or any person's word or
action over and above the Qur'an and Sunnah. Just as a
blind man cannot say he has eyes, nor can a noseless
person claim to have nose, in the same way no such person
can call himself a Muslim who refuses to subordinate all
the affairs of his life to the dictates of the Qur'an and
Sunnah and flaunts his wisdom, or worldly custom, or any
human being's saying and practice, in preference to God's
injunctions and His messenger's advice.
Whoever does not want to be a Muslim
cannot be compelled by anybody to act against his will.
He is free to adopt any religion he likes and call
himself by any name he prefers. But, having called
himself a Muslim, he must fully understand that he can
remain a Muslim as long as he is within the bounds of
Islam. The bounds of Islam are : to accept the Word of
God and His messenger's Sunnah as the criterion of Truth
and Justice, and to regard everything opposed to it as
false. Whoever remains within these bounds is a Muslim
and whoever transgresses them gets expelled from Islam.
And if even after this expulsion he considers himself a
Muslim and announces that he is a Muslim, he deceives his
own self and the world too.
" Whoso judges not by the law which Allah has revealed
: Such are disbelievers." |
Taken from
Let us be Muslim
by. Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi
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