Opportunities Wasted

Opportunities Wasted

1985 6June 5-6 Opportunities Wasted (447) In 1952, when Earl Alexander of Tunis (1891-1969) was Great Britain’s Minister of Defence, he visited the Police College in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, England. There a Pakistani Superintendent, Syed Muhammad, was undergoing a four week training course. As the only foreigner, he was introduced personally to the Minister. Syed Muhammad takes up the story:

“Before the banquet the Commandant introduced me to the Field Marshal saying, ‘Here is Mr. Syed Muhammad, a superintendent from Pakistan.’ The Field Marshal accosted me with a ‘Salam alaikum’ and ‘Mizaj Sharif’. I was taken aback, but collecting myself, I said ‘Wa’alaikumssalam’ and ‘Mizaj Mubarak’ and expressed my delight at hearing my language spoken by a foreigner, and in a good accent. He told me that he knew my language as in his early service he was posted to the NWFP, and had maintained contact with my countrymen since that time.”

(The Muslim, Islamabad, March 22, 1985)

Such was the case with most of the British who served in the Indian sub-continent during the days of the Empire. The vast majority were fluent in both Urdu, and the language of the locality in which they worked.

This gave the Muslims a great opportunity to communicate the message of Islam to their rulers. It put the Muslim scholars, who for the most part were not well-versed in English, in a perfect position to explain the teachings of Islam in their own language.

But the Muslims missed this golden opportunity, and instead concentrated all their efforts on political front. In making their struggle a political and nationalistic one, they ruined the opportunity for propagation of the faith that had been presented to them. For once people have been made into a national enemy; they cannot be expected to be kindly disposed towards one’s religion.

God has entrusted the Muslims with a task in this world that is to communicate the message of Islam to other peoples of the world. If they discharge this responsibility; then "God will protect them from mankind” (Qur’an, 5:67). This shows that if Muslims seek freedom from oppression, then they should concentrate on communicating the word of God; God will see to their worldly needs, and protect them from the oppression of men. If, however: they take God’s task upon themselves, and in their struggle to free themselves of oppression in this world, forget to struggle to free others of punishment in the world, to come, then they face a twin danger: firstly, that their worldly aspirations will not be fulfilled, and they will remain subjected to other peoples, and secondly that they should reach Almighty God without having performing the all-important task – communication of the, faith – that He delegated to them.