Friday Sermon by Moulana Syed Salman Nadvi At Jamia Ashrafia Lahore

Considering the current Islamic situation in Pakistan, it’s not what it was meant to be. Pakistan was created on the base of Laillah Illalah but unfortunately, there has been injustice and chaos when it comes to following the principles of Islam. Even for Jummah prayer, many Muslims come and offer prayer but the thing that matters is what we do when we leave the mosque. Unfortunately, we are not implementing Islamic practices in our daily lives.

If we consider the Muslims living abroad, their morality and character are much better than Muslims living here. It can be due to the fact that they are obliged to follow rules and regulations in foreign countries. A person came to Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi and was worried because his son was not offering prayers and was immoral. Sahaba recommended he send his son to a Hindu school. There he could learn the importance of his religion and become a practicing Muslim. Let’s just look at European countries, many non-Muslims are accepting Islam there.

In the Ayat, Allah talks about death before talking about life. This is because your actual life starts after death and that life is eternal. If we spend this life according to the principles of Islam, then our life after death will be in peace and we will be rewarded by Allah. Muslims these days consider this life more important than the life after death. A college student is more concerned about his studies and getting good grades than he is about practicing Islam to get Jannah.

Reading the poetry of Iqbal including his complaint to Allah and Allah’s response is enough to make us a good Muslim. He is an important figure and if we start implementing his poetry, we can learn morality and brotherhood. Another thing that is common between all humans belonging to different religions is that none can deny the existence of death. Everything we do in this world is written as your good or bad deed. Our tongue, hands, and feet will give evidence of our deeds in this life. Hence it is best if we also prepare for life after it because we will not be able to deny our bad deeds in front of Allah.

There was a time when Muslims had to go through many hurdles to reach Makkah to perform Haj. But Muslims would still go there and spend maximum time in Ibadah even if they miss their family. That is because Muslims are aware that this life is temporary, and they are absolving their bad deeds for which they will be accountable on the day of judgment. Nothing can be achieved without hard work be it education, Job, or Islamic studies. The reward motivates us to work hard and remain consistent in our objectives. Prophet Muhammad says in Hadis:

تصل لم فانك فصل أرجع

Hadith

He said this to his ummah to pray again and again and observe Hazrat Umar while he was praying to learn how to pray.

We all need to be welcoming towards learning. No one is born a philosopher. Another very important considering the chaos in Pakistan, if we see a bad thing, we remain quiet. No one is willing to stand up for the cruelty in society. To overcome this, everyone needs to have a mentor to follow and learn the importance of brotherhood to overcome disorder in our society.

Before the war, a European woman was sent to Afghanistan to monitor their way of living and analyze what kind of people they were. She did not reveal her identity and started living there. One day she was on the street covering herself in a huge scarf. The wind blew and her scarf fell off. Everyone recognized that she was a foreigner and she got arrested. When she was exiled, she wrote a book called “The Hands of Taliban”. She mentioned her experience in the book. She wrote that she thought she would never be sent back to her country. Another thing that fascinated her was that whenever Afghanis used to talk to her, they would never come inside her room and never look at her. She wrote maybe they considered her very ugly, that’s why they did not look at her. But these were the Islamic teachings that Afghanis practiced. Later, that woman was so impressed by the practice of Muslims, that she accepted Islam. She also mentioned that she wanted to become Muslim while staying in Afghanistan, but she did not do it because people would think she accepted Islam because of fear of Afghanis. This tells us the importance of the teachings of Islam and differentiates between a mahram and a non-mahram for a woman.

There is another story of a lawyer who became Muslim when he was told that Islam is the religion which also talks about the laws of inheritance in the Quran. He was amazed by this fact and accepted Islam. It is a very common practice in Europe and there are many announcements made daily about the conversion of non-Muslims into Islam. And these people are much better practicing Muslims than us. Hence, it is a lesson for Pakistanis to learn and start practicing Islam in their lives.

The judicial system of Pakistan is following the West. In Islam there is no role of lawyers who defend killers and Islamic law is much easier and straightforward. But we are inclined towards Western law. The punishment given to a killer is very clear and executed by hanging the killer. All these punishments are done to set an example and eradicate crime from Islamic society. Therefore, it is very important to implement Islam in our daily lives to change the lives of future generations.