Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
Role,
Difinition and certain Facets thereof
The Qur’an has laid fundamental
emphasis on the importance of imitation of the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah as a vital
factor in the practice of Islam, because it begins in accepting him as the sole
human Guide, in the post-Qur’anic period, in respect of Divine Guidance, and it
develops in imitating him more and more as the Perfect Practical Model thereof. The question, therefore,
emerges: What does the Sunnah stand for? We may concisely answer this question
by saying that the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah stands for the dynamic manifestations
of the ethico-religious dimensions of his personality. Or: Looking at it in the
perspective of the Qur’an, we may define it by saying that it is the
realization by him of the Qur’anic value-system in the different dimensions of
his personality;
If the implications of the Sunnah are
understood properly by a Muslim, it saves him from indulgence in bid‘ah, on the
one hand, and inspires him with intense fervour for realizing in his
personality, to his utmost capacity, the ethico-religious Idealism projected by
the Qur’an.
The present is not the occasion to
project the Holy Prophet’s Sunnah in detail, because it relates to a
personality that has been the richest, the most profound, and the most perfect
in history. We may, however, mention here just a few facets selected off-hand,—only to provide a basic idea. They are:
1.
Utmost
devotion to God;
2.
Spending
every moment of life productively, and with planning and grace, and not wasting
it in frivolities— and doing all that without the harshness and rigors of
Asceticism, but with positive consciousness of maintaining life in
God-boundness;
3.
Maintaining
highest fortitude, with a cheerful countenance and a never-failing smile, even
in the most trying and terrifying circumstances;
4.
Gentleness
and considerateness in dealing with others;
5.
Forgiveness—and
love—for the worst enemies;
6.
Practice
of Mercy in all situations,—the conquest of Makka demonstrating it at its
climax;
7.
Utmost
generosity;
8.
Utmost
sacrifice for the welfare of others: feeding others, while himself remaining
hungry, clothing others, while himself wearing coarse garments patched time and
again; not keeping any wealth with him, in cash or kind, but distributing it to
the needy before sunset every day;
9.
Extreme
humility together with full dignity;
10.
Highest
rational tolerance;
11.
Good-will
for all and ill-will towards none;
12.
Eating
less; sleeping less; talking less;
13.
Total
abstinence from quarrelsomeness;
14.
Immaculate
cleanliness in respect of the body, the dress and the environment; and
15.
Practice
of truthfulness, honesty, fidelity and selfcontrol at their highest.
It is heart-rending to observe that
the very notion of the obligatoriness of imitating the real Sunnah—which has
been fundamentally projected above—has progressively departed from the Muslims;
while love for externalistic formalities in the name of the Sunnah, and that
too with much fuss as to Juristic hairsplitting, has increasingly taken its
place among the so-called orthodox pursuers of religiosity;—all that resulting
in the creation of large numbers of Islamically unbalanced religious
personalities.
to be continued . . . . .
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