Compromising and Wronging Ourselves:
How Much and For How Long?
About half a century ago our fathers and grandfathers made great sacrifices to migrate from their homelands for the sake of wealth but even though our religion is being diluted day by day are we willing to make the same sacrifices for the sake of Allah and our aakhira?
It is painful to see our headscarves being replaced by turbans and to see beards getting shorter. We are the generation who faced emotional blackmail, name calling and ridicule when we struggled to replace our mothers' salwar kameezes, sarees and dupattas with khimaars and jilbaabs but already our daughters are replacing our khimaars and jilbaabs with jeans, skirts and tunics. We abandoned movies and free mixing but our children indulge in them as well as in music and our own daughters and sisters even dance to it under the pretext of keeping fit. If there is no sin in it and only benefit then why don't our big, beefy, bearded brothers also take advantage of it by blasting those beats and boogieing down to them?
We are being pressured to compromise on interest-based transactions although Allah has described those who deal with them as being at war with Him and His Messenger (Qur'an 2:278-279) and Muhammad (ﷺ) included it in the seven sins that doom a person to Hell (al-Bukhaari and Muslim). We are being attacked for our modest dress code, our merciful halal food and the high moral conduct expected of our men and women. In fact, in some places like France, not just our actions but even our intentions are being threatened, so a Muslim man because of his ‘religious’ beard is condemned whereas a disbeliever with a beard isn't. How much and for how long will we compromise so that we can continue living in lands that are increasingly hostile towards our religion?
We read with heavy hearts about Muslims around the world whose forefathers lived under oppressive, disbelieving regimes. They had to hide to even recite the Qur'an until the time came when the following generations hardly new or practised Islam at all but that still didn't stop others from massacring them because of it. Is this the future of our children and grandchildren here?
Umm Hafab
Muslim News
Answering Disbelievers