Revival of the Heart or Revival of Political Power

Revival of the Heart or Revival of Political Power

1990 11 November 3-5 Revival of the Heart or Revival of Political Power (895) Whenever human beings suffer from moral decline, it can almost always be traced to perversion of the heart. From perversion of the heart comes perversion of whole lives. The Qur’an says:

Have they never journeyed through the land so that they may have hearts to reason with, or ears to hear with? It is not the eyes, but the hearts in the breasts, that are blind (22:46)

The same thing has been expressed in a hadith in these words:

Listen, there is a piece of flesh in the human body, if it is fine, the whole body remains fine. And when it is perverted, the whole body becomes perverted. And that is the heart.

Now when the source of all kinds of perversion is the heart, then the work of reformation too should be started from the heart. Here is a relevant verse from the Qur’an:

“It is not time for true believers to submit to Allah’s warning and to the truth. He has revealed, so that they may not be like those who were given the scriptures before this, whose days were prolonged but whose hearts were hardened? Many of them were evil – doers.

Know that Allah restores the earth to life after its death. We have made plain to you our revelations that you may grow in wisdom (57:16-17)

This verse shows that over long periods the hearts of a people can become hardened. That is when they respond neither to advice nor to admonition. It is due to their loss of sensitivity that they fail to appreciate what is being said to them. When a people reach this stage of degradation, the only way to rehabilitate them is to follow the Qur’anic formula for dealing with barren soil.

When earth loses its fertility, the process of cultivating, can not start with the sowing of seed. The first thing to be done is to prepare the ground. To begin with, all undergrowth must be cleared and all hard objects such as stones, pebbles, etc. removed. Then the soil must be tilled, watered and manured to make it fertile.

Only after all this preparation does the earth became fertile enough to yield crops. Only then does the farmer cast his seed upon the ground. It is the farmer who omits nothing from this agricultural process who will receive the finest crop from his land. On the contrary, the farmer who throws seed on the ground without any preparation of the soil will reap either a very poor crop, or no crop at all.

The above mentioned verse of the Qur’an is the final word on the issue of the religious revival of a nation. People in decline have to be treated the same way as infertile earth is treated by a farmer. That is, the ground must be properly prepared before the sowing of the seed.

In the light of this Qur’anic principle we can understand the situation of present-day Muslims who have gone into a decline and who have lost political power. They no longer have any prestige in the eyes of other nations. A people who dominated in the past have now become subjugated in the present.

If the Qur’anic principle had been followed, the work of revival of Muslims should have commenced with the revival of hearts not with government.

But all of our present-day leaders, without exception, have begin their task with the slogan of the revival of government. They have made no attempt to revive the nation at the level of the heart. Each and every one of our leaders dreams of the renaissance of the nation at the level of government.

Outstanding examples of this way of thinking are the Khilafat Movement, the freedom movement and partition. All other such movements fall, more or less, into the same category. There might appear to be some difference on the surface, but, in reality all these movements, directly or indirectly, aim at the revival of the glory of Islam through political power, and, as such, do not differ in any way from the above examples.

As a result of this error, Muslim leader can be likened to a mason who attempts to build a roof over pillars which are broken and walls which are old and crumbling. It is obvious that neither the roof nor the house can be lasting structures. Construction work in such a house can begin only after reinforcing the pillars and walls and not by first attaching a roof to shaky supports.

The only way to compensate for past blunders is, first, to admit them as such, and then to start such work today as could not be done in the past. That is, instead of setting their sights on the revival of political power, reformers should strive to the very utmost for the revival of the heart. Reformist activity aimed at any other objective is a sheer waste of time and energy.

The need of the hour is for Muslims to appreciate what is meant by result-oriented action. Objectives must be correctly defined and suitable action taken towards those and, only then can revivalists think in terms of achievements. It is plainly impossible to achieve the desired results in a very short space of time without having worked for them. This has never happened before, nor can it happen now just because of wishful thinking.