THE HARDLINES

Talking about religion with someone is a big task to take on your shoulder. I personally try to avoid it as much as I can to prevent myself hurting people’s feelings that they very firmly have about “THEIR” Deen.

But yesterday, I was caught to talk about what “I” think of religion. Having very cower knowledge of his ideologies, I played safe to say that everyone has his own understanding about religion and everyone has his right to work according to his belief.  That guy rejected my idea by saying that these are the reasons that we Muslims are divided into sects, and don’t have a single PATH. To agonies him more I said that what is wrong in having sections, people are segmented in the whole world in social, moral and spiritual values, and that is their right. Problem arises when you don’t let them do what they believe in and force them to follow a single idea, which is practically not possible.  

The conversation than turned to the topic of “Jihad”. He said that we should do Jihad, as that is why we Muslims have been sent to this world. This time I agreed with him and said that we should do Jihad by getting good education, helping people and by trying to be a good human being. But he argued that we as Muslims have a bigger responsibility of spreading the message of Allah among the mankind and preaching Islam to the whole world. I replied that even being nice to people and getting educated, is a fine way of portraying the real image of Islam and proving that we are good Muslims. He didn’t like the idea of me assimilating the general social ethics with religion. According to him religion could not be defined through these petty things and there is lot more involved with it.

To extinguish the fire, he ended up the conversation on a note that it’s not easy to learn the true essence of religion and left the chat. Even as our impulsive conversation abruptly ends, I kept on thinking about it and that where I had been wrong. The conclusion was that did I actually ever try to find out what God wants to tell me or why He has sent me to this world? The answer was no. We could have our own ways of finding God and the reason of our presence, but have we ever tried looking for Him? We have a right to choose our own path but let’s just start by taking the first step, “LEARN”. By your understanding and by the miraculous power of your mind that God has bestowed on you, find your way, draw your line, but kindly, not the HARD ONE!