Only Muslims Will Go To Paradise ~ A Misconception.

Muslims (& other religious people also) have this misconception that only they are going to paradise. But lets look at the issue logically, and in accordance to the teachings of Islam.

No one has a choice to be born in a Muslim family or a non-Muslim family, thus it is not as if every person who is born in a muslim family, or names himself Abdullah, or Mohamed, or Ayyub, or Jaafar, etc. has an unconditional guarantee to enter Paradise! Also, if this would be the case, it would be injustice with the ones who are not born Muslims. And we know that Allah is not unjust in the least degree.

As Allah said in Qur’an: “This is what your hands have sent forth, and verily, Allah is not unjust to His servants.”  (22:10).

We all have equal responsibility to study the book of Allah & try to find the truth. Allah invites all of us to study the Qur’an & reflect on its verses. 

Just saying that, ‘I believe there is no God but Allah’ & following your desires is not sincerity & is not at all enough, this statement “La Ilaha illallah (There is no God but Allah)” is not shallow, it has a deep meaning & we all need to understand it.

Your wealth, culture, fame, family, anything that is more important for you than Allah, is your God, meaning, if a Muslim believes that there is only one God, Allah, but at the same time deals with Riba (Interest), then his God is that illegal money not Allah. In the same way, if a Muslim does things to please people, to show off & his intention is not to please Allah but people, then those people are his God. If a Muslim blindly follows an Imam or a scholar without understanding the book of Allah, then, that scholar is his God.

As Allah said: “Have you seen him who takes his own lust as his god? (who abides by his lust, and whatever his lust portrays as good he implements it, and whatever his lust portrays as evil, he abandons it!) And Allah, left him astray with knowledge, and sealed his hearing and his heart, and put a cover on his sight. Who then will guide him after Allah? Will you not then remember?” (Quran 45:23)

This is very important & we all need to understand this because associating partners with Allah is the major sin which Allah will never forgive. Shirk (associating partners with Allah) does not only mean, to bring a statue at home & pray to it or to go to graves & pray to the dead, but shirk is to give priority to anything, over Allah. It can be your family (“There is no obedience to creation in disobedience to the Creator.”), illegal money, fame etc.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon Him) said: “The first of people against whom judgment will be pronounced on the Day of Resurrection will be a man who died a martyr (in the Cause of Allah). He will be brought and Allah will make known to him His favors and he will recognize them. Allah, The Exalted, will say: ‘And what did you do about them?’ He will say: ‘I fought for You until I died a martyr (in Your Cause). Allah will Say: ‘You have lied – you did but fight that it might be said [of you]: He is courageous. And so it was said.’ Then he will be ordered to be dragged along on his face until he is cast into Hell-fire. [Another] will be a man who has studied [religious] knowledge and has taught it and who used to recite the Quran. He will be brought and Allah will make known to him His favors and he will recognize them. [The Almighty] will Say: ‘And what did you do about them?’ He will say: ‘I studied [religious] knowledge and I taught it and I recited the Quran for Your sake.’ Allah will Say: ‘You have lied – you did but study [religious] knowledge that it might be said [of you]: He is learned. And you recited the Quran that it might be said [of you]: He is a reciter. And so it was said.’ Then he will be ordered to be dragged along on his face until he is cast into Hell-fire.[Another] will be a man whom Allah had made rich and to whom He had given all kinds of wealth. He will be brought and Allah will make known to him His favors and he will recognize them. [The Almighty] will Say: ‘And what did you do about them?’ He will say: ‘I left no path [untrodden] in which You like money to be spent without spending in it for Your sake.’ Allah will say: ‘You have lied – you did but do so that it might be said [of you]: He is open-handed. And so it was said.’ Then he will be ordered to be dragged along on his face until he is cast into Hell-fire.”

So, no one has a free pass to paradise. We all have to strive to find the truth. There is no blind following in Islam, we all will be responsible for our own selves on the Day of Judgement.  Whoever strives in search of truth, benefits him/herself only.

If You Don’t Need It, Don’t Buy It!

We are obsessed with the conversation about “How Can I Take Something That I Don’t Need”, ‘I have no reason to have it, there is no explanation for me for having it but still finding a way to somehow make me feel better about having it.

We have a lot of discourse, conversations & discussions in the Muslim community today about sharia (Islamic law) compliance, financing, halal (permitted) this & haram (prohibited) that but Islamic financing, banking, financial monetary system is very simple, one does not need a Phd to understand it.

It is: “If You Don’t Need It, Don’t Buy It!!!”

“I am not asking for more Allah, I don’t need more, oh Allah, what you have given me is more than enough, it suffices, what I am asking for is that,  put blessings in what you have already given.” This is the concept of barakah in Islam. Barakah is not more, it is about the ability to do more with less.

That’s Islam. That’s shariah compliance. If you never buy anything you don’t need, you are living a life according to the Islamic law. It’s as simple as it is.

And this is something very interesting & profound, “more in less” “blessed & not blessed“.

Today we have got 1 home, 5 people within the home, everybody has got a job, everybody is working & still we are in debt. There is something wrong, something is missing.

We need to understand this. We can live in an apartment for our whole life & we will be ok, we can drive a used beat up old car & we will still be alive. The rule is simple, even if you have cash in the home but you don’t need it, don’t buy it, live a simple life. It’s a very very straight forward simple philosophy.

But the sad reality of today is that people judge others by looking at the house & the car they have. If someone lives in a big house, it means they are happy, even if they are the worst family on earth & if someone lives in a small house, they start telling them, ‘don’t worry, it’s ok if you dont have a big house, you will have it one day’.

Nowadays, people think that the amount of wealth decides whether the other person is happy or not. But this is something really wrong!

I would say, don’t make others feel that they are poor or they don’t fit in the society. Treat them as normal human beings. Because making them feel that they are poor will create problems for them. They may fall into the disease called “inferiority complex”, and as a result what happens is, wives fight with their husbands just because the next door neighbour has a big car & she does not. Children hate their parents because of these insignificant material things.

Don’t judge people by the brands they wear or the car they drive or the house they live in. Many are suffering because of this competition. Competition of, ‘trying to fit in the society.’ They spend more then they have & due to this insanity, families are breaking, crimes are increasing. Live your life according to the Islamic teachings, according to the golden rule “Don’t buy it, if you don’t Need it”.

And my advise for the rich is, “don’t make it difficult for others, try to live a simple life, do not show off, buy only, the things you need, even if you can afford, this will make life easy for the poor.

The Curse Of The Consumer Society…!!!

When people become more & more obsessed with materialism, they bring their children up with the philosophy ‘work work money money, work work money money’. They teach their kids, ‘work work money money’, do they then think, those children are going to care about them? Why will they care about them when they reach old age? They taught them work work money money, not mom dad, money money. Why will they think about them? All they have in their mind is money, enjoyment, fun, let me enjoy the life & that’s all.

The consumer materialistic society has another problem & i.e, it is going to destroy itself. It has to. It is inevitable. Anyone of you can pick up books of history and study them, it’s the same again & again. The history is always repeating itself, the lesson of history is the same. You always find that when a civilization becomes powerful, rich, obsessed with wealth & materialism, the morals begin to decline & the people no longer care about right & wrong, they only care about enjoying themselves, then you will see that the society will collapse.

A society is when human beings live together, cooperate together, try to achieve something together & they work together in order to reach some benefit but if it is every man for himself & all I care about is me & myself, enjoying myself, then does this not contradict the whole idea of society? So, what you find happening is that children no longer care about their parents, the people who are poor are still exposed to the same advertisements, to the same TV commercials, to the same ideas & they think, “we need money, we need wealth” “how can we be happy if we don’t have these things?” And, if they don’t get them by earning, what do you think they will do?

They will steal in order to get it, they will rob people if they have to get it & this is certainly what is happening in the USA. People kill each other, kids kill someone for the Trainers, people will take the life of another human being for a wrist watch! And it’s not just to do with the fact that he has a drug habit, it has to do with his mentality. He thinks that, if I wear these shoes, I will have respect, I will be something, It will make me important, because that is what the advertisements tell him; “Just Do It”.

If you have got this, you are something, you are special & so they feel, “now I have these shoes” “now I have this jacket” “now I have this thing” therefore, “I am something” “I am important”.

For just a piece of cloth which is probably made for a few rupees & they sell it for thousands of rupees or pounds or dollars, violence begins to escalate, crime becomes more. What you find is that, people are living in castles, the rich are beginning to live in enclosed areas with cameras & security guards, only the rich people can go in, there are special enclaves for the rich, and this is because, they fear the violence, they fear what is going to happen. This is happenning in the States, in England, in China.

All of us have become obsessed with this materialism, we have become overtaken by this ideology & the thing is, we are never happy. The more we have the more we want. When do you think you will be happy? When you will have your own flat, your own car? No! because, then you will say, “I want another flat, I can rent it & I can relax more & then I can have another car for my wife, for my daughter, my son and my son in law or maybe I can get a boat, or an airplane….”

When will it end?

The reality is, it never ends! The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “Nothing fills the belly of the son of Adam except the dust of his grave”. It is only when you are dead, only then your greed will end, your desires will be extinguished.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “This duniya (world), and everything in it is cursed. There is no blessing, there is no benefit in this world,it is cursed. It is something that will cause you harm, illness, sickness, malcontent & disruption in yourself & unhappiness & unease, the whole world is like that, except the scholar of the religion (Islam), the student of knowledge, the remembrance of Allah & whatever helps you to do that.”

This worldy life is nothing but an enjoyment of deception. Accept this reality & free yourself from the worries & troubles of this worldly life. This is true freedom, freeing yourself from this curse…!!!

~Abdul Raheem Green.

Consumerism Of Materialism – Happiness or Distress?

We are bombarded twenty-four hours with the doctrine, with the religious texts of this religion called “The advertisements”. Buy this buy that, have this have that” . If you buy this car you will be so happy, drink this drink & you will be dancing, but is this the reality? Do you think, if you drink that drink with all that sugar, you will look like these people in the adverts, young beautiful, with sparkling teeth?

Obviously No! The reality is, if you drink too many soft drinks, you get fat, & your teeth fall out.

We think wealth = happiness, but does wealth really equals happiness? There is a simple way to test & see whether this idea is really true. Lets look at the richest people in the world. It should be that the people with the most wealth should be the happiest. But look at some of the superstars, like Marilyn Morlo the movie star, they call her a goddess, so what was she lacking? Weath, beauty, fame? No,  Nothing. But how did she die? She killed herself. Elvis Presley is yet another example, loved by so many, had millions of fans still was lonely & distressed.

And this is what Allah warns us about in the Qur’an: “And whoever turns away from My (Allah’s) remembrance – indeed, he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind.” (20:124)

The media is selling us a lie just like those advertisements. Most of them are lies. Trying to make you believe something that is not true. But we are all caught up in this. It looks exiting & fun, we want to have that lifestyle, the girls, drinking, the music. That is how we think & we have all become like that.

“Fourteen year old girl hangs herself.” Why? Because she is depressed as her mother would not let her watch TV. This is what is happening to human beings. This is an empty, meaningless life.

And this is the curse of the consumer society. This ideology, this philosophy is cursed & it brings nothing except ultimately distress & destruction upon all of us individually, as families as societies. When we embrace this consumer culture, outwardly we may seem everything is nice, people are dancing to the music but inside those same people are miserable, they are empty because how ever much we eat we never really get satisfied, how many movies we watch to forget the distress, to go into the fantasy, we still have to come to the real world. It doesn’t go away. Such life is, in truth, slavery to insatiable appetites that are no sooner satisfied than hunger again for more, and if they are sated they grow dull & weary & you fall into torpor & sluggishness.

We must stop living this lie & accept reality. And the reality is, “Know that the life of this world is only play and amusement, pomp and mutual boasting among you, and rivalry in respect of wealth and children. (It is) like a rain (Ghayth), thereof the growth is pleasing to the tiller; afterwards it dries up and you see it turning yellow; then it becomes straw. But in the Hereafter (there is) a severe torment, and (there is) forgiveness from Allah and (His) pleasure. And the life of this world is only a deceiving enjoyment.” (Qur’an 57:20).

We can only gain true happiness & peace by accepting the reality & stop running the rat race. This worldy life is only a test for the hereafter & ‘death has exposed the reality of this life & has left no chance for the wise person to delight in it.‘

~Abdul Raheem Green.

Sharia Law – “Barbaric”, “Cut Hands”, “Stone To Death” – Ahhh, I Am Sick Of Media Filling My Head With This Trash…!!!

You Be The Judge…!!!

When media shows anything about Sharia, it is, “Well, if they steal, they cut hands, so sharia is very barbaric”.. On the other hand, If you ever heard a politician giving a speech about democracy, you have probably heard him use words like justice,equality, liberty, jobs, education etc. But why don’t they promote democracy by mentioning the punishments like electric chair, the gas chamber, the lethal injection etc? Do you see the double standards?

Now Lets See What Actually Sharia Is:

Most of the laws in sharia are deterrents more then punishments because the conditions are so difficult to meet. Also, these punishments are there to control crime & i don’t see anything wrong about it. Do you?

According to sharia, if a person steals, he needs to have stolen from a specific place, more then a specific amount, they need to be sane & the witnesses needs to be have witnessed what they did & thereafter, if all these conditions have been met, then, only a qualified judge may decide what to do with that person. The highest penalty could be cutting the hand off the wrist. But in lots of cases it doesn’t get to the highest point because there is something within the conditions that may not be met 100%. Allah gives the criminal time, He shows him, how bad it is & it’s a crime & if you have committed it, you have the door of repentance open.

In some cases, such as stealing food because of severe hunger or to prevent death, there may not be a penalty. An actual example that took place during the Rule of Caliph Umar Ibn Khattab (the second caliph of Islam) can be helpful to illustrate this fact. A master brought his servant to Caliph Umar to cut his hand for stealing. Umar asked the defendant whether he stole from his master’s property. When the servant did not deny the accusation, Umar asked him why he did it. The servant explained that he did it because his family had nothing to eat. Upon this, the plaintiff concurred that the defendant’s claim was true. Further questioning of the plaintiff led Umar to determine that the plaintiff was at fault for not providing his servant enough food, labor and shelter. Then Umar ordered the plaintiff to adequately provide his servant’s needs and the case that was against the servant turned out to be a case against his master.

Another example can be found in Umar bin Al-Khattab, who once saw an old Jewish beggar. He ordered the state treasury to pay him an allowance, remarking, “It is unjust to collect the capitation tax from him in his youth and abandon him in his old age.”

These examples assert that Shari’ah is a community law based on Fairness and Justice. It is not about blood & gore. In reality, it is there to protect 5 elements to the highest degree.

1- Your brain, to be protected & under that what would be prohibited is anything that knocks your head like alcohol, intoxicants & so on, even oppression, oppressing someone to a degree that they get to insanity etc, it it totally prohibited. “dont play with the brains of people”. We have issues that we need to deal with, the sharia protects the human brain, anything that has to do with taking away the brain is considered unacceptable, that’s because it makes you different from animals..

2- The protection of your lineage, lineage is sacred, the Almighty chooses your parents for a reason. you have rights to fulfill & they have rights to fulfill. Your parents can be a Muslim or a non Muslim, they have rights. Allah chose for you & me, nobody applied, no application forms were filled. You owe your parents a lot. So,under this, sharia prohibits, adultery, fornication etc, all of this is prohibited. We need to know clearly, whose child is this, where do they belong & so on.

3- The protection of your wealth. No stealing, no cheating, the business ethics & everything come into play, interest makes the rich richer & poor poorer & therefore its strictly prohibited. Anything that is detrimental to you, Allah knows about it & He prohibited it. This is the sharia to protect your wealth fairly..

4- It protects your dignity, people who want to accuse you of adultery, they need to be dealt with, people who want to swipe at you, defame you, they will be dealt with.

5- To protect faith & religion. Nobody forces you to enter the fold of Islam, you enter it on your own, you have freedom of religion. In Islam we believe, for you your religion & for me mine, you are different, i am different, don’t trample & i wont trample.

Now be fair & honest to your own self & decide. Media is filling our heads with trash & lies, showing the oppressors as oppressed & vice versa, showing the fake picture of peace & sadly many blindly believe in it.

But What About Men’s Rights?

Why are men always ignored? Why don’t we find “Malism”? What good has feminism done to women, as well as men? These are some questions that we all must ask ourselves. 

“Feminism is the root of many women’s & also men’s unhappiness and plays a huge part in our societies decline. You can try and fight nature, repress genetics, fight your subconscious and desires but in the end many feminist are miserable and it shows. Of all the women I know by far the happier ones embrace their femininity, the most miserable and angry ones I personally know are both feminist.

Today’s Feminist have merged “Being Equal with Being The Same” & that’s the problem. The harder today’s feminist push, the more miserable today’s women will be, b/c feminist are not embracing the differences between men and women.

Just one example is how Men can process stress more efficiently but women have much superior emotional capabilities. “Equally important but Different!

I believe today’s men are put off by the overly aggressive and excessively independent women (me included) just as women (even feminist) in the end will not feel satisfied with a weaker Beta / Passive man.

It’s in our DNA and if you argue with that, then you argue with the science of biology. STOP THE MADNESS!”  (Unknown)

I believe a woman is made for home (it does not mean, she must not be educated or go out to meet family or friends etc, by this i mean, even if she is educated, she must not forget her duties & responsibilities). A woman has responsibilities, her husband, her kids, her house etc. I believe that a man & woman are like two wheels of a car, if we place both wheels on the same side, the car wont work. In the same way, today women are trying to become men & this is against their nature. How can they find happiness acting unnaturally? I think, they can not. And the statistics show the same. Women are more sad & disappointed in today’s world.

Islam is the most hated religion because people think women do not get equal rights. But in Islam, the responsibilities are divided which makes the rights of both genders, “equal but not same“. The responsibilities & rights are divided according to natures. For example, if a woman has responsibility of upbringing of children, staying loyal with the husband, a husband along with loyalty, has all the financial responsibilities. The husband should give his wife the marriage gift and this will be her own property.The wife will get full maintenance from her husband e.g. food, clothing, housing, education, recreation, medication etc. Even if the wife is rich, she need not spend single penny for her husband or family. All these are the responsibilities of the husband. 

So, as we can see there is a balance. “Equal But Not Same.” And this is what makes a Happy family.. That’s what i believe..!!!

Please click on the link below to know the results of feminism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfxn912acE