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Unless the “original understanding of the Deen (religion),
which has been declared by Hazrat Mohammed (peace be upon
him) under the name of Islam” is explained to the Muslim
communities, today’s social chaos will never end and even will cause
greater conflictions!
The reason of conflictions in countries of the world where Muslim
communities live today, is the misunderstanding of “RELIGION”, which
has been covered up and deviated by various misinterpretations over
ages.
These conflictions are being suffered today because of the
ages-old-misinterpretations of the holy Koran which is
effective till Doomsday, made in a fashion without being associated
with the scientific realities of their times, have been imposed to
the Muslim communities as if they were the original understanding of
“RELIGION”. I pointed out what some of these
misinterpretations are in my previous article under the title of “My
Conception of Islam”.
It
has finally become obvious that the reformation in understanding
the “RELIGION” has been necessary for Muslim societies.
But, how far do you think we could progress with the “RELIGIOUS”
education given by professors who talk about the angels coming
nearby God in the sky and waiting for three meters away at the
street door, leave aside the insufficient clergyman
(religious ministers) that were educated in religious courses or
theology schools?
Let me talk in all fairness.
Contrary to the efforts of some specific groups of people who have
been deliberately trying to impose the opposite with bad intention,
I am neither a sheikh having a religious order (tariqat) nor
an effendi or a hodja leading a community, and neither
do I have any claim of being mahdi or mujaddid (master
spirit of the age)!
I
have no social relationship except a few family friends that I
continually see in Turkey! It is none of my business to know how my
readers live, how their private lives and their behavior traits are,
as I am not their or someone else’s hodja, effendi or leader!
Everybody may read my books and evaluate them as they wish from
their point of view, and live the way as they wish and bear its
consequences!
What is more, I have no intention of turning back to Turkey for a
long while either, although I have no obstacles to turn back! No one
knows if I will live longer as I am sixty two years of age! So,
nobody should worry about my return to Turkey and what I could
possibly do.
Meanwhile, it is already known by those concerned that I have not
any relationship and communication with the politicians in Turkey!
On
the other side, those of my opinions that you read today are not
some ideas that took form after my move to the US eight years ago!
On the contrary, they are what I have already written as my opinions
in 1967 and in 1986 in my books “REVELATIONS”
and the “MYSTERIES OF HUMAN” published consecutively. They
are based on my convictions that I have got after having made
intensive and comprehensive investigations about religion.
As
I have also explained it many times over, let alone taking part in
any organization, institution or foundation, I have not even had any
relationship with them so far at all! Every kind of right to prove
this is open to the slanders about this subject!
I
find it crucial to repeat these because of the following:
All that I have written so far and that I will be writing from now
on is not for any materialistic or spiritual expectation or purpose!
They are only for the purpose of sharing information.
Their purpose is to invite people to think about the subject and
investigate it in a realistic way!
Knowing and remembering all these, let us now start evaluate our
subject!
Rasuls
(messengers)
and Nabis (prophets) are not the people who came to
shepherd people as their kings or sultans or dictators!
Rasuls and Nabis do not have a problem or a purpose of enacting
obligatory laws in people’s lives and have them be dependent on them
by force!
Neither have they any gains because of the people who are dependent
on them nor any losses because of others who are not dependent on
them!
In
the ages of no government conception of today ever existed, it was
their primary goal to enable people who lived in tribes and local
communities, to realize that their lives will continue in a new
dimension after death, and to provide them to get ready for the
afterworld dimension and enable them not to deny themselves of
the spiritual powers found within themselves due to their
worshipping gods that never existed at all!
It
is a wrong assumption that Umayyad (Umawi) and Ottoman
Dynasties in history were “Islamic” states, who in fact used
the understanding of “RELIGION” named as “ISLAM” in
favor of overruling people! Neither those were, nor today’s other
sultanates are any “Islamic States”! They might be considered
as the “sultanates of Muslims”. They are the sultanates of people
who accepted and interpreted the reality of “RELIGION”
according to themselves! Yet, the “RELIGION” is never
to be used as a sultanate or dominion tool!
Hazrat
Mohammed (peace be upon him), who explained the understanding
of “RELIGION”, the name of which is known as “ISLAM”, to
humankind, is the Rasul of Allah and the last of Nabis! He is not
a government leader, a president, a sultan or a dictator of a
state!
The Rasul of Allah, who came with a mission of explaining the One
named as “ALLAH” to be free from being a god or any perception of
god, is at the same time the last of Nabis who, by means of
reading the “SunnatAllah”, put forth “advices” for people as
to what to do and how to live! It does not put the “Rasul” in the
place of a government leader, a sultan or a dictator of a state,
if the people around him asked questions about various subjects
and received their answers! Having an opposite acceptance
will result in lowering the degree of Rasul or Nabi.
“Islam”
is the name of the “RELIGION”!
“RELIGION”
is not for state; not a form of government!
There is no relation between state government and “RELIGION”!
A
Government can not have a religion!
The RELIGION can not have a government!
Government, in fact, is the foundation formed for the health, peace
and happiness of people! It is obliged to give service to the people
of that country at the same distance and measure! It must respect
everyone’s understanding of “RELIGION” and practice so long
as they do not exert any pressure or force on each other! Government
should be on the side of the inoffensive, in other words the ones
who are oppressed and it has to protect them! Otherwise, the
existence of government will, as in the proverb, be hurt by the
complaint of a sufferer!
“RELIGION”
was declared to people on the basis of “advices”! The meaning of
this statement and the resulting benefits of it should be truly
evaluated!
Government rules people with the laws based on commanding and
governing! If you do not obey the law of government, it punishes
you with its vulgar power!
However, “RELIGION”, as a system, tells what you should do
and as a result what your benefits would be for the moment you live
and future. It “advices” you the items that you should do and
shouldn’t do! It is up to every person himself to obey this or
not. Within this subject, nobody has the right to force
anybody to obey what he knows.
“RELIGION” submits “ADVICES” for people!
Yet, governments are to “COMMAND and GOVERN” people!
If
“RELIGION” takes the position of a government, the verse “there
is no compulsion in the practice of religion” (la iqraha fiid
deen) loses its meaning! Because” RELIGION” in the
position of a government, turns out to be a tool of “COMPULSION”
rather than an “ADVICE”!
People have been informed of “RELIGION” so that it may be of
help to them for their eternal lives and that they may know the
truths that will make them happy till ever after!
Whereas a state government is an institution of governing formed by
intelligent and powerful people within the standards of that day’s
conditions and viewpoints!
“RELIGION”
explains the realities of the system as they apply to the date and
the future of humankind for the purpose of their benefits.
A
government will have the aim of making people live on and be happy
according to the ideas and points of view of their founders.
People can practice the “RELIGION” in so far as they
understand it within the available conditions regardless of in which
country and under which government regime they live on earth.
It
is not allowed in “Islam” for anybody to show deference to or
humiliate others because of their way of understanding or evaluating
the “RELIGION”!
A
person’s understanding of “RELIGION” is his “privacy”
and everybody preserves this “privacy” as they wish! Nobody
has the right to violate the others’ “privacy”!
People can not be given the privilege of running a government for
purpose of compelling others to apply their way of understanding.
A
government cannot have a privilege of violating people’s “privacy”!
If they have it, then the administration system of such governments
is called “dictatorship”!
Let us now come to the issue of how we need to evaluate the “RELIGION”…
If
a person accepts that Hazrat Mohammed Mustafa (peace
be upon him) is the Rasul and the last Nabi of Allah, and
that the Koran he declared is the real and true information
that he received through revelation (wahee) from the One
referred to as “Allah”, then he is a “Muslim” under
these conditions.
They who allow some parts of the Koran as correct and some
others as false will have not allowed the Koran completely, since
the whole Koran has been revealed from the same source and the same
person. However, they who could evaluate some parts of it but could
not evaluate the others will not be considered as out of
“Muslimism”!
It
is the most important and even necessary priority in this subject to
accept that Hazrat Mohammed declared the absolute
realities as a Rasul of Allah and the last of the Nabis.
One may believe in this or not, yet everyone will live the
consequences of their beliefs!
The second important point about this subject is as follows:
Each and every person living on earth is directly responsible for
what the RasulAllah Hazrat Mohammed informed!
There is absolutely no mediator in between! Each person will
evaluate the declarations of Hazrat Mohammed to the
extent that reached him, as he pleases!
According to the understanding of “RELIGION” named as “ISLAM”:
Every person will LIVE the consequences AUTOMATICALLY of how they
evaluated the information reaching them from the Rasul and the last
Nabi of Allah freely!
That’s why a “Muslim” will not need any religious minister or
any religious organization in order to “become a Muslim” or
to “be considered as a Muslim”! People may benefit from
each other’s knowledge but there is no obligation for anybody to be
dependent on anyone else! Absolute principles are clear. In the
other subjects except this, everybody behaves according to what he
understands and lives its consequences. Fatwa is not a
savior!
The Koran is obvious as informed by the Rasul of Allah!
The explanations of the Rasul of Allah about “RELIGION” are
obvious! A Muslim will search, question, investigate and evaluate
them according to his own opinion! Religion, as a subject, is a
matter of conscience for every person! BEING DEPENDENT WILL NOT
BE AN EXCUSE FOR A MISTAKE! There is no room for excuses in
SunnatAllah! Regardless of any excuses we may have, everyone of us
shall live unavoidably the consequences of what we have done with
our own hands and our thoughts!
A
person may fulfill and actually experience salaat or not,
experiences fasting or not, experience hajj or not, covers her head
or not if a woman, these are plainly people’s personal concerns! It
is none of others’ business! The gain of applying or the losses
of not applying all these is a person’s own concern; it is none of
others’ concern! Nobody is entitled to condemn others about this
subject! Everybody lives to fulfill what is right for him, not to
dominate others and provide them live through his wishes!
“A
Muslim”, in the state of faith in what Hazrat Mohammed (peace
be upon him) informed, is not to kill anybody, commit theft, get
anything that he has no right to, tell lies, backbite others or
throw slanders! It is feared that one will pass away “without faith”
if he experiences death while doing these. Because, it is impossible
for a person to have contrary deeds to what is believed, while he
believes in them.
Every person has come to the Earth alone and will go to their next
realm of life on his own… Everyone is here on Earth in order to
prepare himself to that eternity…
If
a person, considering himself “a Muslim” spends his very restricted
lifetime in this world by gossiping about and backbiting
others rather than evaluating his time by self-improving and
preparing himself for future; then he can not be given more harm
than the harm he gives on himself!
Anything that you may be talking behind others can be a gossip and
even be backbiting. We should pay great attention to the warnings
saying, “if your words about others are true, it is a gossip;
however if your words about them are not true, then it is a
slander,” as well as “It is enough for a person as a sin to relay
whatever he hears to the others.”
As
a matter of fact, backbiting was defined as disgusting as “eating
his dead brother’s flesh” in the Koran! We cannot even imagine how
huge the bill of slander is when faced with! Talking about and
condemning something we have not witnessed personally, brings
dreadful consequences!
This process is the result of “SunnatAllah” explained as the
"RELIGION”. So, every person will definitely live the consequences
of what came out of them! What is currently lived is the result of
what has come out of the person beforehand! They, who do not learn
lessons from what they have lived, have more to live!
Yes, now we should definitely know that…
Behind all that troubles Muslim societies in the world suffer today
lies their staying away from the original “ISLAM” as a result
of their acceptance of a religious understanding blended with
customs, traditions and misinterpretations for ages, as the true “RELIGION”
itself.
It
is never possible to attain what is right by carrying on what is
wrong!
Making people accept misinterpretations as the true “RELIGION”
lies behind all the mistakes of today. The sufferings of “Muslims’
will never come to an end if that mistake is not corrected and the
realities of the “RELIGION” are not given to the society by
intellectual through media!
The solution of the problem is not to make others accept what you
think is right; but it lies under radically
questioning our knowledge in cooperation with others, and
reconstructing our understanding of “RELIGION” starting from
fundamental facts!
Here, it is the duty of intellectuals of our world to
make that come true.
AHMED HULUSI
May 20, 2006
Raleigh, NC |
