Between Extremes

(Interpreting faith in the world today, discussing gender, identity, culture, politics, and contemporary issues in the world today.)

By Dr Mohammad Akram Nadwi

A global cultural challenge

I do not think it makes much difference on these issues whether Muslims are living as minorities or as majorities. The culture that we confront, and seek to resist, is pervasive across the world. Pakistanis in Lahore are only a little less affected than Pakistanis in Bradford. The only real difference is that, in England, greater material prosperity provides more opportunities for more people to be distracted from what is good and necessary for them.

Thinking through the consequences

The heart of the matter is that we should “think things through”, that is, think through the consequences of particular lifestyles. Essentially, the worldly benefit of belief in the Judgement of the Hereafter is precisely that it reminds us, and trains us, to think in this way.

An obvious example is this. If a culture promotes forms of sexual gratification that are entirely divorced from the possibility and responsibility of having children and raising them properly, then the inevitable consequences are that the population will eventually cease to grow and, after a few generations, begin to collapse. Equally important, the value of sexual relationships is diminished, the future of those relationships is shortened, and the range of feelings within them is narrowed.

Overall, the meaning of those relationships is altered so that sexual pleasure and satisfaction become more important than anything else. Gradually, this weakens all the psychological, emotional, and social formation that naturally develops through caring for children, maintaining wider family responsibilities, and cultivating a sense of community.

Personal responsibility before Allah

Focus on what you know from the Qur’an and the Sunnah about personal responsibility and about being answerable to Allah. The purpose of Islam was, and remains, to bring people to full consciousness of their Creator and to worship Him according to the way taught by His Messenger.

In other words, the crisis of the ummah lies in the deficiency of Muslims in their īmān and islām, not in the efficiency of the enemies of Muslims.

Doing things for Allah means doing them only because they are right, not because they bring some present or future advantage in terms of pleasure, profit, status, power, or anything similar.

A believer knows that life is important because it is a gift from Allah. That alone makes it important, serious, valuable, and worthy of gratitude. Remove that understanding, and all we are is insignificant matter, infinitesimally small particles within an unimaginably vast creation. Whether we come or go, live or die, do good or do harm, would seem to matter little. Nobody would care.

But that is not how we experience ourselves. We do not name raindrops or grains of sand. We do name our children because their personhood is recognised by that name. They matter to themselves and they matter to us. Likewise, even when no one else is present, every believer knows that Allah is near, and that Allah cares that His gifts are neither rejected nor wasted. Sexuality is only one of those gifts.

Faith in times of hardship

People bring their problems to me, the difficulty of finding a marriage partner, of sustaining a marriage, and many other struggles. They tell me their stories, how deep their desolation has become, and how difficult it is to offer consolation, relief, and the preservation of hope.

Sometimes there appears to be no hope at all. It is precisely then that faith is most fully tested. If, despite that, you still desire to do what is right, continue doing what lies within your power, and do not neglect that effort, but pursue it consistently and patiently, then Allah will not fail to grant you an inner strength that preserves your dignity as a believer.

The example before us

If you wish to witness the reality of this inner strength and the fruits it bears, look to Gaza and its people.

If you wish to see the opposite, the absence of that inner strength and the humiliation that follows, then look to those places where powerful men repeatedly proclaim, loudly and forcefully, what they most certainly will not do. You already know what Allah has said in His Book about those who say what they do not do.