By Muhammad Tariq Ghazi,
Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.
Al-Qur’an, Surah Ar-Ra’ad 13:11
About 150 years ago, Urdu poet Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali had explained the same maxim in an Urdu couplet:
Khuda ne aaj tak uss qowm ki haalat nahin badli
Na ho jiss ko khyal aap apni haalat ke badalnay ka
Allah hasn’t changed so far condition of a nation
That itself has no thought of changing it.
However, the problem today is that the change visualized then by Hali et al was no different from the condition in which we find ourselves today. That’s the contemplated change is already here does not satisfy us is the moot point. We are not happy with the end result and continue making similar demands on ourselves as were being made by the intelligentsia in Hali’s times.
Another factor to be noted here is why are we being reminded of this aayah time and again? Does it mean that we are stagnated for most part of the past 1400-plus recent years of our history?
Of course not. This stagnation is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, the problem is that we are unable to determine its causes. This uncertainty itself explains the stagnation affecting us. By giving a little trouble to our brains, we can very well appreciate the point raised by the Qur’an: we can melt snow covering our intellect by coming out into the Sunshine of Certainty – that’s Yaqeen. Uncertainty is nothing but wilderness through which passes the path that arrives at Certainty. Uncertainty where we find ourselves is not the destination.
Noted urdu poet, Rawish Siddiqi, had shown the path in his eternal couplet:
Kis ko ma’luum hai hum Husn shanasaan e azal
Kitnay awhaam se guzre tow Yaqeen tak ponchay
Who knows that we the admirers of Beauty at the Origin
Attained Certainty by suffering how many uncertainties
What’s Certainty – Yaqeen – then? Our western educated class like their mentors believe that Certainty “kills” inquiry thereby causing stagnation and the present state of decay that we find ourselves in. They are logically wrong. Certainty is primary requirement to assert oneself. Then it stirs the desire for a change in prevailing environment – a change that is not only positive and proactive but that breaks the stagnation itself. It produces intense desire that awakens human faculties all at once, triggering an explosion of thoughtful action in every sphere of life – in the area of our personal specialization, to begin with.
This is not an uncharted sea. The world had experienced this in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. That explosion of knowledge, that spread of civilization was direct outcome of Certitude of an ever expanding Ummah, influencing the whole world directly or indirectly. That sunshine lasted for 12 centuries. Today’s world lives in uncertainty – doubt, distrust, scepticism, suspicion – discharged from the academia and proliferated by the media, are hallmarks of our global society.
The question is who is going to take lead for the change that the Qur’an speaks about?