SECTORS OF OUR RELIGION

I have never been a very profound Muslim and have never practiced Islam very strictly, be it offering prayers five times a day or be it about wearing a hijab. But I have set certain lines and have promised myself that I would never ever move about those specific lines, one thing which is very prominent in those lines is to orate bravely if someone abuses my religion verbally or through his/her actions.

One thing that I have experienced these days is that various sectors of Islam are widespread around us, in old days we barely see a Shiya or Ismaili person in our vicinity, at least I had no friends in either my school or college following a different Fiqqah of Islam but now I have many of my friends who belong to different sectors of Islam and the point which is worth mentioning over here is that people are so perfectly bound to their specific Imams and sectors that they can even badmouth about our beloved Prophet and our respectful holy book Quran (Na-auzubillah), and one more thing which I have noticed and have practically gone through is that people belonging to different sectors are very perfectly geared up with their particular teachings of Islam and can easily make you shut your mouth when it comes to arguing with them on basic principles of Islam.

Something that bothers me more and is really alarming for all of us is that we are afraid of defending or speaking loudly for our religion, there can be many reasons for this may be we want to show that we, the Muslims are calm and peaceful people and do not belong to any of the terrorist camps (this is quiet extreme clarification I guess) or we don’t want to lamp sparks and create a feeling of aggression among our friends and associates, whatever be the reason I think that at least we should not be afraid of speaking for our religion and if we are afraid of being a Muslim then we should not be a Muslim.

Anyways, people have their own mind set and I can’t judge that who should remain a Muslim and who should not but one thing which is in my mind is that we should strongly focus on understanding the meanings of Quran i-e Tafseer so that at least those of us who have the courage to speak for their religion can defend it properly and are able to do away with the wrong understandings of others about Islam. Mothers should understand their responsibility and should teach the basic lessons concerning to the religion to their children from childhood as kids pick up readily and remember the lessons learnt in early childhood for all their lives.