November 2012

Editors:

Shahid Aziz

Mustaq Ali

Contents: Page

Call of the Messiah 1

Umar bin Abdul Aziz 4

Persecution and False Piety 6

حیم حمن الر بسم ہللا الرWebcasts: Please note that the Friday khutba

and prayers, the dars, as well as all meetings

are broadcast over the Virtual Mosque

(www.virtualmosque.co.uk).

Call of the Messiah (Continued from the last issue)

Prayer precedes plan

This investigation leads us obviously to the con-clusion that prior to the creation of a plan there is the stage of prayer, which the Law of God has preordained and destined as necessary and in-evitable for man, so that every seeker after an object has naturally to cross over this bridge. It is, therefore, a shameful matter if one should say or think that prayer and plan are contradictions and inconsistent with each other. What is the aim or purpose of prayer? It is evidently that the Great Knower of the Unseen, Who has knowl-edge of even the subtlest schemes, might drop some nice and excellent plan into the suppli-cant’s mind, or create one from his own side by exercising His attributes of all-powerfulness and creative action. How, then, could there be any contradiction or inconsistency between prayer and plan?

A spiritual argument

Besides this, just as the mutual relation between

prayer and plan is proved by the testimony of

the Law of Nature, in the same way, the Book of

Human Nature, too, offers the evidence that at

the time of some affliction, human minds, as is

our observation, turn to adopting a remedial

plan, and tend to prayer, sacrifice and charita-

ble deeds under a natural impulse. If a glance

should be cast upon all the nations of the

world, it seems that up to this time no nation’s

conscience has stood up against this univer-

sally accepted principle. It is, therefore, a spiri-

tual argument upon the fact that the internal

law of man has also, from ancient times, de-

creed unto all the nations that prayer shall not

be separated from plan and proposed action,

and that plan and method of procedure should

rather be sought and explored by means of

prayer. In short, prayer and plan are two natu-

ral requirements of human nature which have,

ever since the creation of man, come down

through the ages, like two real brothers, to at-

tend upon and serve human nature. Whereas

plan is the necessary outcome of prayer, prayer

is the incentive or stimulus for plan; and man’s

blessedness and obedience lies in the fact that

he should, before launching upon a plan, seek

November

2012

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The beauty Allah created – so which of Allah’s bounties will man deny by destroying it?

2

November 2012

help and guidance from the Supreme Source of

all grace, so that, getting light from that Ever-

lasting and Ever-Flowing Fountain, excellent

and effective schemes may be devised and con-

ceived.

Portentous prophecies

There is yet another objection offered in opposi-

tion, namely that no Divine decree or destiny

can be held in suspense, and a revealed proph-

ecy bound up by conditions is against the will

and way of God. Be it known, therefore, that this

objection is a delusion of the same colour as was

the first one. Human minds have ever since been

inclined to this side, that if they be apprised be-

forehand of the coming of a catastrophe they

seek to avert the doom by means of prayer and

sacrifice. It is thus obviously clear that the inter-

nal law of the Most High God has imprinted on

human nature its decree that calamities and af-

flictions can be warded off and obviated by

means of prayer and sacrifice. It is for this rea-

son that all the nations of the world are natu-

rally inclined to this view, that at the time of the

coming of a calamity, or fear of its visitation,

they should take to prayer with all their mind

and concentration. With what pain and repen-

tance people on the sea weep and wail and im-

plore the Most High God for protection when

they find that their ship is being wrecked! In the

Holy Quran, from Prophet Noah down to the

time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, our great

and glorious Master (peace and the blessings of

God be upon him), all the portentous prophecies

foretelling the dreadful doom of the opponents

of Truth have been, one and all, bound up with

conditions. This means that such and such a ca-

lamity is about to overtake you, and that if you

should repent and do good deeds, the chastise-

ment will be kept in abeyance and withheld,

otherwise you will be swept away and annihi-

lated. The Holy Quran is replete with such

prophecies. But it is surprising indeed that some

people who call themselves Muslims put forth

and urge such objections as are even repugnant

to the teachings of the Holy Quran. The reason

of it is that in this age, many people have so

much engulfed themselves in the pursuit of

worldly affairs that they have become hope-

lessly bereft of the Islamic teaching.

1. There is found, in these days, a group of

people even among the Muslims who say that

there is no such thing as prayer, and that the

dictates of destiny must inevitably come to pass.

But it is regrettable that these people know not

that notwithstanding the truth of the doctrine of

predestination, certain things, in the Law of God,

have been ordained as means for the removal of

certain calamities. For instance, water for the

quenching of thirst and bread for the removal of

hunger are natural means. Why, then, should it

be wondered at or doubted that prayer, too, is a

means, in the Law of God, for the realization of a

need, wherein Providence Divine has implanted

power for the stimulation of Divine favour. The

experience of thousands of saints and righteous

men bears witness to the fact that in prayer

there is undoubtedly a power to arouse and

stimulate. We have also recorded in our books

our personal experiences in this connection;

and there is no bigger argument than personal

experience. Although it is true that everything

has been foreordained, yet, just as it has been

predetermined that so and so will fall ill, and

will then make use of this medicine and recover

from his illness, in the same way it has also been

established beforehand that if such-and-such an

afflicted person will offer prayer and supplica-

tion, then the means for his deliverance will be

created through acceptance of his prayer. And

experience bears it out that wherever it may

happen, by the grace of God, that prayer be of-

fered with all its necessary conditions, that

A Muslim’s love for the Holy Quran shown in creating this beautiful copy of the Holy Book

November 2012

3

tance and pardon; for, it is one of the attrib-

utes of God that He accepts the repentance

of a penitent person, and throws into abey-

ance the prophecy foretelling for him a

dreadful doom.

Hazrat Umar bin Abdul Aziz

Mujaddid of the First Century of Hijra

(From: Noor-i-Islam, October 2012)

There are a few rulers in the world who have left

indelible impressions in history. Caliph Umar ibn

Abdul Aziz tops that list. He is considered one of

the finest rulers in Muslim history, second only to

the four rightly guided caliphs – Hazrats Abu Bakr,

Umar, Uthman and Ali, Allah be pleased with them

all. In fact, in some circles, he is affectionately re-

ferred to as the fifth and the last caliph of Islam

and it is also confirmed from all the lists published

that he was the First Mujaddid in Islam.

The Roman emperor, when he heard about his

death, said: “A virtuous person has passed away …

I am hardly surprised to see an ascetic who re-

nounced the world and give himself to the prayers

of Allah. But I am certainly surprised at a person

work is certainly accomplished and fulfilled. The

Quranic verse saying “Pray to Me, and I will accept

your prayer” also points to the same thing. And yet

one has to wonder why it should be that when all

people – despite having faith in the doctrine of pre-

destination – betake themselves to doctors and

physicians when taken ill, they do not, going by the

example of medical treatment, appreciate and ac-

cept the efficacy of prayer.

2. Just ponder over these verses:

a. “Surely he who keeps his duty and is patient

– Allah never wastes the reward of the doers

of good.” (12:90) This prophecy is of a gen-

eral nature, subject to the conditions of ob-

servance of one’s duty to Allah and patience.

b. “Why should Allah chastise you if you are

grateful and believe?” (4:147) It has been

stated in this prophecy that the approaching

doom can be averted by gratefulness and

belief.

c. “Then as to those who disbelieve, I shall

chastise them with severe chastisement in

this world and the Hereafter, and they will

have no helpers. And as to those who believe

and do good deeds, He will pay them fully

their rewards. And Allah loves not the un-

just.” (3:55–56) In these verses, too, it has

been clearly pointed out that belief is the

condition that can prevent and impede the

coming of chastisement.

d. “But if they give thee (the Prophet) the lie,

then say: Your Lord is the Lord of all-

encompassing mercy; and His punishment

cannot be averted from the guilty peo-

ple.” (6:148) This prophecy, again, is limited

by condition. If the opponents should be-

lieve, they will, of course, get a share of the

vast, all-encompassing mercy of Allah; but if

they should persist in their denial, then the

punishment of God is such that it cannot be

averted by any trick or stratagem. There are,

likewise, in the Holy Quran conditional

prophecies mentioned here and there, in the

histories of the prophets; and to deny them

is, in fact, to deny Islam. Rather it seems

from the story of Prophet Jonah that a por-

tentous prophecy, even though uninvested

with a condition, can be averted by repen-

The Holy Ka‘ba

4

November 2012

who had all the pleasures of the world at his feet

and yet he shut his eyes against them and lived a

life of piety and renunciation.”

Umar bin Abdul Aziz ruled as a caliph for

only 30 months but during this short period he

changed the world. His tenure was the brightest

period in the 92 year history of the Umayyad

Caliphate.

He was the son of Abdul Aziz bin Marwaan,

the governor of Egypt, while his mother, Umm-i-

Aasim, was the granddaughter of Caliph Umar

ibn Al-Khattab.

Umar bin Abdul Aziz wasborn in 63 A.H.

(682 C.E.) inHalwan, Egypt, but hereceived his

education inMadinah from his mother’suncle,

the celebrated scholarAbdullah ibn Umar. He

stayed in Madinah till hisfather’s death in 704

C.E.,when he was called by hisuncle Caliph

Abdul Malik and was married to his daughter

Fatima. He was appointed governor of Madinah

in 706 C.E. succeeding Caliph Waleed bin Abdul

Malik. Umar remained governor of Madinah

throughout the reigns of Caliph Waleed and Ca-

liph Suleiman. But when Suleiman fell seriously

ill, he wanted to appoint an heir, as his sons

were still minors. Reja ibn Haiwah, his advisor,

proposed Umar bin Abdul Aziz as his successor.

Suleiman accepted the suggestion.

After being nominated caliph, Umar ad-

dressed the people saying: “O people, I have

been nominated your caliph despite my unwill-

ingness and without your consent. So here I am,

I relieve you of your pledge [baiyat] that you

have taken for my allegiance. Elect whomsoever

you find suitable as your caliph.” People

shouted: “O Umar, we have full faith in you and

we want you as our caliph.” Umar continued, “O

people, obey me as long as I obey Allah; and if I

disobey Allah, you are not duty-bound to obey

me.”

Umar was extremely pious and averse to

worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity to ex-

travagance. He deposited all assets and wealth

meant for the ruling caliph into the public treas-

ury. He even abandoned the royal palace and

preferred to live in a modest house. He wore

Masjid-i-Nabwi, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina

November 2012

5

rough clothes instead of royal robes and often

went unrecognized in public like his great

grandfather Caliph Umar ibn Al Khattab.

After his appointment as caliph he discarded

all the pompous appendages of princely life –

servants, slaves, maids, horses, palaces, golden

robes and real estates – and returned them to

the public treasury. He also asked his wife

Fatima to return the jewelry she had received

from her father Caliph Abdul Malik. The faithful

wife complied with his bidding and deposited all

of it in the Bait Al Maal. Later, he auctioned his

articles of luxury for 23,000 dinars and spent

the amount for charitable purposes.

He never built a house of his own. Allama

Suyuti in his historical work Tarikh Al Khulafaa

records that Umar spent only two dirhams a day

when he was caliph. He received a lesser salary

than his subordinates. His private properties

yielded an income of 50,000 dinars annually

before his nomination, but when he returned all

his properties to the public treasury, his private

income was reduced to 200 dinars per annum.

This was his wealth when he was commanding

the vast empire from the borders of France in

the West to the borders of China in the East.

Once his wife found him weeping after prayers;

she asked what had happened. He replied: “I

have been made the ruler over the Muslims and

I was thinking of the poor who are starving, and

the sick who are destitute, and the naked who

are in distress, and the oppressed that are

stricken, and the stranger that is in prison, and

the venerable elder, and him that hath a large

family and small means, and the like of them in

the countries of the earth and the distant prov-

inces, and I felt that my Lord would ask me

about them on the Day of Resurrection, and I

feared that no defense would avail me [at that

time], and I wept.” He was very considerate to

his subjects.

His generous reforms andleniency led the

people to deposit their taxes willingly. Ibn Kathir

writes that, thanks to the reforms undertaken by

Umar, the annual revenue from Persia alone in-

creased from 28 million dirhams to 124 million

dirhams. He undertook extensive public works

in Persia, Khurasan and North Africa, including

the construction of canals, roads, rest houses for

travelers and medical dispensaries. The result

was that during his short reign of two and half

years, people had become so prosperous and

contented that one could hardly find a person

who would accept alms.

Umar is credited with having ordered the

first collection of Hadith in an official manner,

fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu Bakr

ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm and Ibn Shihab Al

Zuhri were among those who compiled Hadith

at Umar’s behest.

Following the example of the Holy Prophet,

peace on him, Umar sent out emissaries to China

and Tibet, inviting their rulers to embrace Islam.

It was during the time of Umar that Islam took

roots and was accepted by a large segment of

the population of Persia and Egypt. When the

officials complained that because of conver-

sions, the jizya revenues of the state had experi-

enced a steep decline, Umar wrote back saying

that “The Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be on

him, was sent as a prophet [to invite the people

to Islam] and not as tax collector.” He abolished

home tax, marriage tax, stamp tax and many

other taxes as well.

When many of his agents wrote that his fis-

cal reforms in favor of new converts would de-

plete the Treasury, he replied, “Glad would I be,

by Allah, to see everybody become Muslim so

that you and I would have to till the soil with our

Islamic ‘Grafitti’

6

November 2012

own hands to earn a living.”

Once a Muslim murdered a non-Muslim of

Hira. Caliph Umar, when informed of the event,

ordered the governor to do justice in the case.

The Muslim was surrendered to the relatives of

the murdered person, who killed him.

The general princely class of that time could

not digest these policies of justice, simplicity

and equality. A slave of the caliph was bribed to

administer the deadly poison to him. The caliph,

having felt the effect of the poison sent for the

slave, and asked him why he had poisoned him.

The slave replied that he was given 1,000 dinars

for the job. The caliph took the amount from him

and deposited it in the public treasury. Freeing

the slave, he asked him to leave the place imme-

diately lest anyone might kill him. This was his

last deposit in the public treasury for the wel-

fare of Muslims.

Umar died in Rajab 101 AH at the age of 38

in a rented house at the place called Dair

Sim’aan near Homs. He was buried in Dair

Sim’aan on a piece of land he had purchased

from a Christian. He reportedly left behind only

17 dinars with a will that out of this amount the

rent of the house in which he died and the price

of the land in which he was buried would be

paid. And thus departed the great soul from the

world.

Persecution and False Piety by S Iftikhar Murshed

(From: The News International, Print Edition,

Sunday, September 16, 2012)

The hideous but undeniable truth is that in

the last few years more people have been

killed in Pakistan because of religion than in

any other country of the world. Shias have

been ruthlessly slaughtered; Ahmadis, Chris-

tians and Hindus have been target-killed and

their places of worship desecrated; Muslims

accused of blasphemy or suspected of apos-

tasy have not been spared.

The rot began with the adoption of the Ob-

jectives Resolution by the Constituent Assembly

in 1949 under which Islam became the state

religion. In his 2001 book, Constitutional and

Political History of Pakistan, the eminent lawyer,

Hamid Khan, observes with uncommon perspi-

cacity: “Once the state establishes a religion, it

leads to confrontation between various sects.”

Five decades earlier, the Munir Report of

1954 on the anti-Ahmadi riots in Lahore con-

cluded: “The sublime faith called Islam will live

even if our leaders are not there to enforce it. It

lives in the individual, in his soul and outlook, in

all his relations with God and men, from the cra-

dle to the grave, and our politicians should un-

derstand that if Divine commands cannot make

or keep a man a Musalman, their statutes will

not.” The document, which runs into 387 closely

typed pages, was the outcome of skilful but

courteous grilling of the ulema (religious schol-

ars) by a committee headed by Chief Justice Mu-

hammad Munir with Justice M R Kayani as its

member.

The two judges cross-examined scores of

Islamic scholars and the leaders of religious po-

litical parties who were asked to define a Mus-

lim. The response of Maulana Maudoodi (1903–

1979), the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was

that only a person who believed in one God, all

the prophets, all revealed scriptures, the angels,

and the Day of Judgement qualified as a Muslim.

Justice Munir observed that curiously absent

from this definition was the finality of

prophethood.

The telling comment in the Munir Report

was: “Keeping in view the several definition of a

Muslim given by the ulema, need we make any

A Modern View of the Holy City of Makkah

November 2012

7

comment except that no two learned divines agreed

on this fundamental?”

The Report mentions that a pamphlet had been

circulated by the respected cleric Maulana Shabbir

Ahmad Usmani in which he sought to demonstrate

from the Quran, the Sunnah (the Traditions), ijma

(consensus among religious authorities), and qiyas

(deduction by analogy) that the Islamic punish-

ment for irtidad (apostasy) is death. The motive

was to justify the killing of Ahmadis because they

were regarded as apostates.

The learned judges sternly disagreed: “The

death penalty for irtidad has implications of a far-

reaching character and stamps Islam as a religion

of fanatics… the doctrine of irtidad as enunciated in

the pamphlet strikes at the root of independent

thinking and Islam becomes the embodiment of

complete intellectual paralysis.” They also observed

that the death penalty for apostasy is not pre-

scribed by the Quran.

In none of the twenty instances where apostasy

is mentioned in the Quran is there any indication of

punishment in this world, leave aside the death

penalty, because the apostate, according to former

chief justice S A Rahman, “will be punished only in

the Hereafter.” In his exhaustive 1972 work, Punish-

ment of Apostasy in Islam, Justice Rahman also

questions the chain of transmission (isnad) in the

hadith which proclaims “… kill whoever changes his

religion ….”

Qiyas, which means “measure” or “scale” or

“exemplar” and, hence, “analogy,” is built around

the untenable principle of deriving laws on matters

about which neither the Quran nor the Traditions

of the Holy Prophet are explicit. This is rejected by

the Quran, which states: “For, most of them follow

nothing but conjecture: (and), behold, conjecture

can never be a substitute for truth ….” (10:35)

It is from this verse that the renowned jurist

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) categorically rejects qiyas

because it seeks to derive religious laws which are

“supposedly implied in the wording of the Quran or

of the Prophet’s teachings, but not clearly laid

down in terms of law.” The theologian, Fakhr ad-Din

ar-Razi (1149–1209), famed for his Quran com-

mentary titled “The Keys of the Unseen” (Mafatih

al-Ghayb) from the verse “With Him are the keys of

the unseen” (6:59), was even more dismissive: “ …

every deduction by analogy is a conjectural

process and is, therefore, inadmissible (in mat-

ters pertaining to religion).”

Twenty years after the publication of the

scholarly Munir Report, Ahmadis were excom-

m u n i c a t e d

from Islam

through the

S e c o n d

Amendment

to the Consti-

tution shep-

herded by

Zulfikar Ali

Bhutto’s PPP

government.

Despite its

secular pre-

tensions, the

party wears

religion on its

shirt sleeves.

On August 25,

former Prime

M i n i s t e r

Yousuf Raza Gilani bragged after attending the

Khatm-e-Nabuwat Conference in Golra that in

1974 the PPP had accomplished the mission of

Pir Mehar Ali Shah, the patron saint of Golra, by

declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

Thus bigotry is not the exclusive preserve of

the clerics. Secular leaders, whether civilian or

military, have, without exception, worn the

mask of false piety for no higher motive than

pursuit of power. In 1984, Ziaul Haq promul-

gated Ordinance XX which prohibited Ahmadis

from indentifying themselves in any manner as

Muslims. When this was challenged through a

writ petition, the ruling of the court was that

believers were perfectly within their rights to

object if Ahmadis posed as Muslims.

The impact of Ziaul Haq’s eleven-year rule

was the distortion of Islamic tenets. The Hudood

Ordinances promulgated in 1979 and enforced

the following year have been critiqued often

enough by various commissions and commit-

tees, starting from the Zari Sarfraz Commission

in 1983. The 2003 Special Committee headed by

Another View of the Holy Ka‘aba

8

November 2012

Justice Majida Rizvi observed that the Hadood

laws “do not reflect the correct principles of

Is lamic criminal law and are not in accordance

with Islamic injunctions.”

During an interview in September 2008,

Justice Khalil-ur-Rahman Ramday of the

Su preme Court recalled that a review was un-

dertaken in the early 1980s to determine

whether any of the laws that had been in place

since 1841 were contrary to the injunctions of

Islam. The findings were that hardly any of the

laws enacted during the colonial era were re-

pugnant to Islam “and whatever little un-Islamic

provisions were found, unfortunately, were the

ones enacted after 1947, and not by the British.”

This applied as much to the blasphemy

laws, but it did not dissuade Ziaul Haq from in-

troducing Section 295-B in the Pakistan Penal

Code in 1982, under which “defiling the Holy

Quran” became punishable with life imprison-

ment. Subsequently, in 1986,

Section 295-C was added,

mandating capital punish-

ment for the “use of deroga-

tory remarks in respect of the

Holy Prophet.”

According to an analyst, only

seven blasphemy cases were

registered in South Asia be-

tween 1927 and 1986. But in

the last 26 years, the number

increased dramatically to

1,058. The accused included

456 Ahmadis, 449 Muslims,

132 Christians and 21 Hin-

dus. Though non-Muslims

constitute a mere four per-

cent of Pakistan’s population,

they account for 57 percent

of those accused of blasphemy.

Rimsha Masih, the little Christian girl afflicted

with Down’s syndrome, is the most recent victim of

the blasphemy laws. Though her dreadful ordeal

has brought shame to the country as well as inde-

scribable anguish to her family, she has unwittingly

achieved more than anyone else in convincing even

the clergy that the blasphemy laws are liable to

misuse.

In an article carried by a major English news-

paper earlier this month, the chairman of the All

Pakistan Ulema Council, Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, wrote:

“Pakistan belongs as much to the non-Muslims as to

the Muslims. Blasphemy laws are often used to set-

tle personal vendettas ... strict action should be

taken against all those accusing the girl if she is

found innocent.” Like a gentle breeze from the spice

island of hope this suggests that there is a possibil-

ity of reforming the blasphemy laws with the coop-

eration of the clergy.

All seasons are beautiful – so which of your Lord’s bounties will you deny?

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