article / covenant, Khilafah
Man’s God Given Mission
Islam is not merely a religion of individual worship, but a collective mission. The five pillars are the foundation, not the end goal. The Ummah was entrusted with upholding justice, enjoining good, forbidding evil, and establishing Allah’s guidance in society. The concept of Khilafah reflects this greater responsibility of collective leadership, unity, and justice. Our faith was never meant to be confined to personal rituals while the Ummah remains divided and oppressed. We are one Ummah, bound
I fear that the believer sees Islam merely as vessel in which they can fulfill their spiritual cravings. A vessel that prescribed to them a set of rituals and spiritual teachings whilst leaving out the battle that is to be fought against the forces of evil.
For the Muslims today have made its five pillars the objective. To them I ask, who would deem the foundation of a building to be adequate shelter against the harshness of nature? In reality the foundation is the prerequisite for a building, just as the pillars of Islam are the foundational tools for the covenant you have taken up with God Almighty.
And what is this covenant? What is this mission that the sons of Adam have been endowed with that is so crucial to how we view the human condition and our relation with the Creator?
Man in his God given dominion over Earth and its various creatures has been entrusted with a responsibility far greater than himself. He has been commanded to first bear witness to the sublime truth, then to enjoin in what is good and to oppose what is evil, then strive for the supremacy of God’s guidance over the affairs of man. It is man’s responsibility to be a representative of Gods perfect law and uphold justice and ensure the dignity of his constituents. This is the utopia of utopias. Who could have a better plan for humanity than God?
But man views his life through the expectations imposed on him through socialization. Get an education get a job and get married! And then what? Every stage of his life, he finds himself without real direction, unable to move outside of the constraints engrained into the ridges of his brain. These pursuits, while noble in the cause of The Most Merciful, are destructive when mistaken as an end goal.
Moreover, although he may believe in the Almighty, he does not see his beliefs taking him anywhere. He does not expect that he will, through the guidance of God, converge with his fellow believers upon a common purpose, a collective mission that transcends the confines of his individual existence. For he has taken ‘belief’ to be an affair purely between him and his Creator. Unaware of the fact that this belief has bound him to the body of the believers whose material and spiritual condition he cannot treat with indifference.
The suffering of his brothers does not affect the direction of his life nor does their oppression compel him to rethink his pursuits. He has taken the title of a believer but has not comprehended the obligations that come with it.
Yet the believer was never intended to exist as an isolated servant, concerned only with his salvation. He belongs to a nation, united in a shared responsibility to bear witness to the truth, then to uphold what is right and oppose what is evil no matter how big that evil may be.