Judge not

Kashmir – a problem nowhere near solution. Our leaders have to learn from the fate of the Palestinians and the way the West reacted to the Christians in East Timor, South Sudan, etc. Had the Arabs (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, etc.) pulled their weight and really wanted to, they could have forced the creation of a Palestinian state within a matter of weeks, not months or years.

Since Kashmir has a Muslim majority, the West is looking the other way and allowing Modi to massacre and starve them. Our leaders should realize that they will never get Kashmir on a platter – and some formula has to be worked out.

Contrasted to the indifference of many of the Arab States to the plight of fellow Muslims is the intensive interest taken by Sultan Murad IV to the wellbeing of his people. Sultan Murad IV, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623-1640, would often anonymously mingle with the people to see what their daily lives looked like.

One evening he again felt the urge to go out to do so. He called his head of security, and out they went. They came to a busy vicinity and found a man lying on the ground. The Sultan prodded him, but he was dead and the people were going about their own business without bothering about him. Nobody seemed to care about the dead man lying on the ground.

The Sultan asked some of the people: “Why is this man lying dead on the ground and nobody seems to care? Where is his family?” They replied that he was so and so, a drunkard and of loose morals. The Sultan replied: “Is he not from the Ummah of Muhammad (SAW)? Now help me carry him to his house.” They helped the Sultan carry the dead man to his house and, having reached it, they all left. The Sultan and his security remained.

When the man’s wife saw his body, she started weeping and said: “Allah have mercy on you, O friend of Allah! I bear witness that you are from the pious ones.” The Sultan was bewildered. He asked: “How is he from the pious ones when the people say such and such things about him? So much so that no one even cared he was dead.” She replied: “I was expecting that. My husband would go to the tavern every night and buy as much wine as he could. He would then bring it home and pour it all down the drain. He would then say: ‘I saved the Muslims a little today.’

He would then go to a prostitute, give her some money and tell her to close her door till the morning. He would then return home for a second time and say: ‘Today I saved a young woman and the youth of the believers from vice.’ The people would see him buy wine and they would see him go to prostitutes and they would consequently talk about him.

One day I said to him: ‘When you die, there will be no one to bathe you, there will be no one to pray over you and there will be no one to bury you!’ He just laughed and replied: ‘Don’t fear, the Sultan of the believers, along with the pious ones shall pray over my body.’” The Sultan began to cry. He said: “By Allah! He has said the truth for I am Sultan Murad. Tomorrow we shall bathe him, pray over him and bury him”

And so it happened that the Sultan, scholars, pious people and the masses prayed for him. We judge people by what we see and what we hear from others. If only we could see what was concealed in their hearts – a secret between them and their Lord.

“O you who believe, abstain from many of the suspicions. Some suspicions are sins. And do not be curious (to find out faults of others) and do not backbite one another. Does one of you like that he eats the flesh of his dead brother? You would abhor it. And fear Allah. Surely Allah is Most Relenting, Very Merciful.” (49:12)

Email: dr.a.quadeer.khan@gmail.com