Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai,/ Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai! (Iqbal)
Ask yourself, how many big, fat books, with footnotes, do you need to read before realising that – perhaps – there is no one else in this world running around wildly and uncontrollably blessing everyone and everything in sight?
I mean saying “Assalamu Alaikum!” to one and all?
To those you know. And to those you do not know. ‘Alaa man ‘arafta, wa ‘alaa mal-lam ta’arif – as Allah’s beloved Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, told you to do.
Do you know anyone else who does that?
Tell me who else is doing that?
Oh, don’t tell me Muslims only say Salaam to other Muslims. What is wrong with that, even if that is entirely true? That still covers one-fourth or one-fifth of the entire human race, does it not? And most of Planet Earth I guess, because Muslims are spread all over the globe.
Who else, folks? Answer me! Who else is doing that? I mean covering one-fourth or one-fifth of humanity – around the clock and around the globe with saturation blessing?
Every micro-, milli- and nano-second – Twenty-Four Seven.
Non-Stop!
In fact, it is one seamless continuity of saturation bombing – oops, blessing is what I wanted to say, Saturation Blessing (what an expression: Saturation Bombing!) – of the universe, not with explosives that kill, maim and burn, and poison God’s good earth, but filling the world with God’s blessings that heal and build and give life.
That is what the Muslims do: They saturation bless the whole universe – non-stop, twenty-four seven.
And I don’t think you are counting all that spillover Salaam when you so generously invoke it on a specific target. Can you tell me what is the average radius of a smart Salaam? What target area does your average Salaam cover? How many square inches, feet, yards, acres, hectares, miles?
And what about all the collateral damage of the unintended “victims” of your Salaam and blessing blitz that fills the world day and night?
Saturation Blessing vs. Saturation Bombing
Yes, it is fair to say that that is what the Muslims do. They fill God’s earth with Saturation Blessing, while some others fill it with Saturation Bombing.
The collateral damage that comes from the Saturation Blessing that Muslims spread on earth is life, whereas the collateral damage that comes from the Saturation Bombing that some others do is death.
Of course the Muslims don’t often know that is what they are doing. How would they know if nobody told them that? And they themselves gave up the culture of education a long time ago?
And of course the non-Muslims don’t know that that is what the Muslims do, because the Muslims forgot to tell them what it is that they really do. Instead the Muslims have been trying to tell the non-Muslims for some time now that “Islam is a peaceful religion” – whatever that is supposed to mean. And whatever the consequences of uttering that euphemism.
Thinking, Smart Kind of Muslims
I wish Muslims were the thinking kind – the kind Qur’an talks about. Not the kind most of us have ended up becoming.
I wish Muslims were the smart kind. The kind the Qur’an talks about. Then they would be able to see who they really are. What their Deen really is. Who their Rabb really is. Who their Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, really was. And what that book – Dhaalikal kitaab – the Qur’an, really is.
And what their role in this world really is. In this place on earth where God Almighty sent them – with the rest of humanity – as his own personal representatives and managers:
To promote good.
To curb what is bad and evil.
To treat everyone with respect, justice, equality and fairness.
To protect the earth and all that it contains from all harm and waste.
To serve creation in all forms and shapes.
To spread the message of love, niceness and decency everywhere.
To guarantee the most basic and fundamental rights to everyone, especially the weak, the oppressed, the powerless and the voiceless.
To be compassionate and charitable toward all, regardless of colour, caste, status, race, religion, gender, language, nationality or some other marker of difference.
And to be, all the time, devoted to God Almighty more than to anyone or anything else in this world.
Profiling Muslims – And Others
This more or less is the Muslim profile that the Qur’an provides. According to the Qur’an, that is who the Muslims are supposed to be and that is what their real role in this world is supposed to be.
What a glorious portrait it is! And what a majestic profile!
And what an absolutely amazing miracle – unlike any this world has ever known.
If people today want to profile the Muslims, my message to them is: Hey, go right on ahead! We Muslims are the original profile-makers of this world. At least the Qur’an is. At least our God Almighty is.
Our original profile is the one designed by God himself: your God and our God.
Read the Qur’an and you will find in its pages all the profiles you will ever need: profiles of the good people; profiles of the bad people; and profiles of the mixed-up and confused people who don’t know who they are, and who, as a result, are everywhere but truly nowhere.
So, in reality, some of what I said earlier is some of what or who the Muslims were supposed to be. The kind the Qur’an talks about. That is their true profile – in the Qur’an.
Their true identity and their true mission in life.
That is why I wish Muslims of today were Muslims of the Qur’an. Not necessarily Muslims of yesterday, because that they can never be. For Islam is not about yesterday, but rather about today and tomorrow. But Muslims of the Qur’an, which they can always aspire and work to be.
And that is what will make them Muslims of tomorrow – contemporary in every age and comfortable in every place, because they will be the Muslims of the Qur’an.
As someone once said: Har mulk mulk-i-maast, ki mulk-i-khudaa-i-maast!
Paraphrase: We are at home everywhere, for all land is our land as it is our God’s land.
Muslims of the Qur’an
That is why I wish Muslims of today were the Muslims of the Qur’an. And they were the Muslims of the kind, Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, built, one by one, and left behind in this world.
And left the world of Allah in their care and custody.
So, the flood of divine mercy and blessing that you so ruthlessly unleash, Muslims – in fact you unleash it quite so nonchalantly, because I don’t think many of you even have a clue what you are doing – is stopped by what river, what mountain, what ocean and what national border or custom or military checkpoint?
Think Muslims, think. It will do you good – to think I mean. At least that is what Allah says – in his book. Islam is for thinking people, he says, and so is the Qur’an.
Islam is not, and the Qur’an is not – in fact nothing good and useful in this world really is – for the deliberately and willfully deaf and dumb and for the arrogantly mindless, heartless and clueless.
The Miracle of Collateral Blessings
And then, ladies and gentlemen, what about Collateral Blessings? Collateral Damage – what an expression! Just like Saturation Bombing! Did you ever think about that, Muslims?
Did you give any thought to all those innocent, naive bystanders who may be just standing around – or liming as some people would say in Trinidad in the West Indies – close to a target when you call in an aerial bombardment of your Smart Salaam?
What happens to them? Are they all going to be salaamed over by your blessing attack?
And is there such a thing as a primary target of Salaam – of Allah’s blessing – vs. a secondary or a tertiary target?
I don’t know, folks, I just don’t know. All I am doing is asking the questions. You go and find out the answers and then give them to me if you are kind enough to do so.
And of course there is no chance of your Salaam – coming directly from God, as it does – ever missing a target and landing on a neighbor’s house, is there? But what will you do if it does and fills their house with God’s mercy and blessing? How do you plan to stop that?
Again, I don’t know any of this stuff. I am just doing the asking. You go find the answers.
But trust me I am having a lot of “fun” asking these questions, Mashallah.
And Alhamdulillah!
And when I turn around and look, all that meets my eye is miracle after miracle after miracle with which the Qur’an, Islam, the world of God Almighty and the lives of even the most ordinary of Muslims are filled.