Islamic Studies

ASSIGNMENT #3

This document discusses the Social, Moral and Political

Challenges of Muslims and their Solutions in the Light
of Islamic Teachings. The main topic discussed here is
“The Misleading Muslim Leaders.”

Taseer Haider
FA-19 BSE-018

November 3, 2019
Muslim’s History:

In todays day and age Muslims are faced with the greatest criticism that has
been seen in a very long time. Muslims are openly called terrorists. Muslims have
been officialy declared terrotists by some political parties of some countries just
for their public campaigns to have the support of their people. How did this
happen? How and when and why did the muslim community let this happen?

Some 100 years ago Muslims were a superpower in the world the Muslims
Caliphate was stretched far and wide. Even before that the Muslims were the
leaders of the world for their knowledge and power. The city of Baghdad was the
epicenter of knowledge in the world. Muslims were the greatest scientists of that
time. What happened? Where did it all go? That Knowledge, That Power.

Downfall of the Muslim Ummah:

The downfall of the Muslim ummah started when the leaders of the Muslim
world started to fight among themselves. The main cause for that was the right
to rule. Everyone wanted to rule and wanted to be the leader of the Muslim state.
We Muslims started to fight among ourselves, The west seeing this as an
oppurtunity divided the Muslim leaders and that led to the downfall of the
Muslim’s and fall of the Muslim state.

The barbarians led by Hulagu Khan who did not know about education
attacked the Muslim state. When Baghdad fell the Tigris river had two colours of
water running through it one was red of blood and the other was black of the
ink. The Muslims at that time were leading lush lives obtaining knowledge and
enjoying life not thinking about the military defence of the state which helped the
barbarians conquer the greatest state of the Muslims at the peak of their power.

Present state of the Muslim Ummah:

At the present time the common Muslim is opperssed by the non-Muslim
community. They are upright called Terrorists and are treated as such. There is a
negative image of the Muslim’s is portrayed by the foreign media and as media
being a source of information the people accept that negative image of the
Muslim’s without question causing further misconception which leads to more
extrimist views againt Muslim’s in the world. At some places Muslim’s are not
even allowed to pray, Hijab which is worn by Muslim women for their own
protection is not allowed in public areas as people belive that women wearing
hijab have something dangerous to hide etc. Such is the present state of the
Muslim’s in the modern and more advanced Human civilization where the rights
of the people are protected.
Cause of Negative image of Muslim’s:
There are many causes for the negative image of the Muslim’s that is being
shown to the world. The biggest might be that the leaders of the Muslim’s
instead of showing the world that Muslim’s are a peaceful people and violence is
not even in the teachings of Islam, They are enjoying their lives with the money
of the people they rule. Muslim leaders are not paying any attention to the
increasing bad image of Islam and the Muslom people and the people of their
country. They are just trying to make more and more money by any means so
that they can live their own lives even more luxuriously without having any care
of what is happening in the world.
Misleading leaders of the Muslim world:
There are different types of the leaders that are misleading the Muslim Ummah
for their own personal gain. They only want power over the people and want to
become rich and use Islam as a means to become rich and powerfull and the
people without thinking just blindly follow. In the end all of them will have to
answer for their bad deeds and Allah will surely question them and punish
them.
Surah Isra’ – Verse 71
‫ي ِكتَابَ ُه بِيَ ِمينِ ِه َفا ُ ْو َلئِكَ يَ ْق َر ُءونَ ِكتَابَ ُه ْم َو َال يُ ْظ َل ُمونَ َفتِي ال‬
َ ِ‫اس بإِ َما ِم ِه ْم َف َم ْن اُوت‬
ٍ ‫يَ ْومَ َن ْدعُو ْا ُك َّل اُ َن‬

71. “On the Day We shall call every people with their Imam (leader); then
whoever is given his book in his right hand; then these will read their
book (joyfully); and they will not be treated unjustly in the least.
But it has already been said in the Quran that those people with power over
others will be questioned on the day of judgment and then they will surely have
to answer Allah about how they could have helped the people but they did not.
Political leaders:
Some of the political leaders who just want power and want to rule their country
use the name of Islam just to get the support of the people. They do not care
about the welfare of the Islamic state where they live in they just want to make
money and rule the country. These political leaders who use the name of Islam to
get the support of the people might not even know how to pray. They might not
even have the basic knowledge of Islam its basic teachings and the moral
principles with which Islam works. They only care about the personal gain.
The Muslim people especialy those living in the sub-contienent are very
sensitive about Islam. If someone does or tries to do something that contradicts
their own belief they resort to extreme measures. The people in the sub-
contienent have quite extreme views.
In the name of Islam the people come to the streets and protest because they
think that the image of Islam is being ruined. The political leaders take
advantage of the views of the people and use them to gain political power. The
people being of short temper also do not have the insight to question their
leaders. They think that if a person is saying the name of Islam and is using
some references of Islam in his speech then that person is a good person and a
sincere leader even tough this might be the exact opposite to the internal views of
that person.
: “All of you are shepherds, and each of you will be asked concerning
his flock” (Bukhari).
Misleading Islamic Scholars:
There are some Islamic scholars with a lot of followers who are not completely
sincere with their followers. There are some of them who straight up give the
wrong teachings about Islam. They are trying to start fights between the Muslim
community . This has given rise to sects in the Islamic world. There are different
sects that have arose because of some of the Muslim leaders who instead of
giving the right teachings and preventing these fights from happening and
preventing these sects from getting created are instead adding fuel to this fire
and they are helping in creating these sects. The people who have less
knowledge and are less able to see logically and use their brains, follow these
leaders and do as these leader and scholars tell them to do without question.
This type of following causes these scholars to feel more powerful and they start
doing more and more things that may cause harm to the image of Islam.
There are some Islamic teachers who donot do their work. Parents send
their children to madrassas to study about Islam and to gain knowledge and
learn. Instead there have been cases of children being harrased and beaten by
the very own teachers who were supposed to teach them to do the right things in
life and not do bad deeds. The parents of these children even after knowing
about what is happening to their children do not report about this issue because
they think that if they tell about this to anyone they might lose the respect they
have in the society they live in.
There are some other teachers who belong to a particular sect and they
want the children they teach to join that same sect they from a young age teach
the children the things that puts the thought in the minds of those young children
that what they know is true and all others are wrong, this leads to the young
generation having a narrow mind and the downfall of Islam and the Muslim
Ummah.
 Some of the Islamic scholars mislead in another way altough they are
teaching the right Isalm but they instead of giving life lessons which are more
practical. The lessons which can help the individual Muslim to become an even
better person and bring him closer to Allah. These scholars only teach about the
greatness of the previous great Muslim leaders and how they conquered the
entire world. They tell about their great adventures and their bravery and the
system that they built and the hardships they had to bear. They tell these things
which is good but in the end of their lesson they donot give the moral lesson the
thing to be learnt from the great lives led by those great Muslim leaders. They in
the end donot tell how to make the peoples lives better by following the lives of
those great people. They give the examples but donot tell us the reason for giving
those examples.
"It is out of God’s mercy that you have been lenient with them. Had you
been rough, hard-hearted, they would surely have scattered away from
you. So pardon them, and pray for their forgiveness, and take counsel
from them in matters of importance. And when you are resolved on a
course of action, place your trust in God; surely God loves those who put
their trust (in Him). If God helps you none shall prevail over you; if He
forsakes you then who can help you? It is in God that the believers
should put their trust." (Quran 3:159-160)
There are not only just wrong teaching scholars and leaders there are mostly
good ones who help the people but there are people who donot listen and in the
end the people will be the ones who will have to answer to Allah.
“Have you not considered the assembly of the Children of Israel after [the time
of] Moses when they said to a prophet of theirs, “Send to us a king, and we will
fight in the way of Allah “? He said, “Would you perhaps refrain from fighting
if fighting was prescribed for you?” They said, “And why should we not fight in
the cause of Allah when we have been driven out from our homes and from our
children?” But when fighting was prescribed for them, they turned away,
except for a few of them. And Allah is Knowing of the wrongdoers. And their
prophet said to them, “Indeed, Allah has sent to you Saul as a king.” They
said, “How can he have kingship over us while we are more worthy of kingship
than him and he has not been given any measure of wealth?” He said, “Indeed,
Allah has chosen him over you and has increased him abundantly in
knowledge and stature. And Allah gives His sovereignty to whom He wills. And
Allah is all-Encompassing [in favor] and Knowing.” (Quran, 2:246-247)

In the end the the reasons for the downfall of the Muslim Ummah is not just one
particular one but intead there are many. The misleading leaders of the Islamic
world mislead the people because they can a person misleads another person
because the other person is stupid enough to be misled. Similarly the leaders
mislead because their followers donot question them. The remedy for this can be
better quality education for the people which can help them and it might be able
to make the rise of Islam possible.