Bemoaning the Khayra Ummah
"You are the best of communities evolvedfor the benefit of humanity,
enjoining what is good, forbidding what is evil and believing in Allah."
(Qur'an 3: 110)
The measure of being khayra ummah (the best of communities) is neither limited to the proclamation of some formula nor the mere performance of rituals, but is conditional on evolving as a constant benefit for humanity. Th very condition of being a Believer is circumscribed by a commitment to morality, goodness, faith and justice. The concept of justice ('adl) is intertwined with the idea of moderation and balance (ta'adul). Allah thus refers to Believers as a median community not inclined to excess nor extremes, We have made you a balanced ummah that you may serve as a standard witness to humanity.
Believers are instructed to hold on fast to the rope that Allah extends, the rope of Guidance, the rope of principles that saves us from the imbalance of zulumaat (darkness of inequities).
Refugees of our Era
To proclaim ourselves as individuals belonging to the khayra ummah may be construed as supremacist bigotry but as a collective community of faith with a common conscience, history bears testimony to our glorious legacy that allowed the intellect to flourish, art to develop, sciences to evolve and beauty to radiate. How then have we become refugees at the door of the post-modern era?
Depressing Images
Cloaking myself in the garb of patience, my thoughts muffled by despondency, my heart filled with grief and images in my mind are recollections of the daily news... Muslims burnt alive in India, bombed to oblivion in Afghanistan, persecuted to helplessness in Palestine... and these are only the headlines. Atrocities in Kashmir, Chechnya, Kosovo and the starving children in Iraq are not newsworthy enough anymore. How obscene the condition and how desperate the situation? As I try to lay my head to rest, my conscience is evoked by visions of Muslim lands, blood-soaked with life fluid of innocent "fundamentalist", "radical", "extremist" bodies; orphans crying besides the mutilated bodies of their murdered parents; babies for whom surviving the day is an achievement. Members of the ummah; labeled, targeted, humiliated and obliterated.
Whither The Ummah?
Is the ummah bound by that legacy of the greatest civilization and a history offering the
noblest of heroes or has it been so deformed by persecution that it is a mere casualty in a selfish
world and living on the memories of a forgotten past?