In our day, the world is forced to witness unprecedented
violence, terror, oppression, fraud, imposture, deceit, immorality,
fighting, bickering, poverty and hunger. It is obvious that these
evil-inspired happenings are more common in our day than they were in the
past days. For this reason, every man of conscience and wisdom needs to
avoid all lack of responsibility and become more sensitive towards the
suffering and injustice taking place in all parts of the world. The evil
are in the majority and appear to be powerful, causing distress and
anxiety for many people. Disbelief, or the religion introduced to man
which is entirely divorced from the teachings of the original revelations,
and non-adherence to the moral values of the Qur'an, have created fertile
ground for the proliferation of corruption and all forms of wickedness on
earth. God informs man about the devastation brought about by disbelievers
to the world as follows:
Among the people there is someone whose words about
the life of the world excite your admiration, and he calls God to
witness what is in his heart, while he is in fact the most hostile of
adversaries. When he leaves you, he goes about the earth corrupting
it, destroying crops and animals. God does not love corruption. (Surat
al-Baqara: 204-205)
The way to bring about an end to cruelty and evil of
people who have lost all sense of morality and feelings of compassion, who
ignore and even ridicule such values, is through the unity of good and
conscientious people working for the dissemination of goodness. The kind
of environment which will emerge, unless believers cooperate, is stated in
the following verse:
Those who disbelieve are the friends and protectors of
one another. If you do not act in this way (be friends and protectors
of one another) there will be turmoil in the land and great corruption.
(Surat al-Anfal: 73)
This is a heavy responsibility upon the believers, each of
whom must strictly avoid contributing to such evil consequences. It is
time to stop concerning ourselves over self-centred problems and to
seriously strive for the good of other people. The majority of people read
the stories about prophets and the lives of their companions in details,
appreciate and praise the moral perfection they displayed, and talk of
their courage and astuteness, their moderate attitude, as well as their
resilience which did not bend even under severest hardship. These are the
noble and self-sacrificing people God loved and to whom He gave the glad
tidings of His paradise as a reward. Throughout their lives, they were
unflinchingly honest and righteous. However, in our time, the good should
not only talk of these noble people, but also follow in their footsteps.
All conscientious people should compete with one another in attaining
moral perfection like that of the prophets and the true believers who
accompanied them. Otherwise, every conscientious person will be held
responsible for all the cruelty, corruption, conflict and wars he
witnessed in this world. This point is also stated in many sayings of Our
Prophet (pbuh). One of them reads:
If anyone of you sees something objectionable, he
should change it with his hand, but if he cannot, he should change it
with his tongue, and if he cannot he should do it in his heart, that
being the weakest form of faith.
In this century, when the evil have intensified their
activities, and the destitute, women and children are in need of so much
help, it is essential that Muslims unite and support one another through
any adversity, trouble and under other negative circumstances. In Surah
Ali 'Imran, God informs us about the sort of brotherhood Muslims should
maintain and the attitude a Muslim should adopt toward another Muslim:
Hold fast to the rope of God all together, and do not
separate. Remember God's blessing to you when you were enemies and He
joined your hearts together so that you became brothers by His
blessing. You were on the very brink of a pit of the Fire and He
rescued you from it. In this way God makes His Signs clear to you, so
that hopefully you will be guided. (Surah Ali 'Imran: 103)
Indifference is Equal to Being a Member of the Alliance of
the Evil
As we have discussed earlier, fear of the reactions of the
evil may lead to indifference to unjust practises. However, this is not
the attitude assumed by people of conscience. This attitude is typical of
those who are blindly addicted to this world and who chase after
short-lived worldly interests.
Those who are hesitant to join the side of the good need
to know that their silence and indifference will add to the corruption
experienced today all over the world. For instance, if the poor and
innocent are massacred in one corner of the world, and the people who
claim to be good keep silent and watch it from a distance, they would
actually be on the side of the cruel ones. Those who remain silent for
fear of the cruelty and possible harm of the evil cannot hope to be
rewarded in the hereafter as those who displayed patience.
For example, the people of the Prophet Moses (as) and his
brother the prophet Aaron (as) abandoned them to their enemies. Only
because of their fear of disbelievers, they became so insensitive that
they deserted a man who devoted all his life to the way of God, put his
life into jeopardy to save the oppressed, left behind an opulent life in
the Pharaoh's palace, strove for the good pleasure of God, and stood
bravely against the most cruel man in history. Furthermore, the Prophet
Moses (as) and the prophet Aaron (as) were men of courage and faith who
resisted all this calamity and hardship only to save their people from the
cruelty of the Pharaoh and the torment in hell. The contemptible and
cowardly attitude of the people of the Prophet Moses (as) is revealed in
the Qur'an as follows:
Two men among those who were afraid, but whom God had
blessed, said, 'Enter the gate against them! Once you have entered it,
you will be victorious. Put your trust in God if you are believers.'
They said, 'We will never enter it, Moses, as long as they are there.
So you and your Lord go and fight. We will stay sitting here.' He
said, 'My Lord, I have no control over anyone but myself and my
brother, so make a clear distinction between us and this deviant
people.'
(Surat al-Ma'ida: 23-25)
One point deserves special mention here; the sincere and
true believers striving for the way of God receive His support, whether
they are alone or not. This is the promise of God to believers. God makes
this clear in the following verses:
If you do not help him, God did help him when the
disbelievers drove him out and there were two of them in the cave. He
said to his companion, 'Do not be despondent, God is with us.' Then
God sent down His serenity upon him and reinforced him with troops you
could not see. He made the word of the disbelievers undermost. It is
the word of God which is uppermost. God is Almighty, All-Wise.
(Surat
at-Tawba: 40)
Before you We sent other Messengers to their people,
and they too brought them the Clear Signs. We took revenge on those
who did evil; and it is Our duty to help the believers.
(Surat ar-Rum:
47)
This being the case, taking every opportunity to support
the alliance of the good with one's best effort is vitally important to
attain a blissful afterlife for those who say "I am a conscientious and
good person". God's Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), also stated
that this will have a reward in the hereafter for a believer:
Whoever removes an anxiety of the world from a believer,
God will remove an anxiety on the Day of Resurrection from him. Whoever
makes it easy for someone in difficulty, God will make it easy for him in
the world and the Next Life.
In the Qur'an, God informs us that those who turn their
backs to the good in times of trouble, or do nothing when they are
oppressed, will say "Weren't we with you?", when the good will attain
felicity and when their rightness will be made clear to everyone:
Those who anticipate the worst for you say, 'Were we
not with you?' Whenever you gain a victory from God, but if the
disbelievers have a success they say, 'Did we not have the upper hand
over you and yet in spite of that keep the believers away from you?'
God will judge between you on the Day of Rising. God will not give the
disbelievers any way against the believers.
(Surat an-Nisa': 141)
In such a circumstance, impartiality would not be an
acceptable attitude. On the contrary, as mentioned in the verses above, it
is a trait peculiar to hypocrites.
In the face of such cruelty, everyone claiming to be among
the good must give all the support they can offer. In this regard, they
should first make clear with which party they side. That is because
dubious is the sincerity of a person who remains silent about cruelty and
fails to lend himself to the oppressed. As stressed numerous times earlier
in this book, supporting the evil ones is not necessarily being side by
side with them. Remaining indifferent to them serves the very same
purpose. God warns man in the Qur'an thus:
"And incline not to those
who do wrong, or the Fire will seize you."
(Surah Hud: 113)
Being
silent is another form of supporting cruelty. In his works, Bediuzzaman
Said Nursi describes this situation as follows:
The consent given to ignorance is no different than
ignorance; the consent given to error, ignorance and cruelty is
erroneous, ignorant and cruel.
The consent given to oppression is no different than
oppression; anyone who sides with the oppressor is an oppressor. Anyone
who tends to oppression is subjected to the verse "Do not incline to those
who do wrong".
Therefore, if a man is really a conscientious person, then
he should resolutely associate himself with the honest and the good. A
contrary attitude would imply being on the side of the evil. If someone
does not inform the police about a thief, we cannot call him impartial.
This man clearly supports the burglar. Alternatively, watching someone who
commits cruelty and turning one's back to evil, saying, "If I try to
prevent him, he may also harm me" is simply support of the oppressor.
Besides, we must remember that one day one's own house can also be broken
by this same thief, or one may be subjected to the same cruelty by the
same oppressor. In this sense, the virtuous thing to do is to involve
oneself in a concerted effort to prevent the cruelty of such a person even
though he does not threaten personal harm. Otherwise, willingly or not,
one would be co-operating with the evil. God gives an account of the
people on the Day of Judgement who take sides with the good and who take
sides with the evil.
Those who perform good actions will receive better
than them and will be safe that Day from fear. Those who perform bad
actions will be flung head first into the Fire: 'Are you being repaid
for anything other than what you did?'
(Surat an-Naml: 89-90)
