I have witnessed from beginning to end a half-century of...

I have witnessed from beginning to end a half-century of family matters and what I see latterly bears little or no resemblance to what I saw formerly.

With the adoption by Muslims of Western laws, both their religion and their worldly life have disappeared, as Allah says in His book the Qur'an: They lose both this world and the next: That is indeed the manifest loss.' 1 Many Muslims, and not least their governments, have welcomed the West and lapped up its laws thinking that this was a path to liberation from the tyranny of the Ottoman and Qajar empires whose flawed Islam and complete isolation after the fall of their governments towards the West have been witnessed.

They bring to mind the words of the poet : He who seeks refuge in Amr on being tortured is like one seeking refuge in fire from the burning sun'. Or the words of another : I complained about Amr and when I left him and found other neighbours I wept for Amr'. There is no doubt that the Ottoman and Qajar empires acted out with the range of Islam and for this reason, the countries of Islam fell under the control of the West and the East.

But there is also no doubt that the parable for Muslims in this respect became the example of the Ummayads and the Abbasids, as the poet also says : Ah would that the tyranny of the sons of Marwan 2 return to us,And would that the justice of the sons of Abbas 3 never was'. Muslims had thus become an embodiment of one who has forgotten both the paths'.

For they were, under the Ummayads and the Abbasids, diminished in matters of religion and of earthly life, but under the auspices of the West and the East, they were, except in a very few circumstances, completely bereft of both spheres. Allah alone knows how much we can bear of oppression and repression and deviation from His laws until the correct Islamic situation returns to us. However, we should realise that this return is not possible without awareness.

By awareness we mean awareness of the laws of Islam, from the notion of a single community without geographical borders', through to fraternity whereby every Muslim in any province of Islam is treated in all his affairs as if he is from that province, and freedom, whereby every thing is free except that which is prescribed as illegal, through to all the other vital Islamic laws so profusive in number.