{"id":165,"date":"2012-03-28T09:35:39","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T09:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2012-03-28T09:38:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T09:38:14","slug":"buying-a-bed-in-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"Buying a Bed in Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The practice of booking a berth in heaven with a payment may have been reduced to a historical curiosity among Christians now, but it seems to be thriving among many mainstream Muslims.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At a recent fund-raiser in Sydney organized by the Islamic Forum for Australian Muslims, banners, slides and speeches were focused on selling to Australia\u2019s Muslims \u201ca house in <\/span>jannah<\/span><\/em>\u201d through a donation towards the building of a new mosque.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And speaking of <\/span>jannah (<\/span><\/em>paradise<\/span>)<\/span><\/em>, my generation grew up calling it <\/span>jannat<\/span><\/em>, as did our forefathers, until a successful Salafist campaign in the late 1970s and 1980s displaced many Urdu\/Farsi words from the Urdu lexicon, replacing them with Arabic words.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The best known victim of this linguistic cleansing is good old <\/span>Khuda hafiz<\/span><\/em>, supplanted by <\/span>Allah hafiz<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Reformation of Christianity which transformed Europe and laid the groundwork for Europe\u2019s astounding progress was triggered by t<\/span>he \u201cNinety Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences\u201d written by the German Martin Luther in 1517. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Martin Luther not only rejected the efficacy of Indulgences, which supposedly washed away sins and eased the holder\u2019s passage to paradise, but also denounced the corrupt practice of the selling of Indulgences by some Catholic priests.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The practice of booking a berth in heaven with a payment may have been reduced to a historical curiosity among Christians now, but it seems to be thriving among many mainstream Muslims.<\/span><\/p>\n

The website of the Bankstown mosque project is seeking donations with an offer that one would be utterly stupid to refuse: \u201cPalace in Paradise; Book Now: You can buy 1 square metres of <\/span>masjid<\/span><\/em> land for yourself, for your family members and even for a deceased relative @ $1,254 and Allah will reserve a palace in Paradise for this noble deed, inshaAllah.\u201d (<\/span><\/span>http:\/\/bankstownmasjid.org.au\/updates.html<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

The main speaker at the Sydney fund-raiser was Maulana Yusuf Islahi, an eminent Islamic scholar and speaker and a member of the central Shura of Jamaat-e-Islami in India.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He was introduced with much fanfare and bombast as a larger than life figure by the presenter, who further instructed the audience to rise to its feet and chant Allah-o-Akbar when the maulana walked to the podium.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Not impressed with the effort, the presenter kept demanding more exertion from their vocal chords until the chants reverberated through the hall and resembled those at highly charged political meetings in the subcontinent.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The first speaker was introduced as a professor at two universities in Karachi, which were not named.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He began by defining the \u201cWest\u201d which, he said, is no longer a geographical concept but defines a civilization, rather the lack of it.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He cited Australia as an example, for while it is in the east, it is of the West.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Then he systematically summed up for Muslims living here half a dozen or so golden rules to follow in order to adhere to their religion and avoid becoming like the \u201c<\/span>jaanwar<\/span><\/em>\u201d (animals) of the West.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maulana Yusuf Islahi in his speech emphasized that every Muslim had a duty to propagate his religion to the people of the West, show them the light of Islam and guide them to the \u201cright path\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He conceded that historically Muslims had made one big mistake by not educating their women.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For the moment, though, the maulana\u2019s thoughts and efforts were fixated on raising money for one more mosque in Australia.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And even as he spoke of the need for educating women, there was no mention of women\u2019s participation in the work force.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Nor did he raise the issue of moral standards, character-building, truthfulness, trust, etc, in relation to fellow citizens and society.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In answer to a question later Maulana Islahi did mention, but only cursorily, the need for good citizenship.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Replying to another question about whether Muslims should still follow the Quranic injunction not to befriend Christians and Jews, the maulana said that these verses in the Quran had a specific historical context and there was no reason to apply them when the circumstances had changed.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>One would have preferred that Maulana Islahi had emphasized these themes in his lecture.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When the presenter invited us to listen to a \u201cvery special talk\u201d from a university professor with \u201ctwo doctorates\u201d in mathematics, I braced for a discourse on religion and Islam from a scientific perspective.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In the event, I surely wasn\u2019t the only one to be disappointed, for the connection the learned professor drew was not between mathematics and religion, but rather between dollar amounts and plot sizes in <\/span>jannah<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He spoke in the strident tone of a village <\/span>maulvi<\/span><\/em> giving a <\/span>waaz<\/span><\/em> (sermon) and exhorted his listeners to \u201cdig deep into your pockets\u201d to donate to the mosque project.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Using the technique of a story-teller which, he claimed, professors employ to drive home a point, he invoked the imagery of motherly love and threw the bait of heavenly bliss.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The listener was asked to think of the mother he had left behind in his motherland to seek a better future for himself in the West \u2013 the lonely, weeping, ageing, forlorn lady for whom nothing was dearer than her son, who had chosen to emigrate to distant shores far from her for worldly gain.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But the son could now redeem himself \u2013 he had a god-given opportunity, so to speak.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Thanks to the Bankstown mosque project, he could now make amends for his selfishness by buying his mother a place in <\/span>jannah<\/span><\/em>!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The long-winded oration of the mathematics professor milked the \u201cmother\u201d to the last drop.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The donor-to-be was advised to mail a copy of the receipt to his \u201cmother\u201d giving her the good news \u2013 the loving and dutiful son had bought her a bed in <\/span>jannah<\/span><\/em>, no less, by way of thanking her for the love and care she had bestowed on him throughout his life.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Surely that would make for one very happy mother!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But what of the donor himself? <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I mean, what about his own place in heaven?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>After all, he is the one who has made the monetary sacrifice. Leaving nothing to chance, the good professor comforted the donor-son by assuring him that he too will have indirectly bought himself a bed in paradise \u2013 by virtue of the prayers of his grateful mother.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the West they call it \u201cbuy one, get one free\u201d. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Acquisition of two luxury beds in <\/span>jannah<\/span><\/em> with just one donation!<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span>Today\u2019s Muslims have learned a thing or two from the \u201cdecadent\u201d West, after all.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>When it comes to marketing, apparently they can do one notch better than those wayward Westerners.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(Published in Daily Times, 26 May 2011)<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The practice of booking a berth in heaven with a payment may have been reduced to a historical curiosity among Christians now, but it seems to be thriving among many mainstream Muslims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}