Muslims are blessed to have the Qur’an which serves as the mind-opener. There are a lot verses in the Qur’an which emphasise on the usage of the mind i.e reasoning (we should also take note that Allah has hidden some of the wisdom behind some rulings in Islam). Allah says;
“Indeed, the worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah are the deaf and dumb who do not use reason ”. (Qur’an 8 verse 22)
Nevertheless, it is still common nowadays to find muslims who do not want to think for themselves, these are people who always articulate their feelings in a strange way by saying “we found our forefathers doing that”. Some say “it is our culture” while others, miserably and openly conclude that they ‘ don’t see anything bad in doing that (i.e particular error or sin)’.
Haven’t you seen a person after being told a clear and straight-forward answer based on Qur’an and Sunnah eventually ends up uttering “ that’s what we do in our country” or “ that’s our madh’hab-way”. Others will plainly tell you that they are not interested in what you want to tell them. Thus they believe in an ‘ignorance is bliss’ saying. Islamically this is a ‘satanic’ saying for it goes against the verses that stress upon the importance of knowledge.
These kinds of obstructions contribute to two major problems;
- Not acting upon knowledge.
-Not acting upon knowledge is one of the most hated things in the sight of Allah. It’s also one of the characteristics of those who lack reasoning.
“Do you order righteousness of the people and forget yourselves while you recite the Scripture? Then will you not reason?” (Qur’an 2 Verse 44)
“O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do.” (Qur’an 61 Verses 2-3)
2. Not having knowledge
-One of the reasons of not having pure Islamic knowledge is cultural traditions and customs.
Allah informs us of the disbelievers in Chapter 7 of the Qur’an verse 28 ;
“And when they commit an immorality, they say, “We found our fathers doing it, and Allah has ordered us to do it.”
Say,
“Indeed, Allah does not order immorality. Do you say about Allah that which you do not know?”
Islam rubbishes all these bad customs or cultural traditions which were followed by those before us by erasing them and replacing them with islamic culture (not every aspect of culture is un-Islamic).
It is the duty of each and every Muslim to overcome these shackles of mind so that they may obtain pure Islamic knowledge.
Pure Islamic Knowledge must precede faith for if faith is preceded by emotions, then that faith is blind and is bound to vanish because emotions come and vanish.
