Privileges and Obligations
A community that obeys the commands of Almighty Allah
(SWT) becomes dear to Him. This privilege is, however, coupled with many
obligations. The more glories and bounties a nation is blessed with, the more are
its responsibilities in the sight of Almighty Allah (SWT). Privileges and
obligations go together.
A community that claims to be the follower of a
messenger of Allah (SAW), and custodian of His message in the form of a
revealed Book, automatically becomes the representative of the Almighty among
other nations. This is a tremendous responsibility. If the behavior of such a
community is in contravention
to its claim,
then, according to
Divine Justice, they deserve all the humiliation and disgrace,
sufferings and miseries in
the life of this world. If their character and morals,
their way of life, their society and culture, and their politico-economic norms
are contrary to the teachings of the Divine Revelation, then this constitutes
an unpardonable crime. The reason is that such behavior, instead of presenting
an attractive and true picture of the way of life based on the Right Ideal —
and thereby bringing people nearer to Allah (SWT) — serves only to repel them
away from the Divine Guidance by displaying a distorted and ugly image of that
guidance. The Qur’an is very explicit on this point:
O you who believe, why do you
profess what you do not practice? Saying what you do not practice is most
hateful in the sight of God. (Al-Saff 61:2,3)
Do you believe a part of the Book
and reject a part? There is no other award for them who so act but ignominy in
this world, and on the Day of Judgment the severest of punishment. (Al-Baqarah
2:85)
A strange characteristic of such disgraced communities
is that, in spite of receiving frequent installments of Divine punishment, they
continue to believe that Allah (SWT) truly loves them. Due to this self-deception,
which is based upon their claimed association with a holy messenger of Allah
(SWT), they continue to live in a fool’s paradise of their own making. They
feel satisfied in the unfounded conviction that they deserve, as a birthright,
some kind of preferential treatment from their Lord, just because they belong
to a particular community and for no other reason. The Qur’an tries to shake
such complacent people from their deluded slumber thus:
The Jews and the Christians say:
“We are sons of God and beloved
of Him.” Say:
“Why does He punish you then for your sins? No! You are
only mortals, of His creation.” (Al-Ma’ida 5:18)
And they (the Jews) say: “Hell
fire will not touch us for more than
a few days.”
Say: “Have you so
received a promise from God? Then surely God will not withdraw His pledge. Or
do you impute things to God of which you have no knowledge at all?” (Al-
Baqarah 2:80)
Unfortunately, the image we get from these verses is a
disturbingly true representation of today’s Muslims. Even the repeated episodes
of severe punishments, in the background of continuous sufferings, has failed
to produce in us any sense of guilt or remorse. Instead, our deeply ingrained
myth of being a privileged people has remained intact. Unbelievable as it may
sound, the more disgrace we receive, the more we fall in love with ourselves,
blinded by our supposed righteousness and delusion of our own grandeur. Such
irony, however, may well be a part of our punishment.
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