Daily Times

Recently, in brazen act of religious impertinence, a provocateur infected with the common pathogen of Islamophobia, tried to desecrate Holy Quran in Norway. Meanwhile, a Muslim Youth Muhammad Ilyas Umer crossed the well barricaded circle and attacked the anti-Islam campaigner. Muhammad Ilyas succeeded in stopping the Islamophobe from burning the holy script completely but got arrested at the spot by the police. Soon after the painful incident social media was flooded with his videos and pictures. As the heroes of Islamic world became indifferent to pain of Ummah, Muhammad Ilyas became an uncontested hero. With the praise for the youngster, complaints start to inundate social media traffic over the silence of Islamic world leaders then the voices slowly died down suppressed by the dynamic circulation on social media.

Statements came in from Islamic world to condemn the incident but these were later in time frame. Common people like me settled down the incited emotions with an unsatisfactory understanding that the concept of Ummah is no longer alive and if still survives in some way, it has been thrown out of our social context. I tried to reason this with the fact that war within has burnt the well-knitted fabric of brotherhood and shattered the concepts taught to us by our faith. Internal dissensions have conflagrated to an extent that the society in unable to cope with sectarian schism and political differences. As the news started to subside, questions continued to erupt in the mind of a common Muslims like me, keeping us frustrated and irritated.

Today the Muslim nation-states are indolent to build forums that can solve problems within Ummah without interference of world powers. What so ever forums exists at present, their focus is politics and not the interest of Ummah. The cost of reluctance to activate forums and solve the problems internally is being borne in blood. Around the world, problems faced by Ummah are political in nature which are fueling the fire of terrorism. All the causes that deserve to be labelled as the root cause of so called Islamic terrorism are completely political disputes. Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Burma and others are political issues that are powering religiously motivated terrorism. It needs to be understood that the Terror networks using label of Islam would not go away and will stay because a deviant explanation is available to the political happenings in these regions. On the other hand Muslim countries and so called organizations remain unwilling to help Ummah due to their political and economic interests.

It is time to try the forsaken concept, explore the tradition of our great elders, join hands to form new alliances and undo the manacles of western servitude in all fields from economy to education and from society to political structures

While Islamophobia continues to scare the west, the correction to this dilemma has to be from within Islam; otherwise it will be seen as an alien transplant. Superior Islamic pedagogy should dissect, understand and replace the deviant explanations and arrange for effective dissemination thus giving the nation the right and true version of Islam.

I think nation-state is becoming a weaker instrument to navigate in the complex maize. Probably concept of nationalism is based on a primitive concept of superiority. Even a group of friends gets divided when each member starts calling others with their castes and sub-castes. How many jokes exist of Butt Sahib, Sheikh Sahib, and Phattans, Punjabis, Urdu Speaking, and Sindhis and the tone of these jokes and sayings is mostly derogatory about the caste or the nationality. So one can debate but cannot ignore that nationalism is drawn out of a false concept of being different, or in some cases, being superior to others because one is born in a particular territory or a family. Hitler thought that Germans were the purest, British Crown ravaged half the world under that fallacy of superiority and Arabs thought they had more right to rule the Muslims thus their Arab nationalism devastated the Ottoman Empire.

On the other hand the concept of Ummah is beyond all the geographical borders and racial differences. Muslims being one nation is entirely a different ballgame. It is built around the idea about life; all those who have the same idea about life are one nation which is called Ummah. It is the ideology that binds nations together in a unique bond. Ummah understands and follows the same meaning to the concepts of life. Unity, feeling pain for others, being grateful for the blessings, respecting elders and women, loving the young ones, being truthful to each other, respecting life, respecting the opinion of fellow Muslims, giving alms to poor, feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating to all people regardless of their religion, caring for the neighbors even unknown passengers etc., Ummah defines each of these as an obligation. Thus life for Muslims has a meaning which no other democratic ideology can define. The Ummah is above ethnic divide of race, colour, or language etc. In short, the concept of Ummah in its very origin it is far superior to any other concepts or view point about life.

Muslim leadership should invest on the concept one Muslim nation. It is to be noted that Ummah is not a danger or a unified enemy for the West but a single body united in concepts which can be interacted with ease and comfort. Unfortunately Muslim countries have consistently weakened the concept of Islamic brotherhood, as if by design, and have replaced it with ethno-nationalist concepts. It is time to try the forsaken concept, explore the tradition of our great elders, join hands to form new alliances and undo the manacles of western servitude in all fields from economy to education and from society to political structures. It is time to become real, have faith in the teachings of our peaceful religion. To respond to events like one in Norway, the Ummah software has to be activated to bring Muslims closer. Aggressive investment is earnestly needed in the mind development so that Ummah’s collective conscience gains the next level. Things planned today may take a decade to materialize but if we do not plan today nothing will ever be actualized while the threats to nation-state will continue to build.

The writer is a versatile analyst and a speaker on contemporary issues