Mr Altaf
Hussain, Founder and Leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), has stated that
any act or worship void of its true spirit, is useless, unbeneficial and fails
to achieve desired objectives. He was addressing a study circle of MQM workers
at the International Secretariat in London.
Mr Hussain
said that the human body is considered dead without its soul and likewise all
the worships, which are void of its true spirit, are lifeless worships and
ineffective. To offer prayers is
instructed in Islam. But do we offer
our prayers according to its true spirit or do we offer our prayers as a mean
to go to heaven and to keep away from hell?
We should ponder why it is an obligation to offer prayers. What is its
real cause and purpose? The Allah Almighty is not dependent on our bowings and
prostrations. Neither His Greatness increases
when we say, “Allah is Great”, because His Greatness is independent. The truth and reality is that when one bows
down in front of Allah during the prayers then he is actually admitting the
existence of a supreme being. Thus, the
process of bowing and prostration during prayers negates the ego, arrogance and
haughtiness of the human being. When we
accept the Greatness of Allah and that only He is the Master, then we are
confessing that amongst the human beings no one can be the Master or can enslave
others. While offering prayers,
everyone stands in the same prayer row, irrespective of being a king, slave,
rich or poor. Thus, the prayers teach
us to do away with any distinction between the rich and the poor and establish
equality of all human beings. It also
teaches us not to become Master of anyone and not to bow down in front of
anyone who wishes to enslave us forcefully, irrespective of his or her
power. Because our heads should only
bow in front of the Allah Almighty because only He is the powerful and greatest
and would remain forever, whereas all the other powers and human beings are
mortal. A person who wholeheartedly
accepts the Greatness of Allah Almighty neither suffers from the superiority or
inferiority complex because he does not consider any other person greater than
himself nor he considers himself to be greater than others.
Mr Hussain further said that all
the Prophets and Messengers of Allah came to this world to reform the humans
and end the oppression. No religion is
bad; it is the humans, who make it bad for their personal interests. The religious decrees and verses are twisted
to achieve illegitimate personal interests.
These religious decrees and verses are distorted by deliberately
presenting them out of context with a view to conceal its true spirit. Some so-called religious leaders present the
following Quranic verse against the MQM:
[3.103]
And hold fast by the covenant of Allah all together and be not disunited.
They however, do not explain what
is the meaning of disunity. “Disunited”
is derived from difference and disunity will always be present where
disparities are created – where some receive 56 percent and other do not even
get 2 percent, some are called patriotic despite dividing the country and
others are labelled as traitors and anti-State despite sacrificing millions of
lives for the country. The struggle of
MQM is to end such disparities and is according to the above-mentioned verse of
the Holy Quran. But the so-called
religious leaders distort this Quranic verse and present its twisted version to
issue religious decrees against the MQM.
Mr Hussain said that the first
word of the first vahy (revelation) upon Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was “Iqra”,
which means to read. We all know that
Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was “ummi” (illiterate) and could not read or
write. Then the question arises that
why the first word, which was revealed upon Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), was “Iqra”. When we ponder upon this then we come to the
conclusion that Iqra not only means “to read” but it also means, “to
learn, to find out, to dig out, to search and to research”. Mr Hussain said that it is written in the
Holy Quran,
[45.13] And He has made
subservient to you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth,
all, from Himself, most surely there are signs in this for a people who
reflect.
It is not mentioned in this verse
that there are signs for the Muslims but it says that there are signs for the
knowledgeable. Those who acted
according to the spirit of these Quranic verses, learned, searched the hidden
treasure trove and pondered upon any proposed theory instead of issuing decrees
of infidelity it became Einstein, Newton, United States of America, China,
Russia, Japan, Europe etc. Whereas
those who refused to ponder upon these verses became the 45 Islamic countries,
and dependent upon the Europe and America.
As a result, these Islamic countries today do not seek the assistance
from Allah Almighty; instead they seek the assistance from the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Explaining the scientific reasons
behind Iqra (i.e. learning, search and research) Mr Hussain said that
the human mind is divided into three parts, which are conscious, subconscious
and super-subconscious. Whatever one
sees, listens to, feels or experiences travels to his conscious. One begins his thought process when one
ponders upon the experiences, incidents or feelings. When one cannot find answers to certain questions from the
conscious then one searches the subconscious to retrieve the answer. Similarly, when one fails to retrieve an
answer from the subconscious then through deep thinking process one enters into
the super-subconscious and retrieves the answer from there. The super-subconscious of a human being is
the treasure trove, which stores all the information and knowledge of millions
years of human evolution. The entire
wealth of knowledge and information is transferred into the human being through
“genes” at the time of his or her birth.
All the inventions of the world, i.e. airplane, computer etc, and the
ideologies have evolved from the same portion of the human mind. For example, a question arose in the
conscious mind of Newton that why this apple fell downwards? When the conscious could not provide the
answer, then Newton continued to ponder and through deep thinking entered into
that part of his super-subconscious, which contained the answer to the
question, and retrieved the answer that it is the “gravitational force”, which
pulled the apple downwards. This is the
actual meaning and interpretation of “Iqra”. Mr Hussain said that the Almighty Allah has stored a huge
reservoir of knowledge and information in human mind. Whosoever acts on Iqra, ponders, searches and learns
becomes Newton, Archimedes, Einstein, Ghalib, Shakespeare etc. Therefore, everyone could retrieve
information and knowledge from the God gifted treasure-trove, which is already
hidden in the mind.
The super-subconscious mind is
made up of different faculties. One of
these faculties is the faculty of future, which for any reason if becomes
active or activated then the person begins to visualise future events. It sometimes happens while “dreaming” during
the state of “deep sleep”. Also a few
people visualise future events and happening during epileptic fits because
during these fits the electrical current of the human mind gets disturbed and
during this chaos the portion dealing with the future becomes active and that
person sees the future events.
Mr Hussain said that “static” is
the sign of death. A static thing
remains stationary whereas the time moves on.
Humans, society and the universe undergo the continued process of
evolution. Therefore, Islam allows for ijtehad
(exercise of judgment) to keep in pace with the continued evolutionary
changes. Ijtehad is also
essential to seek answers to the questions arising from inventions and changing
social values. However, sadly, we have
abandoned Ijtehad and therefore, as a result of the narrow-mindedness of
the so-called religious elements the scientific inventions such as television,
radio etc have been declared as haraam (forbidden). On the other hand, these same elements never
miss an opportunity to come on the television and give interviews to the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) or the Cable News Network (CNN). Now the question is when we silently reject
the old interpretations through our acts then why we do not exercise the right
of judgment through consensus to adjust with the changes and needs of
time. We also have to free our minds
with such so-called religious ideologies and shortsightedness, where other
views are not tolerated and religious decrees of blasphemy and profanation are
issued. It should be remembered that
only Allah Almighty would judge us on the Day of Judgment and not these
so-called maulvis (religious scholars).
When scientists professed for the
first time that the earth was round, the clergymen demanded to burn them alive,
alleging that the hypothesis was against the teachings of the church. Today, the hypothesis, “earth is round”, is
an accepted universal actuality. Therefore,
by ignoring the judicious contemplation, the rulers in Islamic States have put
to use the so-called religious scholars to exploit Islam for their personal
gains. Similarly, if yesterday someone
would have claimed that it is possible to give birth without the contact
between a male and a female then nobody would have believed it. However, today “cloning” is a scientific
fact and through this process, Dolly Sheep has already been produced without
mating of a male and a female. Today,
ban has been imposed on human cloning but the cloning is a scientific invention
and its spread cannot be stopped. Mr
Hussain predicted that human cloning would begin one day and human being will
be produced.
Mr Hussain quoted the Prophet
Mohammad (PBUH) as saying, “acquire knowledge, even if you had to go as far as
China”. It is common knowledge that
China does not provide Islamic education. We understand that China did not
offer Islamic teachings. Therefore, the
suggestion to travel to China, an advanced centre of learning at the time, for
education, implied wordly knowledge.
But instead of following the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH),
we split the scientific and religious knowledge into two. Mr Hussain said that despite the human evolution,
several animal instincts are still present in humans, such as greed, lust
etc. There is a clear difference
between greed, lust and desire. Desire
is not a bad thing whereas greed and lust are animal act and has no
limitations. Thus, workers of the
Movement should refrain from greed and lust, gain knowledge, study
revolutionary literature and view revolutionary films because one acquires
great knowledge and courage by studying the struggles of other revolutionary
movements of the world and correspondingly – “idea breeds idea”.