Does this daily spectacle not seem like a farce?
Gul Raza Rahi Arariavi ✍🏻
✍🏻My hands are trembling as I write, and the thought keeps nagging at me that people will comment on what I am writing. Some will oppose it, or perhaps agree with a bitter or sweet taste. These are strange thoughts. Despite all this, I am adorning my thoughts with the pen and stringing them into a garland of words.
Nowadays, gatherings and poetry recitations have become a joke. Whether it's a local gathering or a district gathering, a provincial gathering or a national gathering, a one-day gathering or a three-day gathering, it has all become a game. Long advertisements are put up, and people are bestowed with grand titles: Allama, Fahama, Emperor of Oratory, Pir-e-Tariqat, Rehber-e-Shariat, Da'i-e-Islam, Hassan-ul-Hind, Bulbul-e-Bagh-e-Madina, and other such great titles. Whether they possess these qualities or not makes no difference. It happened this year that one of our colleagues used the word "Allama" for a teacher in an advertisement as a figure of speech. Our respected teacher reprimanded us, saying, "Do not use Allama or such exaggerated titles before anyone's name, because in this day and age, it is enough to insult and disgrace someone by calling them Allama. There is no Allama in this era. There used to be people in the past who were Mujtahid fi al-Zaman and mountains of knowledge, so they were called Allama as an exaggeration. Now there is no one like that, so you should avoid it."
Now the state of religious gatherings is such that political people like MPs, MLAs, Mukhiyas, Zila Parishad members, and pandits of other religions are invited.
This trend is on the rise here.
There was a time when a single gathering would change the destiny of a nation and that gathering would become the foundation of a movement. There were no gatherings every day. One gathering would take place and it would be historic.
But nowadays, gatherings have become a joke and a source of entertainment. The oratory of the speaker, the speech of the orator, the poetry of the poet, and the eloquence of the host have become a means of earning a living and a business. Many complaints have been received that people listened to speeches in a gathering all night and at dawn, the people and the speaker were fast asleep, even missing the Fajr prayer. Can such a gathering become a movement if the Fajr prayer of that day is not offered?
It seems strange that the nation that once brought about a thousand revolutions silently is now unable to bring about even one revolution with all the noise. A large amount of the nation's wealth is being spent on gatherings and processions.
The result has reached the point where female scholars are being invited to speak at the Dastar Bandi ceremony of the Madrasa.
Think about where the nation is going. I am not against gatherings, but I am definitely against daily gatherings and daily programs.
There should be one or two programs in the whole district, done properly, in the style of "Anzilu al-Naas Manazilahum" (place people in their proper positions), away from coquetry, the night program should not be too long, and whatever happens should be a movement-making gathering. Whatever is presented in the gathering should be put into practice.
But daily gatherings only make us a laughingstock among other nations, and a valuable asset of the nation is spent on these things, which does not seem to have any benefit.
Today, other nations, especially those in power, their founders and the people of their parties, have secretly worked on the ground and at the individual level, that we are amazed today and are victims of their oppression.
We are not able to fulfill the things that the Muslim Ummah needs at this time. We have done nothing for those who have created doubts and ambiguities in the beliefs and ideologies of our people and changed their beliefs. Think about whether we need Islamic schools, universities, and colleges. Do we not need a separate education system for daughters of Islam? If so, why don't we spend on them instead of spending crores on gatherings and processions?
We need to consider what plan of action we have to address the conditions we are going through.
Thinkers of the nation should think about what difficulties we are facing and what we are doing. Now we need to work on the ground level, to perform every act with simplicity, and to eliminate all the evils from the society that are thriving in our interests today, such as distance from religious education, excessive use of the internet and multimedia mobile, usurious transactions, and extravagance and wastefulness in weddings. We need to consider these things and we need to make sacrifices, to strengthen the nation and to promote its progress, otherwise the conditions of the country and the nation are indicative of further deterioration.
May God Almighty grant us sound understanding, Amen.