A car’s primary use is to take people from one place to another, if it does not serve this end, it is useless. The erstwhile Ummat–e–Mohammadi got so comfortable in the pampered lives as Kings and Monarchs, that they absolutely over looked the fact that Allah had included Jihad in the definition of a Mo’men. In Sura Hujrat–15; Allah declares, “Only they are true Mo’mens, who believe in Allah and His Messenger and afterward doubt not, but strive in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives. Such are the sincere.” Furthermore in Sura Tawba–111, Allah reaffirms, “Allah has purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs the garden of paradise; they fight in His Cause and slay and are slain. A promise binding on Him in truth through the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur’an: And who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded: That is the achievement supreme.”
Allah has defined the Mo’mens at several other places in the Qur’an and in them along with the belief in Allah and His Messenger, Jihad occurs prominently in all. When the wayward people of the nation forsook Jihad as their principle, they failed to realize that they no longer remained ‘Mo’mens’ in His eyes .To justify their unfortunate actions, they invented new Hadis relating to fighting/curbing one’s own self was the highest Jihad, Jihade Akbar. The collector of this particular Hadis Emam Baihaqi himself opened that the ‘sanad’ or ‘narration’ of this one is flawed and therefore it is a ‘dawif’ or weak Hadis. Hafez Ibne Hajjar and other Muhaddis are of the opinion that this is no Hadis at all, instead an Arab proverb only. More importantly, the Qur’an is the touchstone, the standard to judge whether any Hadis is correct or incorrect. Allah has clearly related what the Jihad–e –Akbar or highest Jihad is. In Sura Furqan– 52, He declares, “Therefore, listen not to the unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness (Jihadun kabeera) with the Qur’an”. Therefore, to fight against unbelievers, Kafers is the Jihad–e–Akbar, not fighting oneself.
They did not rest with just abandoning Jihad only; they came up with different definition for the Messenger of Allah’s ‘sunnah’s, his ways. Allah has mentioned at least three different times in the Qur’an that “He has sent the Messenger with guidance (Hedayah) from Him and Deen–ul–Huq, way of truth so that he may prevail it over all ways of life” (Sura Tawbah 33, Sura Fatah 28, Sura Saff-9). Based on the edict, the Messenger of Allah declared that– “I have been ordained to continue fighting against mankind till they accept Allah as their Elah and Mohammad (SM) as his Rasul”–[Hadis, Abdallah bin Omar (RH), Bukhari]. History bears testimony that for as long as he lived in this world, the Messenger of Allah and his companions followed this command and fulfilled this duty to their best capability fighting in the cause of Allah as one body, one soul. In the matter of just 9 years, he undertook 107 major and minor battles! After the Messenger of Allah departed from this world, the duty and responsibility of fulfilling his unfinished task came to rest on his Ummah’s shoulders, since during his lifetime only the peninsula of Arab had been brought under the banner of Islam, of Allah’s law, the rest of the world was still ruled by man–made laws. The Messenger of Allah’s Ummah, his people were so conscious, so mindful of their duty towards their heavenly Leader, that right after his departure, they set out, weapons in hand to complete the job he had entrusted upon them – leaving behind their families, homes and businesses, in short, every worldly bindings. This was what he had termed as his Sunnah, the striving, all out struggle to establish Deen–ul–Huq on earth. Those who forsook his Sunnah, he was not of them, nor were they of him – he had said– “Mun taraqa sunnati falaisa minni”. Not only this, he had further said, “Mun gharaba un sunnati falaisa minni”– (bukhari, Muslim) –meaning “he who even looks away from my Sunnah is not of me”. With the abandoning of Jihad, the personal habits of the Messenger of Allah, his likes and dislikes, topics which were completely his personal affairs, were substituted for his actual Sunnah. These personal topics had no relation at all with the main objectives of his life, the duty and responsibility Allah had sent him with. It is a great irony that to this Jihad forsakers, the Sunnah of the greatest revolutionary this world has ever known became not the revolution, but his habit of using a twig to clean his teeth, his liking for something sweet after meals and his habit of tasting a pinch before he started to eat, that he preferred to lie down on his right side and numerous other petty issues. There must be no other nation on the face on this earth that has downgraded their leader in such a humiliating manner. Another terrible consequence of having forsaken Jihad took place among this nation, apart from the fact that they effectively no longer remained either Mo’mens or Ummat–e–Mohammadi. Allah had warned long before in the Qur’an against turning away from Jihad. In Sura Tawba, verse–38 and 39, – Allah declared, “O you who believe! What is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, you cling heavily to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this as compared with the hereafter.”
“Unless you go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place. But Him you would not harm in the least. For Allah has power over all things.” Even this dire warning did not go through their ears and the minds of those whose comprehensive concept about the objective, aim of the Deen had become distorted. They altogether stopped spreading out in Jihad, and busied themselves with the safer Jihad against their ‘nafs’ or ‘selves’ in the comfort of their homes. In keeping with this warning, within a few hundred years, the Muslim army lost greater and greater battles to unified Christian forces, whereby authority and power were effectively snatched from the Muslims and acquired by Christians.
