Tears of the Muslim Ummah

   

In his Friday Sermon of 12 April 2024~ 02 Shawwal 1445 AH, Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International, Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Al Mahdi Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius, spoke movingly about the plight of several Muslim communities around the world. In China, the communist regime is applying repressive methods to eradicate the cultural memory, social practices, and religious consciousness of the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang. Likewise, in Myanmar, the Rohingya Muslims are facing worst forms of violence and ethnic-cleansing at the hands of the Buddhist extremists and the military junta. Elsewhere, several Muslim minority communities are facing the onslaughts of anti-Islam forces. Majoritarian, ethnic-nationalist parties in some countries, as well as the secular fascists in other lands, are equally united in their hatred of Islam, and they scheme to restrict the basic human rights and cultural identity of the Muslims in their midst. It seems as though other religious groups, dominant as they are today in their lands,  are mortally afraid of what the future holds for them as Islam gradually spreads in these lands incrementally. On the other hand, in Muslim nations such as Yemen, Syria and the Sudan, civic conflicts and internecine warfare have taken a toll on entire Muslim communities, with unending violence devastating every day life in these societies for years altogether, leading to large scale forced displacement and migration. 

In the killing fields of Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied territories of the Palestinian people, Israel's relentless bombing campaigns over the last six-months have murdered more than thirty five thousand persons- a large majority of them children and women; hundreds of thousands more became displaced in the land, with thousands critically injured while entire hospitals and housing buildings stand destroyed, making human life virtually intolerable in the land. And yet, the people of Palestine patiently awaits the dawn of their liberation from the clutches of their racist oppressors. Hazrat Khalifatullah's speech concludes with a long, heart-felt prayer to the Almighty God for the destruction of the forces of evil, and for the alleviation and edification of the suffering Muslims of the world, Insha Allah, Aameen.    

Read the Friday Sermon Below:

Gaza: Ceasefire Now

 

Given Israel’s prolonged military occupation of Palestinian Territories since the 1967 war, and its grossly unfair and unjust treatment of the 5 million Palestinian people desirous of national freedom, human dignity and basic rights; the deception, duplicity and betrayal that marked its state conduct even after the signing the Oslo Peace Agreements with the Palestinian national movement in the early 1990s, especially its high crime of obstructing the emergence of a viable and independent Palestinian State in the illegally-occupied and confiscated territories; the October 7 declaration of 'Operation Al Aqsa Storm' by the Hamas military wing marks a transformational moment in the wider region.

 

Seeking to avenge its sense of national humiliation over the killing of over 300 soldiers and around 800 civilians as well as hostages taken away into Gaza, Israel lost a sense of proportion in its war against Hamas, unleashing rampant bombing of Palestinian cities and villages- including schools, hospitals and UN refugee camps; displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians from their habitats; killing thousands of innocent children, women and the aged. The already long-besieged enclave of Gaza- the largest ‘open-prison’ in the world with Israel controlling entry and exit points of the Strip-  is now facing a humanitarian disaster with the blockade of even essential food, clean water, medicine and fuel. 

The attitude of the United States, as well as the European states betray their indulgence of Israeli military excesses against the civilian population in the occupied territories. As against the fundamental rules of international law and the demands of international humanitarian law, Israel somehow seems to have an exception crafted into the rules of conduct when it comes to equal application. Such glaring injustice invites resistance, one way or the other.  Against the backdrop of the ongoing bombing of the Palestinian territories, and collective punishment of the people by Israel, leaders of Arab States assembled in Egypt to share a message of peace and prudence to the international community; outlining the immediate steps required to address the conflict, as well as the contours of a shared future for Jews, Christians and Muslims in the region. Reproduced Below is the full text of Jordan’s King Abdullah II remarks at Cairo Summit for Peace on 21 October 2023.      

Imam Mahdi: A Message for Humanity

 

In a special communication issued on 23 October 2023, Imam Al Mahdi of this era and the Holy Founder of the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International, Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius, addressed human kind and Muslims at large, especially his disciples and followers in the Jamaat- for the benefit of all those who wish to take to the straight path by the will of God, the Lord of all people. This vital message calls attention to recent revelations Hazrat Khalifatullah (aba) received from God Almighty. Further, the special message provides an assessment on the behavioural attitudes and motivations of important nations vis-a-vis the ongoing Palestine-Israeli conflict, and on the calamities happening in the world.   

Based on his Divinely-gifted deep insight on international affairs, the Sheikh-ul-Islam (aba) cautions thoughtful people against the dangers facing humanity when man deviates from the Just Way, start violating the rights of others and curbing their freedoms and interests for unfair advantages, and even commits excesses against fellow men in pursuit of property and riches. A hardening trajectory in sectarian emotions and vengeful group feelings take the shape of simmering national conflicts, and escalating violence in certain regions can verily lead to a third world war with its horrendous consequences for humanity at large. Given the grim and dire prospects of whole-scale turbulence everywhere for a period of time, Hazrat Saheb (aba) counsels the faithful to take stock of food, medicine, and other basic needs of life and to save money for community /collective purposes- indeed, we need to be prepared to deal with issues of war-induced shortages and deprivations, including the protective needs of women and children; everyone is urged to proactively take steps, individually and collectively, to address likely challenges of a world turning upside down.  

 

Read Extracts from the Message Below: 

The following are the recent revelations received by the Khalifatullah (aba) on 22 October 2023 after Esha prayer:

 

Inna-Hudallaahi wa huwal-Huda. Wa ummirna lin-nuslima li Rabbil-Aalamin.

Allah’s Guidance is the true Guidance. We have been commanded to submit to the Lord of all the Worlds.

'Zalzala Azim' and 'Fath-e-Islam'

 

According to Divine Promise- a grand prophecy preserved in the Holy Qur'an-, the religion of Allah as taught by the Holy Prophet of Islam (sa) shall prevail on, and dominate over, all other so-called ideologies of life in the fullness of time. Yet, ironically, several Muslim communities around the world face glaring existential challenges at the hands of the disbelievers today; anti-Muslim forces in different nations are seeking to destroy Muslim communities. The mass expulsions and genocidal violence orchestrated against the Muslims in Palestine, Bosnia, Central African Republic, the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Uighur Muslims in China, etc. are emblematic of the grave challenges of identity, dignity and rights of people who believed in Allah (swt) and followed Islam as their religion. Palestine is a symbol of the oppression and destitution, slavery and subjugation that the Muslim Ummah stares in their political fortunes in our times. 

In his Friday Sermon of 18 November 2022~23 Rabi’ul Aakhir 1444 AH, Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al  Khalifatullah Munir A. Azim (aba) of Mauritius closely reviews the continuing  great injustice in Palestine, and also other internal challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in establishing the Faith and its majesty on earth. Hazrat Khalifatullah (aba) cautions the Muslim Ummah about the painful consequences of the lack of unity and joint position within the Ummah on common threats and challenges. Narrow self-serving positions, economic interests, national pride, sectarian prejudices and schisms keep the Arab/Muslim world busy in their own silos, blissfully oblivious of the challenges facing the Ummah. In the meanwhile, other powers, like the Satan, can sense opportunities, easily mount and sustain their assault on Islam by picking sides among the believers, as they find the House divided on multiple fault lines.  Be that as it may, Hazrat Saheb (aba) warns the world that anti-Islam forces will not be able to 'finish' Islam through their maverick plots and conspiracies. The chosen messenger of Allah (swt) in this era foretells that the pharaohs of this era will also meet with Divine vengeance when they seek to destroy His religion, and the predominance of His servants and the religion of Allah will unfurl a new dawn in this world, Insha Allah, Aameen.  

The Wider Plan of the USA in favour of Israel

 

Ever since the creation of Israel, Palestine has become a symbol of unjust oppression. Innocents in millions have since then been debarred from their homes and properties. Peace which was their right was snatched away from them when their motherland became the object of a deep war and division.

 

In one way or another, on a daily basis we hear about the horrors committed against the Palestinian people – heart-breaking and sad; it is such a situation which brings tears to the eyes. They are oppressed in all forms and live in an open prison.

Faith: 'Muslims under Trial'

 

In his Friday Sermon of 04 November 2022 ~09 Rabi’ul Aakhir 1444 AH, Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius calls attention to a very sobering lesson for all true believers in every era: the future and good fortune of a people is linked to their piety and righteousness in life. Likewise, according to sacred spiritual wisdom preserved in the Holy Qur'an, when a people become lawbreakers and deviates from Divine teachings, the quagmire of misguidance, misfortune and enslavement would engulf them in a cycle of never-ending despair and disaster. 

According to the profound wisdom and prescient assessment of the Holy Prophet (sa), fatal flaws can encircle a people under trial when they let go of the true spirit of Faith, embrace materialism and splinter into different sects and political groupings. When they drown in immorality and injustice; worship money and ease; neglect the poor, and oppress the defenceless; become enamoured of other cultures even at the price of one's Faith and corrode the strength of its values through frequent disputes, schism and factional feuds; they themselves will be complicit in external intervention in internal affairs, perpetuating the vicious cycle of degradation of faith and moral fibre and consequent national decadence. Pointing to a sacred tradition of the Holy Prophet (sa) on the aforesaid theme, Hazrat Khalifatullah (aba) observes in this discourse that each one of the signs of decadence is discernible in the dire state of our world today, especially in the predicament of the Arab nation.        

 

Reflecting on the continuing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories- including East Jerusalem [the land of the holiest Masjid Al Aqsa]- without any fair deal for the people under subjugation for over half a century, and the recent events involving Arab leaders facilitating Israel's integration into the regional rivalry against Iran, in the backdrop of US- scheming in the region; Hazrat Khalifatullah (aba) notes the searing reality that despite their public statements, the Arab leaders in the ring show no real commitment to the cause of the Oppressed, as they are more concerned about their own narrow interests of power and pelf. The agony and misfortune of foreign occupation and the humiliation of subjugation today is a grim reminder of the ways in which Divine vengeance engulfs a people under trial, observes Hazrat Saheb (aba) in the discourse.

Israel: A Racist Bully

 

Israel & U.S under Fire 

Israel’s attempt to justify its recent brutal assault on Gaza rings hollow to anybody familiar with events in Israel, where the government of Israel, backed by anti-Arab racists, has systematically, cruelly, and persistently violated the basic human rights of the Arab population. Like I told you last week in my sermon, Human Rights Watch, a global NGO with many Jewish leaders, has condemned Israel for crimes against humanity. 

Israel behaviour puts US President Joe Biden’s administration, which professes a foreign policy based on human rights, under the spotlight. If that commitment is genuine, the administration should support an independent UN investigation of Israeli human rights violations against the Arab population and suspend military aid to Israel until the inquiry is completed and the human rights of the Palestinians are secured. 

The Agony of Palestine

'When they enter a country as conquerors, they destroy it and disgrace and humiliate its elite citizens. And these (people) too will do the same'.   (27:35)

The Zionist entity's military conquest of Palestine and the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948 created profound consequences for the over a millennium-old Arab way of life in the land. The 'Nakba' (the Palestinian Catastrophe or the destruction of the Palestinian society in 1948) forced millions to leave their homelands and live in exile as refugees or stateless migrants. With the 1967 war, more Arab territory came under Israeli occupation, and the Arabs living in their own lands became a subject people at the hands of the occupying forces (the State of Israel), and the humiliating political, religious  and national conditions continue to engulf the people even after half a century. It is manifestly unacceptable that a State (Israel) perpetrates racist/apartheid policies under their administration. Under international law, the right to national self-determination is a fundamental right of all enslaved peoples who are either under colonial subjugation or foreign occupation. Indeed, the Palestinian people deserve their freedom from slavery and national liberation. [Inset: Israeli soldiers stand guard as Palestinian demonstrators gather during a protest against Israeli settlements in Beita town near Nablus [Mohamad Torokman/Reuters/Al Jazeera]

The recent explosive political situation obtaining in the Occupied Territories of Palestine- Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem -is indicative of the widespread distress the Israeli policies anchored on the dispossession of the Palestinian peoples of their land are causing. While Israeli security and well being is being privileged in media bytes from influential leaders, the everyday struggle of the Palestinian people for dignity and rights and freedom continues to be ignored and trampled upon with impunity. In his Friday Sermon of 09 July 2021~27 Dhul-Qaddah 1442 AH, Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam Hazrat Khalifatullah Munir A. Azim (aba) of Mauritius speaks movingly about the precarious situation of the Palestinian people and the need for the international community, especially the United Nations, to "force Israel to end the occupation and find a solution to the endless acts of violence which claim innocent lives on both sides [Muslims-Jews – Palestinians-Israelites]."

Read the Friday Sermon Below:  

The Middle East on Short Fuse

Based on recurring Divine inspirations and special Messages in recent times, Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam Hadhrat Khalifatullah  Munir Ahmad Azim (atba) of Mauritius is inviting the world's attention to the looming dangers lurking beneath our troubled global order. These Divinely-inspired warnings can be read in his recent Friday Sermons, shared also through this Blog. When they look at, read up and reflect on these profound words intimating about the extraordinary dangers facing our small world; knowledgeable Muslims will remember the prophecies contained in the Holy Qur’an, as well as in the Prophetic traditions on the portents/events of the End Times. Ahmadis among them will also remember the dire warnings lefty behind by the Promised Massih (as) in the last century and also the unfulfilled aspects of those grim prophecies concerning the Later Days. 

The World at the Brink

There is little doubt that humanity is at the brink of Disaster(s) in our times. World nations are facing multiple dangers of an existential proportion: of environmental degradation, species extinction and the grim prospect of nuclear annihilation. The unsustainable consumption patterns in the industrialized world have also produced the irreversibly great danger of global warming and climate change, as science now confirms. The devastating consequences of this drastic change in weather patterns would be felt everywhere. Indeed, climate change threatens as it comes home not just in the main lands of the industrial world, but even the inhabitants of remote island nations who had done nothing comparable to  to bring about the whole problem. 

Likewise, powerful nations have arrogated to themselves ‘total security’ of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and they threaten other nations that defy their dictates. So much so that countries like North Korea seek nuclear capability as a security imperative; triggering global fears of a nuclear war in the not so distant future! Short of being fully wiped out from the very face of the earth through the aforesaid blinding passions of riches and excesses, the unbridled armament race among the nations has the potential of promising a veritable Hell on Earth for those of us- the hapless common humans- who are condemned to live amidst all these dangers.

The multilateral system, forged after the Second World War, is bedevilled by multiple crises and it seems incapable of providing effective solutions to the manifold challenges of global governance- poverty and rising inequality;environmental degradation; the arms race and the quest for nuclear weapons; internal conflicts and terrorism; racism and xenophobia, national chauvinism and Islamophobia, etc. International institutions and organizations are designed in such a way that these works to protect the entrenched interests of the Big Nations, rather than seeking to sub serve the larger cause of global justice and equity. These organizations largely ignore the real concerns of the poorer nations when they raise their experiences of political injustice and  colonial exploitation. 

The Future of Jerusalem

The city of Jerusalem holds profound significance to the spiritual imagination of billions of people around the world. For the city and its precincts are intimately connected to the sacred memory of a long chain of Divine servants and events mentioned in the Holy Scriptures of three great religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 

For the Jewish people, Jerusalem is the heart of the Promised Land blessed and gifted to their pious ancestors by the Lord Almighty. The grand prophecy in the Qur'an reads: "And after him We said to the children of Israel, ‘Dwell ye in the land; and when the time of the promise of the latter days comes, We shall bring you together out of various peoples.’ [17:105] 

For the Christians, the city is sacred for being the venue of all the major events in the life and preaching of Jesus Christ (as). For the Muslims, the city holds spiritual significance for a variety of reasons, including one of the most important events in the spiritual life of the Holy Prophet (sa), ie., the Isra’ Mi’raj- the Night Journey and Ascent to the Heavens: when Allah (swt) caused the Prophet (sa), in the space of a single night, to journey from Makkah to Jerusalem and from there to heaven and back again. The Qur’an states: “Glory to Him who made His servant travel by night from the sacred place of worship to the furthest place of worship, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him some of Our signs: He alone is the All Hearing, the All Seeing”. (17:02)

It was during the Holy Prophet’s journey from the site of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem through the seven heavens that he encountered many Judeo-Christian prophets and finally came before the Exalted Presence: “until he was two bow-lengths away or even closer” (53:10). This mystical vision of the Holy Prophet (sa) clearly pointed to the deep connections of Islam to the Jewish and Christian prophetic heritage and Jerusalem came to be the first Quibla, direction of prayer for the Muslim community for many years- contributing to its sacred status in Islam. Through Divine revelation (2: 144-45), later of course, the Sacred Mosque in Makkah became the permanent direction of prayer for the Muslims.    

Ariel Sharon: ‘Troubled legacy of a bulldozer’

The passing of Ariel Sharon, the war criminal-politician of Israel, is a grim reminder of the continuing injustice and impoverishment of the brave Palestinian people under conditions of racial apartheid and colonial enslavement in their own homeland, now known as the Occupied Territories. Sharon literally got away with murder and mayhem he unleashed against countless innocent civilians of Lebanon and Palestine, thanks to the support of the worldly powers that sustained his politics. Yet, he spent his last years of life in this very world in a condition of “neither living nor dead” in which no worldly might could be of any help or succour to him.  In an article published in the Hindu Newspaper (India) on January16, 2014, distinguished scholar Vijay Prashad points out that the eulogising pabulum that greeted Ariel Sharon’s death ignored his history as a harsh military leader with a record of many atrocities.

We reproduce the Essay for the benefit of our readers:

The settlements, for Ariel Sharon, were an instrument to make life so miserable for Palestinians that they would eventually quit the remainder of their lands