Celebrating or Betraying the Prophet (SAW)

It is Meelad. It is a holy day. We owe all days or dawns – our very life – to this great day.  It isn’t to be debated whether it is the case that the world was created for him. For metaphysicians and saints the real debate is whether we are worthy of mention without reference to the Ideal or inebriating Life or what truly lives in us. The Prophet is the axis of the World of Life around which every worthy thing revolves.

The world with all its joys and beauties is the shadow of the visage of the Prophet.  Like the Sun that illuminates or the Eye that sees, It itself can’t be seen though we live by virtue of  it and faith requires living that more than our life. In fact great poets can only struggle to express some aspects of life consuming Beauty contemplating which is the meaning of life. We don’t live for our spouses or children or this or that thing.

We live in the name of him or love anything worthy of love that is made worthy in reference to him. As the Alpha and the Omega of spiritual life, the Prophet is the Centre or address of all our aspirations and flights of Spirit. To truly live we need to live for the other, to convert I in live into zero to get love. When one is no longer at the centre but the Other is or Life is and we have perfected our surrender of the will or fana, we get baqa or true enduring life.

Given this let us debate how far we have strayed away from the Ideals imprinted deep in our being (the Prophet is the name of that Inwardness). We are mostly zombies, living dead who fail to truly live. The proof is we don’t live for others. Just give ourselves marks out of 100 in the examination of life in which the key question concerns living  self-centric or other-centric (Prophet conscious)  life.

• In our income do we meticulously keep 2.5 percent as the right of others (eight categories of beneficiaries of zakat)? How much of zakat we have so far given has been used to liberate the garimeen or deeply indebted – we all know some from our relatives or neighbours who fail to pay debt or interest from their own resources and please note that there would be no case next month or after Ramadhan if we - 160 neighbours or at least a dozen relatives  choose to spend zakat on one indebted case.
• In case we find people forced to commit suicide on account of debt, we have betrayed the Prophet who had asked us to keep our soft loan without interest available in the first instance and if someone has incurred great debt, to clear his debt obligation. There are only around 750 members of zero interest based  credit cooperative in J&K. We can say not even one in 10000 cares about interest or the obligation to help others through soft loan. Some people do take an account of interest accumulated and give it in charity but they could have avoided accumulating it in the first instance by keeping balance not needed with the credit cooperative.
• If we count interest as problematic  why not invest money in ethical funds and not keep available to the banks that extend our savings on interest to others? Don’t think you aren’t guilty by calculating and parting with interest when you knew about ethical options such as Kashmir Angels Network, Cred Agro, CCL, or other ethical options that help your money grow without  involving interest.   Similarly how much of our zakat has been so far used to carve guest houses for travellers or providing them food – how many inns or musafir khanas exist in Jammu & Kashmir? If very few we are to be faulted as we think we give away to someone who asks and our zakat is paid. We don’t see if all the categories of recipients are taken care of or if there is any attempt to transform recipient into giver.
• We don’t bother that zakat administrators in local baitul mal or other organisations have no professionalism or don’t hire services of economists or other professionals that management of zakat funds may require. What professional survey of 160 neighbours we have done to assess who needs support from zakat or infaq? It takes only Rs 20 per neighbour to get this survey done. The Prophet (SAW) is all about the rights of neighbours whose names we don’t know, not to speak if they are needy or mahroom who can’t even say they are needy. We mostly give to smart professional beggars but not to the personally known or verified relatives or neighbours whose right is foremost.
• Ushr, 5 or 10 percent of produce we don’t, generally speaking, care to give away to the needy or travellers or those who can’t ask. Don’t complain about loss to horticulture due to hailstorm or extreme weather or market forces if one has failed to give ushr or cooperated with the neighbours to plan production. How many orchardists you know keep one box for every 20 with the baitul mal. Every baitul mal would have crores of income from ushr only and there would be no cases of appeal for help for poor patients or marriage of girls or construction of houses.
• Can our community or mosque committees send the bills of the poor and needy to orchardists, shopkeepers or employees who are required to pay multiples of 10k as zakat/ushr? If not, what right do we have to claim allegiance to the Prophet. Some people celebrate mawlood or religiously go to Hazratbal but don’t calculate zakat dues or refuse to give qard-i-hasan. Why don’t our Imams ask muqtadis or Hajis regarding zakat/ushr obligation as without zakat prayers aren’t meaningful.
• Let none count himself or herself as Haji if failed to file regular zakat returns. How many shopkeepers, say goldsmith or kiryana walas or medicine sellers you know, calculate the cost of each and every item kept for sale in the shop and then calculate zakat. On daily basis every shop should have a free coupon or two for the poor or needy. The poor or needy needn’t pay for anything in the market as God has given them special golden card and bill is to be reimbursed by the shopkeeper or local rich or baitul mal. Please try asking for free vegetable seller or goldsmith or grocery wala today and you will see is God’s golden card issued to the needy or one who asks honoured? If not, why you talk about the Prophet who kept nothing with himself and whose companions were billionaires but didn’t save money in fixed deposits or extended on interest, but invested  with local businesses on the basis of muzaribet/ mushariket etc.
• The rich in Jammu & Kashmir who have kept one lac eighty thousand crores as fixed deposits or locked one lac twenty thousand crores in gold, and many times more in real estate, can operate one free food corner near every hospital or in major towns and extend soft loan for liquidating loans of thousands of the indebted. If we care for the Prophet the poor have a right in whatever is in excess with us, not just 2.5 percent.
• The important question is, do we have a right to celebrate the coming of the Prophet (SAW) if we are in revolt against the very ideas he stood for? How many of us do daily sadaqah as enjoined by the Prophet (SAW)? Here most give only sadaqah-i -fitr and that too on the lowest scale. Infaq – spending whatever is in excess – is almost totally forgotten.

Meelad time is the time to remind ourselves of many things including the following that we have mostly forgotten.

• The Prophet brought the message that has Mercy at the centre and God as the Judge. We have fear and wrath at the centre and ourselves become judges. In our routine conversation we judge colleagues, neighbours and opponents.The saints of Islam would appreciate us having good opinion of  We are too ready to doubt or suspect  and give negative judgment – “He who is very hasty and so bold as to pass verdicts is also bold in taking the path towards hell.”
• Awe of God that better translates into Taqwa we wrongly render as fear of God. God is love and not a cosmic policeman. We are punished by sins and not for sins. And we will be judged as per our opinion of God. If you think you will be severely judged, you will be. Let us note a few  statements  from the Prophet on mercy and ease that our legalistic  mindset has marginalized:
• “Make things easy for the people, and donot make it difficult for them.”  “By Him in Whose Hand is Muhammad’s life ( SAW), I have not left anything which may bring you nearer to Paradise and take you farther from Hell unprescribed to you, nor have I left anything which may bring you nearer to Hell and take you away from Paradise unforbidden to you.”

“The Prophet only chose the easier of two alternatives so long as it did not amount to a sin".

"Allah loves to see that His concessions (rukksah) are observed, just as He loves to see that His strict laws (azaa-im) are observed".

As has been noted, the Prophet "wanted to reduce the difficulty of traveling on the Path" and urged the faithful to "leave me alone (i.e., don't ask for anymore divine commandments) as long as I leave you alone." Only 6 % prophetic traditions (3000 out of over 50,000) have legal import leaving the vast corpus on moral, spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic aspects  calling for attention of every man on earth or discerning readers. The Prophet discouraged asking questions and “companions asked him only 13 questions” on legal issues.

“Those things declared lawful in book are lawful and those declared unlawful unlawful. There are some things about which silence has been chosen. They are such that God has eschewed them (derguzer sae kam liyae hae) (Tirmidhi and Ibn Maja). Saifullah Rahmani, author of influential encyclopedic work on fiqh, infers “Goya jin chhezo kae mutaqaleq kitabo sunnat khamosh haen mubah haen.”

• It has been noted that “the Prophet would refrain from issuing an order to the people to do something good, although he wanted to do so, because he did not want to subject them to hardship.” He often used to say: ‘If it were not that I am afraid to impose hardship on my Ummah, I would have commanded them to do... such and such.’ Sometimes he would forbid them to do certain things, and then, when he saw that the reason for forbidding them was no longer valid, he would lift the ban. On other occasions, he would be about to forbid something, and they would tell him of the hardship and distress that such a prohibition would cause them, so he would refrain from it so as to protect them from hardship.”

As we celebrate the Meelad, we conveniently forget that the Prophet fought against the money power of certain class – against riba and any injustice in socio-economic sphere – and created a new Medina market. On this Meelad let us ensure we pay sadaqah on daily basis, get membership of interest free credit cooperative for safekeeping of our money and extending to the needy, calculate zakat and be available for at least one day for community work as our infaq  and do away with (or keep available) excess houses, bathrooms, curtains, halls, clothes, vehicles and write will today only for at least one percent of property you own.

That means being loyal to the Prophet and not just maintaining night vigils or reciting azkar or mowlood or organizing seerat conferences. Drive for membership of infaq based initiatives should be taken if we are serious about the Prophet. ( SAW)