Questions to Raheem: Are you a religious believer? Do you pray? Is Quran by Allah? Are your children Religious? Did they go to Madrasa

 Some Questions put to by @Suresh Menon:

"Some questions for Raheem. An honest reply is expected.

1. Are you a religious believer? If so, why?

2. Have you sent your children to madrasa? If not, why not?

3. Do you pray? Do you attend Friday prayers? If not, why not?

4. Do you think the Quran, composed by Allah through Muhammad in the sixth century, is relevant to our times? Isn't it beyond change? Why?

5. Are your children growing up as deeni (religious)? Do they live as religion prescribes?"

The Reply

I had thought of replying right away. But when there are many questions, the answers grow long.

Each question may be short, and asking may be easy. But the answer each deserves need not be short. These won't be yes-or-no answers.

Questions are like seeds: small. But the answer hidden inside a question is like the tree hidden in the seed, and can grow very large. To answer is to sprout the question and grow it, even into a great tree. As an egg hatches into a chick and the chick grows into a bird, so the answer grows.

So the answer won't fit in a single Facebook comment box. A tree that grows from one seed won't fit in a lap that holds a hundred thousand seeds.

Because of this, I decided to give the full answer later, and so I am replying some five or eight days after the questions were asked. Please forgive me.

First, a preliminary.

I don't understand why you asked at the outset for an honest reply. What is the logic behind it? Would anyone, you included, answer dishonestly? Why would a person answer dishonestly? To protect selfish vested interests? To work against himself?

Perhaps you felt the need to ask because you think many people lie. Perhaps you have arrived at this need from an age, a country and a world in which lying is ordinary and truth is rare and exceptional.

I still don't understand why anyone should lie about anything. No one can lie without betraying and selling their own conscience.

My strength, and my ability to sleep peacefully, rest only on honesty before my conscience. I have never said anything that was not true, or did not seem true to me, and I never will. That is my only way of not losing myself. What use is it to gain the whole world and lose oneself?

You probably know yourself that your questions are all personal, mostly subjective, and not matters to be answered publicly. I don't say this to suggest it is wrong to ask about personal, subjective matters. Nor do I have a nose that flies off if asked about personal matters. I say it because of the Quran:

"Do not ask about certain things which, if disclosed to you, would trouble you." (Quran)

Even now, you who ask these questions stand behind a veil, without showing your identity (your face). That is your convenience and your freedom. You have a name, but no face. Perhaps, since you don't show your face, you haven't used your real name either. A face, the same face, belongs to only one person, but a name, the same name, can belong to a thousand. So seeing and showing the face matters. Humans mostly recognize one another by seeing and showing faces. ("We made you into tribes and nations so that you may know one another." Quran)

A name accompanied by a face is mostly genuine. When you attach a name to a face, you must show your own face. Among people who know you by face, you cannot swap your name for another.

Still, your choice to withhold your identity is your own right and convenience. There is a privacy, a convenience, and a security and courage that come from not revealing identity, and they are needed. Even God, if there is a God, being greatest and all-pervading, has chosen to remain unseen and unknown.

So I respect your staying hidden, out of regard for your purpose and convenience, and I do not see it as a fault. I am not asking you to reveal your identity. Neither of us has anything to gain from it right now. As the verse above suggests, neither you nor I need be troubled by your identity being revealed.

"A Muslim is one from whose tongue and hands his brother is safe." (Hadith)

You know that one of Allah's beautiful names is Sattār, the Concealer. What one person keeps secret, another should not make public. This is why, in Islam, even if someone sees another committing adultery in secret, the witness must not speak of it. Though what a person does in private is wrong, so long as he does it only privately and not in a manner affecting the public, he is to be given his personal privacy and freedom.

Moreover, if the witness spreads it as an accusation, it is that accuser who, Islamically, receives eighty lashes. Not the one said to have committed adultery in private. The one who punishes that wrong is God. Whether virtue or sin, so long as it is secret, it is a matter to be settled only between the person and God. Unless it is done openly, seen by four people with their own eyes, and there are four such eyewitnesses, the accused has no punishment in society.

This is also why ghībah (speaking, in someone's absence, of faults believed to be his) is a sin, and why the Quran says that speaking ill of someone in his absence is as repulsive and blameworthy as eating the flesh of your dead brother.

So there is surely no need to speak of beliefs a person holds only according to his own conviction, which are wholly subjective, when it is plain that they cannot be objectively understood. This is so whether he says he believes or says he does not. Belief is like each person's search and discovery. It is like growth. It is the upward reach of branches in proportion to how deep the roots go.

Claiming to believe or not to believe is easy, for the sake of argument or assertion. It is like forcing fruit to ripen before it has matured naturally.

"The Bedouins say: 'We have believed.' Say: 'You have not believed; rather say: We have submitted (become Muslims in name, communal Muslims), for faith (security) has not yet entered your hearts.'" (Quran)

That is, saying you believe doesn't mean you do, and saying you don't believe doesn't mean you don't. That is why the Quran also puts it another way: "O believers, believe (become fearless)." Until belief becomes real fearlessness, no one is a believer.

Nevertheless, as an honest answer to your questions, I can say one thing firmly: my belief and my disbelief are only what is true to my conscience. They are not shifted for vested selfish interests, nor out of a desire for relevance or fame. They are only as I am convinced. Therefore without guilt, except self-questioning for the sake of seeking truth, and changing only in that search.

"Indeed Allah (what truly exists) does not look at your bodies and appearances (outward claims and things). He looks at your hearts." (Quran)

How a person carries his belief in Allah (in what truly exists), and his relationship with Allah, cannot be understood by another however much he advertises it. That is why I said "subjective."

"Neither their flesh nor their blood reaches Allah. What reaches Allah is only your God-consciousness." (Quran)

This God-consciousness (taqwā) is what the Quran aims for through fasting. This taqwā is made the only instrument and foundation for receiving guidance.

"Alif Lām Mīm. That is the Book, in which there is no doubt, a guidance for those who have God-consciousness." (Quran)

God-consciousness is between the person and God, if there is a God, and only the two of them need know it. Whatever is advertised vanishes in proportion, becoming a claim and a slogan blown away like dust in the wind: hollow, merely outward, with no connection to what is within.

"Know that in the body there is a piece of flesh. If it is sound, the whole body is sound. If it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Know that it is the heart." (Hadith)

You know that the first of the five pillars of Islam is the Shahāda. The Shahāda is a testimony made by one who has grown enough to bear witness to God (to see Him, as it were), and only such a person can make it. It does not ask for mere belief, or for saying one believes, or for becoming a merely social-communal Muslim entered in the census register. Perhaps by making the Shahāda the very first pillar mandatory, the intention was precisely to avoid becoming a mere census-register Muslim.

You know what testimony is: to have seen with one's eyes and to state what one saw. Only what is seen and told counts as testimony. That is, the reality called Allah must come into one's own conviction and awareness as if seen.

"Worship Allah as if you see Him." (Hadith)

Each person's search and labor must grow until he meets Allah, or longs to.

"Whoever longs to meet his Lord (the one who nurtures him stage by stage), to meet Him in a way that allows intimate conversation, let him do righteous work (amal sālih) and not associate anyone in the worship (submission) of his Lord." (Quran)

In short, a wholly personal and subjective matter. Although this is all by way of introduction, let me take your questions one by one. None of the above is an excuse for not answering.

Question 1. Am I a religious believer? Why or why not?

You asked whether I am a religious believer. You did not ask whether I am a believer in God, if there is a God, or a believer in truth, if there is a truth.

I don't understand how one person can measure another's belief in God, or how one can tell others about it. Belief in the unseen is itself unseen. To attain belief in the unseen, one needs an inquiring God-consciousness that gives true guidance: a microscopic consciousness that shows that many things are not many, and are nothing; one that makes losing many things necessary to gain a few.

Who, knowing God as God and feeling his own helplessness and insignificance, would not believe in God? Belief in God does not arise, and need not arise, because God or anyone else demands it. It happens as branches rise high on a tree whose roots go deep. Isn't belief something that simply happens, like a bird returning to its nest?

Then you ask: whether a believer in God or not, a believer in truth or not, why?

One answer: if one understands that God exists and then believes in that God, one is a believer in God. That's all. If one understands that truth exists and believes in that truth, one is a believer in truth. That's all. Once one knows that truth and God exist as truth and God, who would be left to deny them?

Not knowing is not denial. It is really not knowing; it is you who call it denial. The not-knowing you call denial has only ignorance as its cause. That ignorance is not itself denial. Saying "I don't know" about what one doesn't know is not denial. And claiming to know what one doesn't know is not belief either. His denial and his belief are only the measure of his knowledge and his ignorance.

Belief is believing what one is truly and honestly convinced of. Belief and denial carried honestly before one's conscience are the same: both are equally belief.

I am not a religious believer. God and truth are beyond religion. They need no religion and no marketing. A believer in God and in truth need not necessarily be a religious believer. God is not confined in anything or anywhere.

As far as I am concerned, Islam is not a religion. Neither Islām nor dīn means "religion." Dīn means only flexibility, bowing low (dāna, yadīnu, dīn). Islām means submission, taking peace (aslama, yuslimu, islām). Yielding and bowing to the reality called Allah is dīn. Submitting is Islām.

If by religious belief you meant flexibility and subservience to God, then helplessly and without alternative, not only I but anyone, even one who denies, can only be one who yields and is subservient to God, knowingly or unknowingly, by choice or without choice.

Question 2. Have I sent my children to madrasa? If not, why not?

This question also arises partly from a misunderstanding: that being Muslim and madrasa are somehow connected, that going to madrasa is compulsory to be a Muslim, that one becomes Muslim by being born to Muslim parents and must attend madrasa to continue it.

I have not sent my children to madrasa or had them taught there. Why? Because I have never felt it necessary in any way. I myself did not go to madrasa or study there. In a sense, without intending or remembering, I did what my father did. My father did not send me to madrasa either. I remember him saying something on the matter:

"A child's mind is like a blank sheet of paper. Anyone can draw or scribble anything on it at the start. However much you erase later, a trace of what was written first stays. The more you erase, the dirtier the paper gets. It isn't erasing; it is destroying the paper."

I haven't sent the children because I didn't know why they should be taught there. I understood that no one really learns or teaches anything in madrasa. I also know that no one in any madrasa around here has the qualification and competence to teach children anything. And I know the time spent in madrasa is time lost.

My stance was the same not only about madrasa but about schools. When something seemed unneeded, unnecessary, a waste of time, and the children felt so too, I did not, in the early stage, send them even to school, by their own wishes as well, while taking other steps to continue their education. Often I did not even find, in the teachers, anything beyond mere teaching-laborers, nor any intellectual or scholarly level matching that of the children to be taught.

And anyway, what relation is there between what is learned and taught in the madrasas here and Islam or belief in God? If necessary knowledge can be given at home, then apart from socialization (I do not mean communalization), even school is unnecessary, I believe. I am one who tried, as far as possible, to raise children without sending them even to school.

Question 3. Do I pray? Do I attend Friday prayers? If not, why not?

As said above, if the Shahāda has truly grown into a Shahāda, then ṣalāt happens as its continuation.

"Indeed, prayer is for remembering Me." (Quran)

One who keeps God always settled in memory and awareness is one who is always praying.

Ṣalāt is not "prayer" in the ordinary sense the public understands. You know there is no prayer, in the ordinary public sense, among the five pillars of Islam. The only thing that can be counted as prayer is in the ṣalāt, and even that is not a prayer in a material sense. It only seeks the straight path.

"Indeed, prayer restrains from indecency and wrongdoing." (Quran)

One who sees God, who testifies that he sees God, is always before God. How could one who knows he is before God fall into indecency and wrongdoing? One who stays away from them is always in prayer. A prayer that cannot keep one away from indecency and wrongdoing is not a prayer.

Nowhere in the Quran is it written plainly, "Hell for those who do not pray." Yet in the same Quran it is written plainly: "Woe (the worst Hell) to those who pray", and the Quran itself clarified this right after that verse:

"Who are neglectful of their prayer." (Quran) (that is, those who pray mechanically, like a duty)

"Who do it to be seen (by people)." (Quran) (that is, those who pray in order to be social-communal Muslims)

"And who withhold help (from others)." (Quran) (that is, those who, communalized through prayer and thinking only as communal Muslims, hold back charity)

Any program, prayer, or act of worship that proceeds only at a time dictated by someone, in a form, language and content dictated by someone, becomes mechanical, a mere show, neglectful. Quite natural. Prayer is something that happens. It happens like steam rising from heated water. Prayer happens like a need felt deep within. Prayer happens like running for refuge on seeing a mad dog. Prayer happens like one trapped in insecurity running to seek security. If one knows of safety and of the one who saves, and truly feels the need to be saved, who would not pray? From anyone, in any case, prayer happens. But it is not something that arises by being commanded. What arises from commanding is, as the verse above indicates, mechanical and neglectful ritual show.

Commanded practice may be good for social organization and unification. But nothing done out of fear of command is like what is done from personal conviction. What is done on command applies to the great majority who improve only if they become social, who improve only to be social.

Otherwise, just think: who, knowing God as God and feeling his own helplessness and insignificance, would not go on worshipping, praising, sanctifying and glorifying God? One who knows God as God goes on worshipping, praising, sanctifying and glorifying in astonished awe, wholly subjectively and naturally. One who scratches when a mosquito bites, who shuts his eyes in fear at lightning: how could one who knows God as God not fall down astonished, in reaction?

You know that nowhere in the Quran is there a personal command to pray. The command in the Quran is to maintain and establish prayer: aqīmū ṣ-ṣalāh is the Quran's expression throughout. It is a command to uphold and establish prayer.

Meanwhile, there is an important thing the Quran does command personally: to travel and move about the earth, alone. Not travel for business, work, errands or shopping. That kind of travel is called safar in Arabic. The Quran's command to travel does not use safar, nor the imperative of safar. It uses sīrū, the imperative of sayr. The Quran commands in many places to move about the earth. So much so that there are personal commands to each person to travel the earth and understand even the beginning of creation and how it will be re-created.

Question 4. Do I think the Quran, composed by Allah through Muhammad in the sixth century, is relevant today? Isn't it beyond change? Why?

I don't know how to answer this question about the Quran. It takes one in many directions and onto many levels.

The Quran is, in every respect, a unique and priceless book. Reading it in Arabic makes this uniqueness and preciousness even clearer. That no translation in any other language has done justice to the Arabic Quran is a great obstacle to the whole world understanding its beauty, uniqueness and preciousness.

The Quran is not in the narrative or presentation style of ordinary books. It is entirely different in its language, in how it moves from subject to subject, and in how it treats subjects. The Quran has a rhythm like the rhythm of the mind: a rhythm, a speed, of always and anywhere. One can't tell how, when, or how fast it will plunge from one subject to another. There is a kind of natural rhythm in which any subject is told anywhere. Small and large, tree, grass and mountain standing intermixed: that is the Quran's way. You won't find the artificial plantation method, one chapter for one subject, one thing only in a chapter, that human presentation style.

Not only the Quran but any book is beyond change. Ordinarily no one changes or corrects a book that isn't his own. The old is history, and history stays as history, as the past, unchanged. That applies to the Quran too. The new is the present, which is a continuation and also a correction of the old. The future will in turn be a continuation and correction of the present.

Who actually changes any book? No one changes a book. What we need, we discover and write anew. The old remains unchanged and becomes the foundation and basis of the new. Nothing written long ago is for changing today. Shakespeare, Sophocles and Plato have come down to us as they were, unchanged. No one corrects them. Except in the case of the Bible, because there are a church and a priesthood that decide what the Bible should be and how it should look, and it is the church and priesthood who handle, make and alter and present it.

Question 5. Are my children growing up as deeni? Do they live as religion prescribes?

Answer: A child's religion and belief are not decided by parents, and should not be.

Every child is born in a pure nature (fiṭra). If you understand this pure nature as one that surrenders (Islām, submission), voluntarily or not, to the cosmic order and power, then one may say everyone is born a Muslim (one who has submitted).

When grown, this submission must become a conscious choice. Only then does one become a Muslim consciously. There, no parents exist. Each person living alone is alone responsible. Each will die alone.

Know this: parents too had parents. If everyone only followed their parents in matters of belief and thought, how would there be Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ, Einstein, Marx, the Buddha? How would there be change or progress? Wouldn't there only be intellectual stillness and stagnation?

Listen to what the Quran itself says:

"If the two of them (your parents) compel you to associate with Me what you have no knowledge of, do not obey them. But accompany them in worldly life with kindness." (Quran)

Matters of belief are for each person to find on his own. Help and cooperation with anyone is needed only in material matters. One need obey, or make others obey, only in material matters, and even then only if the occasion and circumstances require it. Differences of belief and thought must not turn into withdrawing or denying help and cooperation in material matters.

Islamically too it is so. Īmān, shahāda, taqwā, hidāya: each of these is a state each person must attain, can attain, alone.