It is tempting for a person who knows little, if at all, about Islam to judge this great religion in the light of the wrong behaviour of many of its adherents. A few years ago, I read the story of a Swedish academic who held the same view but later changed it when he realized it was wrong. He read extensively about Islam and decided to embrace it. But before he did so, he thought it was a good idea to travel to a Muslim country and see the greatness of Islam implemented in real life. He happened to go to a country in North Africa, and what he saw there made him decide against the idea of becoming a Muslim. However, on his way back to his home country, he happened to meet a French revert on the train who explained to him that the criterion he adopted was entirely wrong. It was only then that he made up his mind to become a Muslim.
One mistake that many Westerns, or non-Muslims for that matter, make is that they sometimes associate Islam with the wrong practices of Muslims. They fail to distinguish between what is Islam and what is ethnic culture. For many of them religion and tradition have melted together and as a result they do not think about the difference.
It is a truism that the so-called Muslim societies are in a deteriorating state on numerous levels. A quick look at the practices of many Muslims in different parts of the world will soon reveal that the situation is not at all encouraging. An example of this is that many Arab women are still treated as second rate citizens: cultural, educational, religious, and legal mechanisms serve to maintain the status quo and ensure that women remain subordinate in their societies.
How did this come about? Islam is very specific and explicit. Islam is the ultimate and everything else comes later. How could, therefore, ethnic culture stand between Muslims and their religion?
One thing we must remember is that many peoples who accepted Islam in the past did so at a time when their nations were in decline. Thus whatever those peoples achieved thereafter was the result of the precedence of Islam and its principles and approaches. On the other hand, whatever evil ways those people fell into came about in spite of Islam and its values and can be traced back to the practices of their former civilizations. Had it not been for the civilizing effect of Islam and its values and principles, Muslims would undoubtedly have involved themselves in far worse sorts of injustice, corruption, and ignorance.
One of the reasons why the first generations of Muslims prevailed was that once they embraced Islam they rejected any practice that they thought contravened the Islamic teachings. Before the advent of Islam, Arabs used to commit all kinds of sins, such as burying their daughters alive out of shame, drinking alcohol, committing adultery and fornication, stealing and killing. However, when Islam came and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) showed them the truth, they willingly abandoned all these evil practices and acted upon the dictates of the new faith. The Qur’anic verse “And whatsoever the Messenger gives you, take it; and whatsoever he forbids you, abstain from it.” was their motto. A good example of their commitment to the new faith was that when the Qur’an declared all alcoholic beverages forbidden, they got rid of whatever jars of alcohol they had left by emptying them until streams of alcohol formed as a result.
Many Muslims today, regrettably enough, do not see the difference between prevalent customs and traditions in their countries on the one hand and Islam on the other. A large number of Muslims take religion and culture as one and the same and, on many an occasion, practice religion as if it were part of a certain culture, or adopt some of the old cultures thinking they are practicing Islam. Sometimes even the culture overrides religion and they rush out to implement a cultural practice as if it would not be Islamic to do so.
Islam is a religion and a way of life, but to many of them, it is a culture, a practice handed down by their fathers and their forefathers. It is something they do out of habit rather than out of the education they have received. That is why the reverts, more often than not, make better Muslims. For they learn the religion from scratch and abandon their old beliefs and practices upon becoming Muslims. They learn the religion from its main sources and are therefore able to differentiate between Islam and the traditions, and are brave enough to reject what is not Islamic at all costs.
The sorry state of affairs of present day Muslims is due, to a certain degree, to their ignorance of their religion. It is not sufficient to claim one is Muslim. Rather, one should practice Islam in its entirety and abandon any customs or habits that are alien to the noble teachings of Islam. Many non-Muslims are also ignorant of the noble teachings of Islam and therefore tend to judge Islam by the way many Muslims behave. This unislamic behavior seems to confirm to them the totally erroneous statements about Islam in the West, whether these have been made out of ignorance or systematic denigration.
It’s worth mentioning here that the shortcomings in the lives of Muslims are in no way attributable to the values, objectives, and purposes of Islam, but rather to the way that Muslims think perceive and reason. Thus when we speak of reform, we are really speaking of thought and the Muslim mind. What really needs addressing is how the Muslim mind applies the values and principles of Islam in society and organizations, and in specific situations and under various circumstances.
The only way whereby we do justice to Islam is to find out about its noble teachings which are clearly set out at length in the Qur’an and the prophetic Traditions. The famous popular singer Cat Stevens who later embraced Islam once observed:
“It will be wrong to judge Islam in the light of the behaviour of some bad Muslims who are always shown on the media. It is like judging a car as a bad one if the driver is drunk and he bangs it with the wall. Islam guides human beings in daily life-in its spiritual, mental and physical dimensions. Nevertheless, we find the sources of these instructions: The Qur’an and the example of the Prophet. Then we can see the idea of Islam.”
- Edited by tryislam team
