Right or wrong. These two words are often argued as being relative terms according to those who choose to play it smart and intelligent. They explain that what might be right for someone, may entirely be wrong for another and vice varsa. This could be true to some extent. So, does it mean there is no right i.e. approved and accepted ways of behaviour in a society and there is no wrong i.e. acts that are found to be unacceptable in our day to day mutual interactions?
Fortunately for many, the two words are distinct and clear. What is right is right and is not defined by what someone feels happy about, is satisfied with or enjoy doing. Since someone could find satisfaction in raping women and would want to claim it is alright for him. But, is it right for the victim and the society? Clearly, No! Yet anyone who saves a life from drowning is appreciated by most, if not all people for his kind act. The latter by comparison with the former should be right.
Similarly, what is wrong is indeed wrong and is also not necessarily that which is unpleasant or displeasing when embarked upon. Someone may work as an Executioner, carrying out death sentences on convicted murderers. It might not necessarily be a fun job or appealing to many, but it is a job that has to be done by someone for the safety of civil society. Now, if he decides to tear out the heart of the executed after his or her death and sell it to some cultists for rituals, that is clearly crossing the line, that would mostly be taken as doing wrong.
For those with faith in God and His Day of Recompense, there is indeed what is right and what is wrong. And it is not based on individual perceptions or opinions on the two opposing words. Rather it is based on a source that is far beyond human knowledge and understanding. The criteria for knowing whether something is right or wrong for those in the Islamic creed is the twain divine sources, the holy Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet (aHadith)
Thus in reponse to the above mind recurring question, which often corculates among many Muslims and non-Muslims alike, especially advocates of secularism, one must understand how faith is defined in Islam.
Faith i.e. "Imaan" in Islam is made of six fundamental components. And for any to be truly a sincere Muslim, he or she must accept these 6 components of imaan as binding upon him or her. The lack of any single part among them renders one's professing of Islam weak, if not uncomplete.
i) Belief in Allaah SWT as the One and Only True God worthy of all worship and in Muhammad SAWS as Allaah's Messenger and the Seal of all prophets.
ii) Belief in all the other prophets of Allaah (Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah etc), none of which is less important in his mission to his generation than the other.
iii) Belief in all Books of Allaah (Qur'an, Injil, Zabur, Attaur, book of Abraham etc), each original divine revelation being the truth from God.
iv) Belief in all the Angels of Allaah (Gabriel, Micheal, Azrafil, Raqib etc), who are all in absolute subservience to their Lord, executing His Commands without questions or delay.
v) Belief in Judgment Day, the Last day in which every soul shall be judged and recompensed for their good or bad actions, reactions and interactions in this worldly life.
vi) Belief in the Divine Decree i.e. "Qadr". All things that happen to a soul, be it good or bad, are from Allaah. Good as His Grace upon souls. Bad as a consequence of man's ill choices, thus with it, testing his true faith in Him AWJ. Will they bear the pains and anguish of the trial successfully or will they abandon their reported mettle, their belief in Allaah?
Now, looking closely at all the above, it should be easy for anyone to come to terms with why Islam is so demanding of its followers. It is all for the purpose of purifying individual monotheism, that is believing in Allaah Alone and devoting one's acts of worship to the One True Lord (Allaah), completely, totally, devoid of any corruption, free from any association with false gods, and preventing any devotional steal.
Allaah SWT has said that Muslims are the best generation to be raised among all of mankind, because of a unique quality He Has instilled in them. God Almighty Said, Muslims are the ONLY people who encourage the doing of good and disapproves the doing of evil. They stand against injustice, against anyone or anything that is evil and support sound, fair and just actions.
Thus, some Muslims are inspired by Allaah to be in constant vigil, watching, scrutinizing, screening, analyzing, anticipating every move, utterances, intentions etc from both within and outside the religion and instantly react by alerting the Muslim world, in extention the whole humanity about such developments.
Now, there those who would say, why do Muslims bother about certain things that is none of their business? For example, why do Muslims care about gays and lesbians, afterall such persons only do their acts with others in their league. Yet Islam stands staunchly against them, why is that so?
The reason is basically simple. Apart from all the spiritual, moral and physical detriments associated with such deviant acts, it is based on the fact that humans tend to get fed up easily with their means of amusement e.g. gadgets, toys, places, partners and so on. Now, lets take for example someone who is into homosexuality or lesbianism. Usually, they have a consenting partner, with whom they engage in their unnatural sexual act, right?
As in all sexual relationships, within a short time the euphoria of freshness, the excitement of a new mate, the ecstacy of discovery begins to wear out and routine sets in with its attending consequenses. Partners become predictable and thus the pleasure in the act keeps diminishing and eventually disappears. Soon, one of them, the less emotionally attached in the relationship starts to loose interest and gradually withdraws from the union until they can barely stand each others presence. So they end the relationship.
Now, having gone through a sad, bad, sour, nasty or a heartbreak experience, many may decide they would never allow themselves get entangled emotionally or sexually with any one ever again. What subsequently follows is they would start looking for someone new to continue their pleasure seeking. Naturally, they would avoid familiar terrains and seek for virgin lands. And this is where innocent persons come into the scene.
Such young people who are completely inexperienced, not just about intimate or casual sexual relationships but about life in general, would be introduced into the game without fully comprehending what is happening. Thus these naive youthful souls, both males and females are tricked and intiated into such emotional engagements without knowing the actual consequences of such disastrous adventures.
And by the time the victims realise what has happened to them, it is too late, they have gone way too deep to come back out and the damage done to their minds, bodies and souls can never ever be rectified. They can only pretend everything is "alright". And because their natural sexuality have been re-oriented towards the unnatural, they tend to want to advocate and justify it as a version of the norm and should be accepted by the rest of society.
For Muslims, it has already been categorically cited in the Qur'an that such a sexual preference is abhored by Allaah, the Lord of mankind and therefore unacceptable as a means of sexual satisfaction. Not knowing this injunction or out of personal choice due to unsatisfactory heterosexual relationship, many out of frustrations, or to slight someone or to rebel against society norm or even to disrespect God and His prophets would opt for same sex relationship and insist on having it that way.
So when they want to have a fling or are out of a previous homosexual or lesbian encounter, they seek for new recruits who may be your otherwise normal heterosexual son or daughter, brother or sister, wife or husband and seduce them into it without their knowing, sometimes they are drugged, raped, recorded and threatened with exposure to the rest of their loved and cherished ones unless they keep quite about it. And so by the time the emotional and societal prices of such interactions start to be demanded of the victims, families are left with a crisis situation.
Now, rather than subject innocent individuals, families, households, the community and society at large to such menace, such disgraceful and painful experience, Islam has chosen to prevent it from happening in the first place. Afterall the universal truth about the adage "Prevention is better than cure" still holds sway. Thus the Qur'anic revelations against it and the Prophetic warning in rejection of it.
This is a simple reason among many other ills why Muslims are often concerned about many things in life that other groups of mankind do not care about. They lack the foresight or comprehension to grasp fully the implications of many seemingly "innocent" things surrounding them. It is the ability of the Muslims to morally see ahead, to discern the consequences of many of human acts that inform their reactions to so many harmless "none of your business" situations.
As all can see, if the evil consequenses of such an act comes to befall the society, it will not choose those who cause it to become manifest, but will envelop the whole city. Devastating all and sundry. Now, if Muslims have only this earth as a home to share with every other groups of humananity while going back to their final destination, their original home i.e. paradise, then they should not just sit down and watch some persons bring anguish and calamity upon them through their unethical behaviours.
We may also all know that, when our neighbour's house catches fire and starts to burn down, other neighbours are suppose to gather together and put it out as soon as possible, or else if allowed, such little fire would soon grow into an inferno, escalating rapidly to consume the whole neighborhood.
Or if a group of people are travelling together to a certain destination, in a boat, in the open sea, each person without a life jacket and little resources to last them the trip and someone from amongst them tries to punch a hole in the boat, which will surely see them all dead, it would be most unwise on the part of the others to sit down and watch the person do that or even recruit assistants to help him or her ensure their doom. And so many of the "trivial things" humanity thinks nothing of, is of utmost concern to Islam. For it has the tendency of corrupting the very essence of mankind beyond repairs. And ultimately lead to our destruction.
A single homosexual or lesbian, if ignored and allowed to quitely conduct his or her sick solicitations for partners in a sound and moral society may likely end up converting most, if not the whole community into gays. It is just like the case of "One bad apple, spoils the bunch". Reasons for such a possibility may be tied to human weak resolve against the flesh, sexual adventurism, the devil's whispers, desire to get rich syndrome as some are brainwashed to erroneously believe that if they should practice it, they will end up with the Midas touch etc.
So to arrest such a development and save the human family structure in particular, which some people hate to see exist and the society in general, Islam says "No!" to such devilish sexual interactions by frowning against it in its slightest disguise or its full blown exposition.
However, what many do not know is that such deviant preferences are designed to do just that by the...wait for it....Devil (Satan). There are those who belong to the party of Satan, who have sold their souls to the devil for worldly affluence, who worship the Devil as their god, they are the ones who usually want to propagate things like this. They help and defend the spread of this and other similar deviations from the norm. But for what?
Remember Iblis (Satan)'s envy against Adam and his refusal to honour, bow down to the first man for his being superior in knowledge than Satan in the heavenly realm, after being commanded by God to do so? This made Allaah curse the Devil, who then beg for respite to be left alive till Judgment Day?
Granted that request (How merciful is Allaah SWT), Iblis boasted to Allaah that he will see to it that he takes all of mankind with him as companions in his final abode (Hell Fire), his destination on the Final Day as promised him by Allaah SWT, just like his Qur'anic mentioned respite till Judgment Day.
But, God Almighty Said Satan should go ahead and try, though he may succeed in misleading many, there are those whom Allaah AWJ Has blessed with sound imaan and so will never fall prey to Satan's numerous disguised traps. They will escape them all and will have a joyous destination after death as a reward.
Satan subsequently claimed his first victims. He deceived Adam and his wife into disobeying God, which made mankind fall from grace to earth. As it was then, so it is today and so it will be till resurrection day! The Devil is still on that mission and his devices are many indeed for taking mankind down to the bottom of hell with him. What an evil abode the Devil invites mankind to share with him. May we and our loved ones not be among those who will accept that evil invitation.
May we be among those who will be successful in attaining the ultimate of bliss, al-Jannah (Paradise), amin.
Tijjani Muhammad Musa is a media consultant with SoundWord &Sight Communications Ltd based in Kano, Nigeria.
***Not proof read pls.
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