In our day, the world is forced to witness unprecedented violence, terror, oppression, fraud, imposture, deceit, immorality, fighting, bickering, poverty and hunger. It is obvious that these evil-inspired happenings are more common in our day than they were in the past days. For this reason, every man of conscience and wisdom needs to avoid all lack of responsibility and become more sensitive towards the suffering and injustice taking place in all parts of the world. The evil are in the majority and appear to be powerful, causing distress and anxiety for many people. Disbelief, or the religion introduced to man which is entirely divorced from the teachings of the original revelations, and non-adherence to the moral values of the Qur’an, have created fertile ground for the proliferation of corruption and all forms of wickedness on earth. God informs man about the devastation brought about by disbelievers to the world as follows:
Among the people there is someone whose words about the life of the world excite your admiration, and he calls God to witness what is in his heart, while he is in fact the most hostile of adversaries. When he leaves you, he goes about the earth corrupting it, destroying crops and animals. God does not love corruption. (Surat al-Baqara: 204-205)
The way to bring about an end to cruelty and evil of people who have lost all sense of morality and feelings of compassion, who ignore and even ridicule such values, is through the unity of good and conscientious people working for the dissemination of goodness. The kind of environment which will emerge, unless believers cooperate, is stated in the following verse:
Those who disbelieve are the friends and protectors of one another. If you do not act in this way (be friends and protectors of one another) there will be turmoil in the land and great corruption. (Surat al-Anfal: 73)
This is a heavy responsibility upon the believers, each of whom must strictly avoid contributing to such evil consequences. It is time to stop concerning ourselves over self-centred problems and to seriously strive for the good of other people. The majority of people read the stories about prophets and the lives of their companions in details, appreciate and praise the moral perfection they displayed, and talk of their courage and astuteness, their moderate attitude, as well as their resilience which did not bend even under severest hardship. These are the noble and self-sacrificing people God loved and to whom He gave the glad tidings of His paradise as a reward. Throughout their lives, they were unflinchingly honest and righteous. However, in our time, the good should not only talk of these noble people, but also follow in their footsteps. All conscientious people should compete with one another in attaining moral perfection like that of the prophets and the true believers who accompanied them. Otherwise, every conscientious person will be held responsible for all the cruelty, corruption, conflict and wars he witnessed in this world. This point is also stated in many sayings of Our Prophet (pbuh). One of them reads:
If anyone of you sees something objectionable, he should change it with his hand, but if he cannot, he should change it with his tongue, and if he cannot he should do it in his heart, that being the weakest form of faith. [1]
In this century, when the evil have intensified their activities, and the destitute, women and children are in need of so much help, it is essential that Muslims unite and support one another through any adversity, trouble and under other negative circumstances. In Surah Ali ‘Imran, God informs us about the sort of brotherhood Muslims should maintain and the attitude a Muslim should adopt toward another Muslim:
Hold fast to the rope of God all together, and do not separate. Remember God’s blessing to you when you were enemies and He joined your hearts together so that you became brothers by His blessing. You were on the very brink of a pit of the Fire and He rescued you from it. In this way God makes His Signs clear to you, so that hopefully you will be guided. (Surah Ali ‘Imran: 103)
Indifference is Equal to Being a Member of the Alliance of the Evil
As we have discussed earlier, fear of the reactions of the evil may lead to indifference to unjust practises. However, this is not the attitude assumed by people of conscience. This attitude is typical of those who are blindly addicted to this world and who chase after short-lived worldly interests.
Those who are hesitant to join the side of the good need to know that their silence and indifference will add to the corruption experienced today all over the world. For instance, if the poor and innocent are massacred in one corner of the world, and the people who claim to be good keep silent and watch it from a distance, they would actually be on the side of the cruel ones. Those who remain silent for fear of the cruelty and possible harm of the evil cannot hope to be rewarded in the hereafter as those who displayed patience.
For example, the people of the Prophet Moses (as) and his brother the prophet Aaron (as) abandoned them to their enemies. Only because of their fear of disbelievers, they became so insensitive that they deserted a man who devoted all his life to the way of God, put his life into jeopardy to save the oppressed, left behind an opulent life in the Pharaoh’s palace, strove for the good pleasure of God, and stood bravely against the most cruel man in history. Furthermore, the Prophet Moses (as) and the prophet Aaron (as) were men of courage and faith who resisted all this calamity and hardship only to save their people from the cruelty of the Pharaoh and the torment in hell. The contemptible and cowardly attitude of the people of the Prophet Moses (as) is revealed in the Qur’an as follows:
Two men among those who were afraid, but whom God had blessed, said, ‘Enter the gate against them! Once you have entered it, you will be victorious. Put your trust in God if you are believers.’ They said, ‘We will never enter it, Moses, as long as they are there. So you and your Lord go and fight. We will stay sitting here.’ He said, ‘My Lord, I have no control over anyone but myself and my brother, so make a clear distinction between us and this deviant people.’ (Surat al-Ma’ida: 23-25)
One point deserves special mention here; the sincere and true believers striving for the way of God receive His support, whether they are alone or not. This is the promise of God to believers. God makes this clear in the following verses:
If you do not help him, God did help him when the disbelievers drove him out and there were two of them in the cave. He said to his companion, ‘Do not be despondent, God is with us.’ Then God sent down His serenity upon him and reinforced him with troops you could not see. He made the word of the disbelievers undermost. It is the word of God which is uppermost. God is Almighty, All-Wise. (Surat at-Tawba: 40)
Before you We sent other Messengers to their people, and they too brought them the Clear Signs. We took revenge on those who did evil; and it is Our duty to help the believers. (Surat ar-Rum: 47)
This being the case, taking every opportunity to support the alliance of the good with one’s best effort is vitally important to attain a blissful afterlife for those who say “I am a conscientious and good person”. God’s Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), also stated that this will have a reward in the hereafter for a believer:
Whoever removes an anxiety of the world from a believer, God will remove an anxiety on the Day of Resurrection from him. Whoever makes it easy for someone in difficulty, God will make it easy for him in the world and the Next Life. [2]
In the Qur’an, God informs us that those who turn their backs to the good in times of trouble, or do nothing when they are oppressed, will say “Weren’t we with you?”, when the good will attain felicity and when their rightness will be made clear to everyone:
Those who anticipate the worst for you say, ‘Were we not with you?’ Whenever you gain a victory from God, but if the disbelievers have a success they say, ‘Did we not have the upper hand over you and yet in spite of that keep the believers away from you?’ God will judge between you on the Day of Rising. God will not give the disbelievers any way against the believers. (Surat an-Nisa’: 141)
In such a circumstance, impartiality would not be an acceptable attitude. On the contrary, as mentioned in the verses above, it is a trait peculiar to hypocrites.
In the face of such cruelty, everyone claiming to be among the good must give all the support they can offer. In this regard, they should first make clear with which party they side. That is because dubious is the sincerity of a person who remains silent about cruelty and fails to lend himself to the oppressed. As stressed numerous times earlier in this book, supporting the evil ones is not necessarily being side by side with them. Remaining indifferent to them serves the very same purpose. God warns man in the Qur’an thus:
“And incline not to those who do wrong, or the Fire will seize you.” (Surah Hud: 113)
Being silent is another form of supporting cruelty. In his works, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi describes this situation as follows:
The consent given to ignorance is no different than ignorance; the consent given to error, ignorance and cruelty is erroneous, ignorant and cruel. [3]
The consent given to oppression is no different than oppression; anyone who sides with the oppressor is an oppressor. Anyone who tends to oppression is subjected to the verse “Do not incline to those who do wrong”. [4]
Therefore, if a man is really a conscientious person, then he should resolutely associate himself with the honest and the good. A contrary attitude would imply being on the side of the evil. If someone does not inform the police about a thief, we cannot call him impartial. This man clearly supports the burglar. Alternatively, watching someone who commits cruelty and turning one’s back to evil, saying, “If I try to prevent him, he may also harm me” is simply support of the oppressor. Besides, we must remember that one day one’s own house can also be broken by this same thief, or one may be subjected to the same cruelty by the same oppressor. In this sense, the virtuous thing to do is to involve oneself in a concerted effort to prevent the cruelty of such a person even though he does not threaten personal harm. Otherwise, willingly or not, one would be co-operating with the evil. God gives an account of the people on the Day of Judgement who take sides with the good and who take sides with the evil.
Those who perform good actions will receive better than them and will be safe that Day from fear. Those who perform bad actions will be flung head first into the Fire: ‘Are you being repaid for anything other than what you did?’ (Surat an-Naml: 89-90)
Notes:
[1] Muslim, Sayings of Muhammad, by Prof. Ghazi Ahmad
[2] Imam an-Nawawi, The Complete Forty Hadith, p. 125
[3] Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Risale-i Nur Kélliyati II (The Risale-i Nur Collection II), Emirdag Lahikasi (Emirdag Letters), Nesil Yayinlari, p. 1183
[4] Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Risale-i Nur Kélliyati II (The Risale-i Nur Collection II), Kastamonu Lahikasi (Kastamonu Letters), p. 158
Harun Yahya is a prominent Turkish intellectual.
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