I want to write a brief piece on a particular facet of my time in MPACUK. You know I was told when I joined MPACUK that a Muslim never truly experiences Allah or Islam, nor understands the Prophets PBUT unless it is through pain and sacrifice of Jihad, and the resulting reflection and contemplation from it.

I have found this to be true upon reflection in a very deep way. My dhikr to my charity all become “real” because I have experienced the pain of others for the sake of Allah.

Let me explain further. Could the beauty of Zakat be truly understood if we never made an effort to experience real poverty, or stopping with our money and life the effects of poverty on those who suffer from it? No man or woman by mere reflection alone could understand a single favour of Allah’s to mankind, in this case “Zakat” simply by sitting in circle and talking of it, even from the lips of a Sheikh. Recently many Muslims friends have invited me to Dhikr (remembrance of Allah). I have always refused, not because I disagree with it, but because I do not believe that they themselves can ever truly understand or remember Allah in this pacified way, no matter how great or pious the Sheikh they follow is.

Allah can only be really understood when you do the good. For when you perceive the world and the evil that makes so many lives live in such misery, and you reflect upon this Light that Allah has revealed to you (Islam) and realise through you, it can stop this misery - you become dumb-struck and utterly humbled. It is then you realise that He has given you a gift that is beyond anything you deserve, he has made you a man. If this Knowledge (Islam) is acted upon, it will raise you from a selfish; ego filled clot of clay to a Shepard of men, higher then an angel. When taking your first steps towards Allah and start to heed the call of this Light (Islam), the burden and difficulty of this great message becomes revealed to you.

The highest grade of man (a Muslim), is given to those men who heed the call to "become better" and sacrifice their lives in enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong. Not because it is easy but because it is the most painful pathway. For the men who take up this message of spreading the good, and asking others to stop their evil it is often a painful life. They are rebuked, insulted and attacked for doing so by the ignorant and the evil of this earth. But through this pain one takes the first and most sincere real steps to Allah.

Through this hardship, understanding of Dhikr or any other ritual including Salaat, becomes deeper and truer. As if Allah has rewarded you with understanding of Him, through your works, the pain was the proof you were sincere to Him.

Today so many of the so called “practicing Muslims” who sit in their cosy circles and talk of “Dhikr” and all the other rituals of Islam, in reality understand one hundredth of what the Mujahadeen understands. For they want to take the easy root to Allah, calling and remembering Him, but never lifting a finger in sacrifice or pain for His cause.

How many circles like this, end with all the brothers and sisters leaving and walking the streets to stop drug dealers, or stop racism or tribalism in the House of Allah, stop husbands beating their wives, stopping young thugs destroying the society, cure the drunkards of their disease, feed the poor and homeless in the cold nights, defend the crying Ummah by stopping British bombs killing their children by taking up some political or Media Jihad – so much evil and yet in all my time I have never found one. Words never end in deeds. Islam is a Light that takes mankind and stands them upright, removes the bad in them and makes them good, for it teaches them to do good upon the earth (not just in words but with deeds).

It is something so beautiful and yet so rational, that one wonders why anyone who truly understands how wondrous it is would not stand up and give their life for it.  It is not a drug that pacifies the mind and makes one “feel” spiritual as many Muslims want today. It is the Truth – unbending, pure and right. One cannot even truly be a believer in God if one abandons Jihad (struggle for Good and Justice for Allah alone) or even so much as makes excuses as to why one cannot take part in it. The Quran clearly states this.

If one will not taste pain for Allah in Jihad as His Light (Islam) orders us to do, without excuse, we must reflect, for it is a clear sign of some inner disease of hypocrisy. We cannot truly believe if we do not sacrifice our time, our wealth and if the need arises our Life in Jihad. For all Jihad demands us to do, is to struggle against the evils within you and at the same time struggle to your utmost to stop the evils out there in the world - not one or the other, but both simultaneously!

Allah did not create a faith for idle rituals alone; it is not a cure for your psychological disorders, but a “Good” that makes man stand up like a human instead of acting worse then an animal. The hypocrites in the time of the Prophet PBUH did not reveal themselves because they did not pray or fast, they all prayed and fasted with the companions. It was the failure to sacrifice in Jihad that revealed their true nature. For it was hard and painful.

I often wonder how so many good non-Muslims who travel to Palestine and act like human shields take part in Jihad and those who “follow my sheikh and get to heaven” self proclaimed “practicing Muslims” who are so prone to quote and show their piety to everyone, never give any inclination to do the same in even small ways. If one asks them to them even to stand up to their MP, give a leaflet out, or fund us to do their work, they run as if they had seen the angel of Death!I used to look up to Muslims who quoted a lot and showed their “knowledge” to me as good people.

Now I pity them. To these Muslims I say simply this, “I do not want to hear you show off with Quranic words, used as a source of pride for your ego. Instead join me as a Muslim  in establishing good, in these dark days, so that some of the people will be free from the misery and oppression evil men force upon them (as Allah taught you in the Quran to do!). Show Allah that you are partaking in the Jihad in some way and that you are ready to suffer for Him so that the Good that He has blessed you with lives on in the world as proof of your love for Him. That is true worship. That its Deeds and not just words you do for Him."

Abandon that sacrifice, and allow oppression in this world to go unchecked and to me all your pious words in my eyes are nothing more then falsehood that will be stripped from you upon Death.

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