Ramzan and Islamic Sermon
One of a close friends of mine recently been the regular participant of one of the Ramzan Taraweeh gathering came to me and told me that Maulvi Sahab in addition to explaining the Islamic Verses touched upon our social problems.
Though I am a practicing Muslim but my understanding on Islam has a different view from many believers, to know what Maulvi sahab says, I asked my friend to elaborate Maulvi Sahab’s vision. She told me that in Maulvi Sahab’s opinion e.g. the women these days want to get married with Man having handsome salary with having no family involvement, even those who are not pious Muslim. On listening this I smiled, as its a general trend for women to get married based on financial standing of groom is one of the prime factor to consider same as for men women’s beauty has always been the focus of attraction but I have never heard any Maulvi sahab asking men to overlook the beauty factors in women and appreciate their honesty sense of responsibility and righteousness and support them to practice their rights given to them by Islam. Similarl,y I have never heard any Maulvi Sahab discouraging the practice of Drowry prevailing in the society or even saying a few words on it. None of the religions including Islam is based on need tailored ideology serving a specific gender or fraction of society. To the best of my understanding, Islam is one of the religion who addresses the Man’s trait of desire to practice power by giving him authority in social unit home but at the same time makes him accountable to respect Women’s Rights given by religion of Islam and practice mercy and social justice. But unfortunately in practice, our society is influenced by ignorance and man woman relationship seems to be like master and slave, the one in power runs the show instead of being individuals having contrast traits co coordinating with each other mediating the harmony in the society thus the outcome is severe intolerance impatience self proclaimed piousness reflected as EGO, a form of it is pseudo honor often lead to serious crimes. Unfortunatel,y most of these malpractices are done under the label of Islam to earn social acceptance, whereas authentic Islam condemns such practices or anything that damages other’s rights freedom to practice, belongings or causing any physical harm or killing anyone all are big sins.
Our prophet used to help his wives in domestic work. He used to never criticize the cooking skills of his wives rather was very caring and polite with them, these facts are cited by authentic script of Islam.
In our societ,y it is ABSOLUTELY not in practice that gents help ladies in their domestic affair, whereas if they are asked to do so, the most usual answer is, it is not our job. We fed you so its your job to work for us at home and obey us. Interestingly earning for dependents e.g. mothers wives sisters daughters is the prime responsibility rather duty of man, that’s ABSOLUTELY not a favor (AHSAAN) to them. Socially over here in this region men are acknowledged more for their good deeds, sacrifices and other contributions as compared to women who made the same job done or did even better inspite of passing through more difficult situations and this practice is in contrary to basic principles of Islam but I have never heard so far any Maulvi sahab saying a few words on similar issues may be to avoid the conflicts of EGO between men and women as individuals since EGO issues are the key factor responsible for most of our social turmoil whereas according to authentic literature of Islam EGO and ARROGENCE are extremely discouraged, sijda (Prostrate) where Allah is closet to Human being, is a physical position when we kneel down to touch the floor with fore head even without prayers mat suppose to be done to combat ego during namaz. Most of us who do not feel comfortable to sit without mat on floor can only touch the bare floor with fore head in submission if we have bravery and courage to deal with our ego issues accepting Allah’s Supremacy above all.
I have also noticed that our youth wants to get married with men having handsome salary but should have no association with their family whereas young girls expect that their husbands should obey them that’s absolutely wrong approach. According to authentic literature of Islam, it is stated that if sijda were to be allowed to make before any Human being, after Allah, wives would be asked to do sijda in front of their Husbands.
We learn from our elders e.g. money and power later on manipulation run the show hence this wrong approach is not a surprise. Generally in our society man in the unit of home is in stronger position as long as he is the key earning member whereas as soon as children grow up to settle mother usually dominates preferring their sons over daughters in their social circles, practicing the same as they experienced in their youth.
Even when their sons are married they expect them to spend more time with them than their wives, leading to domestic turmoil PARTICULARLY in families where men are less experienced to deal with women generally, often fooled and exploited by them as they fail to understand their manipulations strategies, a trait that by gender woman can use in her defense whenever she feels insecure and unpleased unlike other Muslim societies where it is social norm to have more than one wives, marriage is a common practice in all ages even elderly people prefer to marry rather to stay single, families pressure-influence for going into any relationship is minimal and practice of divorce is not a taboo.
It is generally considered that if a man is doing job he can need domestic assistance for preparing his daily stuff unlike a woman who is doing comparable job but is expected to serve the domestic needs of male members of the family living within the same home. This social injustice is invisible to most of our Maulvi Sahabs indicating that probably Islam being preached over here is culturally tailored to provide cover up to the social mal practices based on injustice, that otherwise are strongly condemned by preaching of Islam as cited in authentic literature.
It is matter of concern that many of us instead of making independent study on religion and other knowledge full subjects through referring authentic literature to arrive on a conclusion we generally rely on understanding of others to explain content stance or fatwa to us, that may be helpful but can cause unsettlement of issues at moral grounds making them doubtful to be psychologically accepted, giving drugs to suppress psychological turmoil arose under such situations are prohibited as cited in authentic Islamic literature as Islam prohibits enforced or imposed implementation of decisions to follow against the freewill in any walk of life, even if it is the matter of religious beliefs. Since we all are supposed to go in our OWN graves and answer independently for our deeds and their underlying intentions, whereas we are best to understand the situations we are being in life so it is wise to question what other preaches and make independent study using authentic literature to having ISLAMIC knowledge translated to make it applicable in our given situation leading to build our independent decisions rather than blindly following others. We need to evolve wisely to deal with our social challenges as per our beliefs in this Era of Information Technology in our own way and come out of the fear of damaging the public image e.g. log keya kahengey (What would people say), our concern should be Allah FIRST and concerned people ONLY. Not the people but its ONLY ALLAH who has the authority to give verdicts on our Deeds depending on the intention, that only Allah knows, no one else can judge it, and sanction Jannat (Heaven, Paradise) or Jehanum (Hell) for us.
It would be helpful if Islamic Experts from different part of world having diverse cultural background are invited to give Sermon in Ramzan while sharing their opinion on different social issues, comparing their practices with ours, to broaden the vision and options for our YOUTH, who are THE FUTURE OF NATION in this GLOBAL COMMUNITY.
