While the western nations...

While the western nations, on account of the inherent compatibility between the Islamic teachings and modern scientific investigations, are drawing closer to the religion of nature, the Muslims are drifting away from their religion through spurious self-incrimination. Superficial differences have split the Muslim Ummah into vested groups who are engaged more in promoting group interests rather than the interests of their faith.

Insulated from the core message of Islam, they thrive on mutual intolerance; their incremental wrangles have edged out the substance of their faith. Istighathah --- beseeching for help --- has grown into a highly controversial issue. The Muslims have complicated it unnecessarily and undesirably. It has diverted attention from the substance of Islam and engaged the minds of the younger generation in an unpalatable debate. In their opinion, it has become the measuring rod of faith.

They dub those who believe in it as disbelievers even though their hostile labelling goes against the very grain of human nature, and since Islam is the closest to human nature, their view clashes with the spirit of Islamic faith. They are in fact flying in the face of reality. Islam, being a religion of humanity, encourages mutual cooperation among human beings as the progress and development of human society depends on this kind of coordination.

Therefore, to equate this kind of innocuous activity with a breach of faith is nothing but perversity, it is to emphasise the shell at the expense of the kernel; for them the husk matters more than the grain, the wrapping more than the gift, the skin of the orange more than the juice. Thus their attitude is symptomatic of a deeper malaise --- their increasingly strident disaffiliation from the true spirit of their faith. Man by nature is not a hermit or a recluse.

He is a social animal and likes to huddle with other human beings in small settlements or large towns. A feeling of security and cooperation motivates the fact of living together as no man is an island. He loves to seek help from others and to extend help to others. This is ingrained in his nature, which cannot be changed by the petty intellectual squabbles of some skewered zealots.

Even a blunt-headed student of history and sociology knows that interdependence and coordination are the basic facts of human life. The newborn child cannot support himself; he needs someone to feed him.