Editorial
Asim
Quarantines and facemasks in the
pandemic era have taught us
more than a thing or two about
a major principle that underpins all the
laws and precepts of Islam and is essential
for maintaining peace in society: the
common good supersedes the individual
right. Most of the misunderstandings about
Islam rise from those who espouse and
advocate radical individualism and
frame Islam through that prism.
One place where this ideological
conflict often surfaces is
Islamic penal law. Allah says,
“There is life for you in qisas,
O people of wisdom, so that you
may refrain (from killing)” (2:179).
In this ayah, the common good is
cited as proof for capital punishment.
Another example from the rulings on
salat: the Prophet a once scolded Muadh
g, who was the imam of his masjid, for
prolonging the salat and explained, “When
any one of you leads salat, he should keep
it short for there are among them the weak,
the elders, and the needy” (Bukhari). Though
Muadh g himself wished to extend the salat, he
is advised to put the interests of the congregation
before himself.
Dr. M. Mateen Khan, in his informative article on
the “Proof of the Prophet a,” tackles a most fundamental
question: how do we know the Prophet a is truly
a prophet of Allah? He lays out solid proofs and facts that
benefit us in more than one way. They prove his prophethood
but also set an excellent criteria for believers of the
modern times to distinguish impostors from saints like
the thirty claimants to prophethood whom the Prophet
a prophesied would come before the Day of Judgment
(Tirmidhi).
Where the common good is touted, communal responsibility
becomes paramount. Every individual takes charge
for contributing to the betterment of society, sometimes at
the expense of their own personal rights. This can only be
done, however, when one has put a system in place to tame
one’s nafs and learned to exercise patience when faced with
a decision to please Allah. In the article, “Spiritual Discourse,”
Mufti Taqi Uthmani explains that the bottom line
to reformation of the soul is to oppose the demands of the
nafs. The more one opposes the nafs, the closer one gets
to Allah and the easier it becomes to put the community
before one’s own individual rights. This is how grassroots
movements work and why the Islamic concept of enjoining
good
and
forbidding
evil is
not assigned
to a committee
or the ulema
of the Umma. It is a
collective mission that
is to be enforced at all times
with wisdom and tact, of course
by every believer to establish and
maintain a healthy and peaceful society.
The same rule applies to the upbringing of children. In a
communal household, every neighborhood child is our
own and we treat them as such. I remember hearing stories
from the elders of how the community was like their
own family. They would go in and out of their neighbor’s
homes. If they hadn’t eaten, they would be forced to sit
down and eat and sometimes, if they soiled their clothes,
the neighbor would bathe and scrub them down. The
storekeeper may inform the parents of the child’s activities
and the community was always there to provide emotional
support. As a result, the child grew up to be respectful and
to serve others because that was the greatest lesson that he
learned from communal responsibility. This and more is
addressed in M. Umayr Baig’s brilliant article on “Communal
Responsibility.”
Happy reading!