ROLE OF ULEMA IN THE CONTEMPORARY TIMES

Principle of Gradualness During this entire period, the religious scholars focused on the scholarship work and spiritual training of the Muslims following the principle of gradualness of the Prophet of Islam. According to a Hadith narrated by Aisha: “… When the people inclined to Islam, the verses regarding lawful and unlawful things were revealed. If the first thing to be revealed was: ‘Do not drink alcoholic drinks,’ people would have said, ‘We will never leave alcoholic drinks,’ and if a verse had been revealed to the effect, ‘Do not commit fornication, ‘they would have said, ‘We will never give it up.’” (Sahih al-Bukhari) From this, we understand that the Prophet of Islam’s method was of gradualness, that is, one needs to bring about intellectual purification of the individuals before going ahead with the practical enforcement of laws. Only then will the people of a society or a nation be willing to accept Islamic laws. Without preparing the populace through this principle of gradualness of the Prophet, the religious scholars, over the last few hundred years, set themselves the target of establishing Islamic rule in various parts of the world. In present times also, many movements to impose Shariah were launched in many Muslim countries. However, these efforts of the religious scholars did not result in the establishment of purely Shariah-based rule in any Muslim country. But what did result from all of this was that Muslims everywhere became divided into, broadly, two mutually opposed camps that were at war with each other. If in the colonial period, non-Muslim forces killed Muslims, now Muslims began killing their co-religionists. Consequently, everywhere Muslim societies fell prey to destructive activities. Why did these movements to impose Islamic law prove to be counterproductive? The reason is that everywhere the watchword was the enforcement of Shariah law, where the example of introducing change by a gradual process as set by the Prophet of Islam was not followed. I would like to cite an example. In January 1827, Sayyed Ahmad Barelvi and his companions had established what they called an Islamic government in the Peshawar region, near the Afghan border. Sayyed Ahmad was selected as the The Prophet of Islam’s method was of gradualness, that is, one needs to bring about intellectual purification of the individuals before going ahead with the practical enforcement of laws.