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LIKE A BODY
By Sobia Asrar
TRUE BELIEF MANIFESTS in our solicitous behavior toward our fellow Muslims,
who must collectively be "like a (single) body." That, in turn, requires us
toconsider their shortcomings to be our own, not only to rectify them but also
to experience the pain that change usually brings about. This is what it means
to be "like a (single) body: When a part (of it) complains (of illness or
injury), the whole body is united with it in wakefulness and fever" (Bukhari).
Yet the basic logic of this inferencethat forsaking Muslims in a dismal
state ought to be as anathema as cutting off our own ailing body partsseems
suddenly moot among us.
After all, countless people still come out of the dentist's office with a
toothless grin. And, six centuries after amputation of gangrenous limbs was
initiated, a clinical genetic testing has led to a rise in people opting to
preemptively sever body parts that are likely to develop a disease.
It is insensitive to debate the correctness of such decisions, lacking the
trauma of firsthand experience. And it is ludicrous to deny the possibility of
their medical efficacy. And yet, never can the words of Prophet (PBUH), be
irrelevant. So, how does the parallel he drew apply today?
Quite simply, just as amputations and extractions have begun to gain social
acceptance since times long past, so too has our deliberate detachment from
destructive elements in our Muslim world.
Modern medicine proposes limiting traces of particular illnesses from
ravaging an otherwise healthy person by cutting off or excising an infected
body part that will never regenerate. Such a personal and heartrending choice
is made, not in delirium, but as a measure against decaying teeth, malignant
diseases, or certain knowledge of imminent illeness.
Now we Muslims have begun to analogize such medial scenarios with the
persistent agony, poverty, and religious feuding among our own around the world
that we see as posing a malignant threat to our prospects for unity or success.
Thus we deem ourselves similarly forced to aggressively disassociate
ourselves from another portion of ourselves.
But does the "single body" comparison in the hadeeth justify our literal
exploitation of the rationale behind removing what we consider irreversibly
damaged parts of the Muslim whole?
For if we believe that it does, then we disconnect from others on the mere
claim of being momentarily overwhelmed-never conceding that we are really
suffering from apathy, regenerate moral pragmatism, or a loss of visceral
imagination. Hence, we declare our amputations necessary to ensure we can move
forward in life, in spite of it all.
To that same end, we look past our decision to cut off, by focusing on our
"reconstructive" procedures, pardon the pun. We applaud ourselves on the
agglomerating rate of converts to our religion, considering this the smarter
choice in the worst of conditions, to accentuate the new rather than patch up
the worn and torn, whom we cut loose long ago. There is an underlying hope for
us in our zeal for the converted that they can revive us, we who have been
born as Muslims, who seem now ungrateful for the blessing of Islam, as we
languish in our self-imposed decline.
Do not mistake me. I am not equating new Muslims with aesthetically pleasing
prosthetics. Nor do I imply that guiding non-Muslimsthe reward of which is
better than all that the sun rises on---is the easier route to building our
Ummah. It takes a steadfast Muslim to help someone relinquish the comforting
illusions he or she has longed believed in and a great person to embrace a
faith that so many of us have distorted.
But, this accomplishment of the highest degree cannot make up for the weak
links that permeate our being, which we now rarely dare to address. People
contend that non-Muslims need us more, for you cannot awake the conscious,
reform those who believe they are upright, or make Muslims any more Muslim.
And yet, in the long-term, any patient, doctor, or scholar will agree, the
most damaging act is to fail to detect and treat a body part when it's just
beginning to deteriorate.
Amputation is feasible, but phantom pain and a slashed, not eliminated, risk
for disease still remain. Likewise, it is us and our morality that is the
primary victim of any attempt of ours to "detach" Muslims in a sad state from
ourselves.
Then again, as someone who had a tooth extraction done, put it: "The intense
sensitivity in the gums eventually goes away. You get used to it. And then it
feels good." Great news for a patient? Perhaps. But it bears a stark warning
for any of us who would cut off the members of our family in faith: How long
till we too end up feeling fine with it?
Those who have to make radical choices about their bodies are desperate for a
cure. Luckily, our options aren't so drastic. As the elders and learned among
us reach out to non-Muslims, let them also refuse to extract or neglect our bad
teeth, if you will. Young and old alike, we should rather fill the cavity of
decaying faith among us, then crown it with eman.
(Courtesy: Al Jumuah Magazine)
O Allah! Guide us, make our intentions sincere, accept our deeds, answer our
prayers, and make us of those who are patient.
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