Persecution Complex

Persecution Complex

1986 8 August 21 Persecution Complex (274) Almost the entire Muslim world is suffering, in one way or the other from a persecution complex. They have the feeling that they are the oppressed, that others have robbed them of their pride.

What are these things that other communities have allegedly taken away from them? Muslims consider that political power, government services, economic resources, social institutions, material gains, etc., have been taken away from them by non-Muslims.

This “Loss”, or deprivation, is wholly the result of Muslims’ negligence. Muslims have not been robbed: they have simply let things slip away from them. This has resulted from their own inability and is not because of others’ oppression. What should be more important to them is that even although, they have lost the ‘world’ they still have their religion intact. God’s final book is still with them, preserved in its pristine purity. They are the inheritors of the living traditions of a sublime Prophet – traditions which will die out only if Muslims allow them to. Their religion is the greatest thing they have. Why is it then that they bewail the loss of trivial things, yet care nothing for the greater things that they still possess?

We do not hold the view that the doors of worldly advancement have been closed to Muslims, but even if we were to concede that this is so – that being what the majority of Muslims think, the doors of the life hereafter are still open to them, something far superior and moreover, eternal. How ironic it is that the loss of ephemeral things cause them so much grief, while the possession of greater things gives them no inspiration.