HIJRAH

       The object of Hijrah - Migration of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) from Mecca to Medina -was to establish Islam as a way of life and as an ideology. Allaah is One and His guidance is one. It had to be demonstrated in reality. A society where life was divided into 'Secular' and 'Religious' had therefore to be abandoned and replaced through Hijrah with a system based on 'Unity'.


       Hijrah proved that there was only one relationship - the ideological relationship. It made people to leave their hearths and homes, their kith and kin, their parents and their children for the sake of their Faith.


       Hijrah is not merely an event of historical significance, but one which has a spiritual and social meaning as well. Hijrah is a kind of a process of identification. In Hijrah, not only does one refuse to be associated with any evil concept but one is positively identified with the will of Allaah. That is why the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.), when asked by one of the Sahaabah (companions) which was the best Hijrah, replied:


"The best Hijrah is the Hijrah away from that which displeases the Lord."


       Thus when remaining in Mecca, the first place of worship under the sun, involved displeasure of Allaah, Mecca was abandoned.


Let us remember that:


1. Islam didn't come to make partial reforms. It aimed at the total change. Mecca wasn't the place for that great programme of social transformation. The Meccans wanted to compromise, to be flexible and permissive; but in compromise was the death of an idea that had its own vision of man, and his relation with the universe. Qur'aan Majeed in its inimitable style ruled out compromise.


"Say: O you that reject faith! I worship not that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship. And I will not worship that which you have been wont to worship, nor will you worship that which I worship. To you be your way, and to me mine." (109:1-6)


2. The false notions of humanity were trampled over and a new theoretical framework emerged that;
    (1) from here to eternity, life is one,
    (2) the duality of existence is anaemic to a dynamic life which sticks to a
         paradigm and revolts against any attempt to fragment it,
    (3) the sword of a ruler is as important as the teaching of the Book.


3. A Muslim is a muhaajir. He is on a continuous journey with no respite. His life is a perpetual negation of the non-Islamic values. His life is a perpetual affirmation of the transcendental values - a struggle that ends in either death or the flowering of the cherished values.


4. The night of Hijrah was the precise moment in time when all the forces of nature stood in configuration to respond to his supplication. The sojourn had begun to save the world for Islam.


5. When the riders left Mecca, it was shrouded in darkness; when they reached Medinah, it was resplendent in celestial light.


Would there be a Medinah in our lives? That's the question posed by the Hijrah.


(Courtesy: Yaqeen International)

 

 

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