Reviewed by ZAID ARIF
Though man is born free and no one can force him to embrace servility to any particular object(s) yet he cannot be autonomous despite allhis longings to it. He is destined to be a slave. But the question is whom should he serve and whom shouldn’t? The book Submission to God, Glory to Man by Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari mulls over the issue in a well satisfying manner. The Maulana has analysed in his book the behaviour of man towards his Creator and Sustainer and tried to prove that when a man does not submit to the only God, he bows his heads to every animate and inanimate object that appears to him as a “treasure house of might and power.”
Underlining the consequences faced by those who prefer adoring other than one God, the book which was originally written in Urdu entitled Khuda Ki Ghulami, Insaniyat Ki Meraj asserts, “After turning away from service to God, man takes someone else as an object of authority, fit to be obeyed, and that object of authority takes advantage of his obedience for self-aggrandisement.”
Adding, “It is indeed a fact, though few realize it, that every system of political power, except that of God, exploits man and it exploits him ruthlessly.”
The writer has equally criticised different versions of slavery i.e. slavery of objects of nature, slavery of priesthood, political slavery, slavery to community, race and nation, and finally slavery to the self.
Commenting on the slavery of community, race and nation, Maulana Umari says that the social variables like the community, the race and the nation have become icons of adoration and service to the nation has replaced loyalty to feudal lords. He sums up the topic saying, “The slavery to one man is as improper as slavery to a community and a country.” According to the writer, accepting every word of religious leaders as gospel truth is tantamount to giving them status of God. Coming to the slavery of the self, the writer says, “…slavery to self does not allow man to remain human and makes him a lumpen element in thoughts, temperament and actions.”
The writer, in other chapters of the book, sums up the relationship of human beings in accordance with the universe and concludes that the whole universe is fully engaged in submitting to God and man, when he declines following the orders of Allah, contradicts with his surroundings. The writer asserts that the freedom, gifted to man by his Creator, is not unbridled and he, most of the times, is bound to follow the universal orders. Pointing out the real status of the human being in this world, the writer says that being a full time slave of God is his real and genuine status. Giving an example of a hired employee, the author says that as it is not fair for an employee to go against his employer, how one can justify his being defiant to God who first created him and since then has been fulfilling all his needs.
Quoting some verses from the Qur’ān, Maulana Umari says that the witnesses from history suggest that dozens of communities and societies had been liquidated because they chose a way other than what was given by God for their lives. In the last chapter of the book, the writer says with an emphasis that in order to follow God’s path properly and appropriately one must keep the seducers off.
The writer’s idea in this book seems much similar to what has been earlier derived by Sayyid Abul A’ala Maududi in his books Towards Understanding Islam and Fundamentals of Islam. In Towards Understanding Islam Maududi pens down, “…it is in the very nature of man, as it is with every other thing in this universe to obey him…everything in the universe is “Muslim” for it obeys God by submission to his laws—the sun, the moon, the earth…even a man who refuses to believe in God and offers his worship to someone other than Allah has necessarily to be Muslim as far as his existence is concerned.” (Islam means submission to Allah as is asserted in early chapters of the book.) In Fundamentals of Islam, Maududi describes that there are three major reasons why one goes astray— self-worship, worship of society and culture and blind obedience of human being—which are very much similar to what Maulana Umari writes under the chapter ‘Different Versions of Slavery’. Even the examples given by him in the book seem very close to Maududi’s. However, Maulana Umari’s book under study determines the real status of man in the world and the universe in a straightforward manner and as such can bring many wandering souls back to the right path.