Dear Rubina Sahiba,  

Regarding your recent column, Dukhre kaihte ….., I agree, we the Muslims, or at least most of us know nothing or very little about the Quran teachings, but appear to know a lot about strange stories from Hadith, which often contradict with the Quran, but who cares. Most of us have picked up favorable stuff on selective basis from Hadiths of our choice and we shamelessly take that to be (our own) Islam.  

Thinking logically, I have a problem with the statement often used, “subhan Allah we are born Muslims”. Does that mean, God does not like all those who were not born in the Muslim families? Since they were not born in Muslim families and hence they will stay non-Muslims, does that mean all of them are going to be the fuel for the hell fire? If so, whose fault would that be? There’s or God’s? Would God punish them for some thing that He Himself is responsible for? Just think about it.  

Once in a while we run into some one who was converted to Islam from another religion. The verb used for this act is often the term, ‘revert’. It is often said that such and such person has reverted to Islam. This is quite in line with the baseless assumption that God wanted every one to be a Muslim by birth? Really? Just think about it logically. What kind of God do we believe in who is all powerful, but not powerful enough to make us all get born in Muslim families. Do you not see our contradictory thought process?  

The ignorance of the Quranic teachings has caused colossal problems among Muslims Think about, for example, the sectarian issue. The Quran does not support divisions, or the sects in the religion. The sectarian differences have harmed Muslims more than any other delusional beliefs that they may have had over the centuries. The sectarian differences are bad enough for spiritual values, but it is this difference that was fully exploited by the CIA in Iraq between the Sunnis and the Shias and I am sure,  now the Pakistani  Taliban (TTP) are well funded to start genocide of Ahmadis and Shias while praying in their mosques in Pakistan. They often include Sunni mosques as well – its all part of the game, they are paid for that too. It has political implications.    

Talking about Shaitan, the devil; strangely enough, most people think it is an entity that lives outside of us and simply comes in and makes us do wrong things. In fact, the devil is part of all of us and lives within us – we have both the attributes, those which are righteous and those which are immoral. Those Muslims who do not care to study the Quran, often fall for the devil. Promoting sectarian differences, for example, is nothing but the work of the devil, that lives inside of us, the one we fail to control because we are not rightly guided as we have ignored the  Quranic teachings.  

The Mullahs have a huge negative role to play in Islam. Most Mullahs ignore the Quran and its teachings and select from Hadith, what represents their point of view. The large collection of Hadith offers more or less any thing that you care to pick and chose to advance your own point of view. Devil may care, how much it contradicts with Quran, but that keeps the Mulla’s position in tact in the society. Naturally, they will not like to push the Quran only to make themselves redundant from their lucrative central role providing them with a commanding position.  

Javed I. Chaudry