So how do we do the best deeds? It teaches us that the Sharia has been given to us, the law of Islam, and this is the path to success. The Sharia actually means the road or the path. If you follow the Sharia, it can tell us how to live our lives so that we can reach success on the Day of Judgment. As opposed to this, Western education says that man is an animal, we are all in a jungle, this is cutthroat competition. There's only one rule: survival of the fittest. You either kill or you are killed. So your job is to kill everybody and become the survivor. These are the answers which Western education provides us.
So again, there is the question of knowledge. What kind of knowledge should we seek? Islam teaches us that we need to learn that the real success is on the Day of Judgment. So how do we succeed? How to do the best deeds? What is a good deed? What is a bad deed? What is the knowledge which will allow us to do the good deeds and succeed?
In the West, there is no akhara, there is no God, there is no judgment, there is no afterlife. So the only thing is how to succeed in this world. Success means power, pleasure, profits, all the benefits of this Dunya. Survival of the fittest is the only moral law. And that is why the West started global colonization and conquest, and that is the best way to maximize wealth and power and knowledge of building bombs and weapons and organizing economic power to dominate. That is useful knowledge. Knowledge of how to succeed in the Day of Judgment, that is useless knowledge, according to the West. So they don't teach any of that. They only teach how to get power, how to get pleasure, how to get profits.
When this kind of lecture is given, Muslims immediately ask the following question: "Well, if we start focusing on success of the akhara, then automatically we will lose our focus on this Dunya. So we will become failures in this Dunya." Allah reassures us that if you believe and follow Allah, then you will also be given worldly success. And if you look at the rise of Islam, you will see that the Muslims were pursuing the pleasure of Allah, and they created the greatest empire that mankind has seen with the help of Allah. And they did something which has never before been seen. They took two advanced civilizations which have been in existence for hundreds of years, and they destroyed both of them, just a handful of Muslims. So the worldly power was given to the Muslims because they pursued the success of the akhara. So it's not that we will become failures in Dunya if we focus on pleasing Allah and success of the akhara.
So we have just reviewed that the Quran says that corruption occurs on the land and sea, bad things happening today. We are seeing lots of bad things. Why? Because of our evil deeds. And Allah will not change our condition until we change ourselves. So how do we change society? By changing ourselves. So today, the majority of the efforts that we are making are telling other people that you should be doing this and you should be doing that, and the leaders should be doing that, and the USA should be doing that, and Belgium should be doing this, and Africa should be doing this. But no, nobody talks about what I should be doing. And that's the only thing which matters. You want to change the world? I am the only one I can change, and I am the world.
So we have to recognize our colonized minds because one simple sign is that we know who Einstein is and we don't know who Sheikh Murabital Hajj was. And that's a sign of colonization. We know who are the heroes of the West, we don't know who are the heroes of Islam. So we have been taught that by our education that the purpose of our life is to maximize pleasure. This is what economics teaches. And then, of course, useful knowledge is that which will help us achieve this goal. So this is about producing goods and consumer goods. There's no concept of spiritual progress because we are just another kind of animal. Animals don't have spiritual progress.
So the first thing we do is to remember the message of the Quran that whoever saves one life, it is as if he has saved the entire mankind. So in the eyes of Allah, one life is just as precious as all of mankind. So saving one life, just my own life, is like saving all of mankind. So Hadith says they don't consider any good deed as small, even smiling on the face of your brother. So we are thinking, "Who am I? I'm a little person, and what can I do? I can do only little things." So in the eyes of Allah, if I can change my life, this is as if we have changed the whole world, all of humanity. And if I can do one small good deed, that can be as valuable as huge deeds. And we will see.
So the key to the revolution, to make a big change in the world, we have to start by making small changes within ourselves. Now it seems very paradoxical. So does it mean that we should go and retire into a cave and do zikr of Allah? And if we do that, and maybe we do that, that will bring us close to Allah. But the world will not change. So it doesn't seem to make any sense. But as I said, when you take the Quran as your gold standard and you say that, "Okay, if it doesn't make sense, it's because my thinking is wrong. So I have to change my thinking." Then you can understand the solution to this problem.
So the solution is that how do we make change in ourselves? By trying to change the world. And Allah has told us how to struggle with the world. So this is a very subtle point. You have to think about it. And one example which makes it clear is the isometric exercise. So I say in an isometric exercise, I stand again near the wall, and I use both of my hands, and I push the wall as hard as I can. Now, this seems like a silly thing to do because the wall is not going to move. But the goal is not to move the wall. The goal is to build the strength of my muscles.
So just like that, you see when you see somebody jogging, and you say, "Oh, he's going very fast. He's trying to get to some place," and you offer him a ride that, "Okay, why don't you come in my car, and I will take you there very quickly?" So he says, "No, no, I'm not trying to get to any place. The jogging itself is building my strength." So we struggle against the world not because we want to change the world, but because we want to build our spiritual progress.
So when you make a mistake, lots of people are working on trying to create an Islamic government, trying to bring out the Khalifa and basically changing the whole world. And then they are very disappointed, "Oh, we have been working for decades and no Islamic government in sight, no Khalifa in sight. We have been working on trying to eliminate Buddha, but there is no reduction, it's increasing." So as long as when you're looking at the external world for results, then you will be disappointed. The wall did not move. But if you make the intention of changing yourself, you will see that if you try to implement the orders of Allah in our lives and in the society, you will sense your own spiritual progress. And you can sense it from day to day, from the morning to the night. You will see a change in yourself. And that is the revolution. The revolution starts inside you.
SUMMARY by Sara Siddiqi
In the Qur’an, Allah (swt) provides answers to the most critical questions that concern human beings, questions regarding our purpose in life. As Muslims, we see the universe as a temporary home and a testing ground for us. This gives our lives purpose and meaning, which is to perform the best of deeds in order to please Allah (swt). The shari’ah is the path to achieving a successful life and defines what success is. In contrast, the West insists that the universe was created in a cosmic accident. As a result, our lives are rendered meaningless. At the end of our lives, we will perish and become dust without being accountable for our actions. Therefore, the purpose of humanity is limited to success in this world. This success is characterized by competition and survival of the fittest. Humans are essentially reduced to animals in this worldview.
From these two different paradigms, we can derive what it means for knowledge to be useful. Useful knowledge is knowledge that helps you achieve your purpose in life. In Islam, this is knowledge of how to succeed on the Day of Judgement, how to do the best deeds, and how to differentiate between good and bad deeds. In the Western paradigm, useful knowledge is that which enables worldly success - specifically power, pleasure, and profit. Survival of the fittest is the only moral law, so global colonization and conquest are objectively the best way to maximize wealth and power. This thinking encourages the development of technology, weapons, and luxury goods. By these standards, religious knowledge is useless. Our minds have been colonized to believe that this kind of knowledge is better than spiritual progress.
It is important to note that while Islam emphasizes success in the akhirah, ukhrawi success does not preclude success in the dunya. Allah (swt) promises worldly success to Muslims who fulfill their promise to Him. An example of this is the rise of Islam - the early Muslims were given miraculous victories over Persia and Rome, both of which were advanced civilizations with massive resources in comparison to the Muslims.
The Qur’anic message indicates that corruption appears in the world due to humanity’s evil deeds. Moreover, Allah (swt) tells us He will not change our condition until we change ourselves. Therefore, the key to changing society is to change ourselves. This is in opposition to the typical narrative of change that focuses on changing the external world. Rather, the key to change is changing our internal states, focusing on ourselves as individuals, before we try to change external reality as this change in reality comes from Allah (swt).
We must remember the Qur’anic lesson that whoever saves one life, it is as if he has saved all of mankind. One life is just as precious as the entirety of humanity according to Islam, so bringing one person to guidance, even if it is oneself, is equated to guiding all of humanity. This is supported by the hadith that says not to consider any good deed as too small, even smiling in the face of one’s brother. Thus, the key to an Islamic revolution is that big changes in the world result from small changes within ourselves.
An objection can be raised to this philosophy of change in that doing nothing but worship will not cause change outside of ourselves. Yet we know that monasticism is prohibited in Islam. The solution is that the way to make change internally is actually through real life interactions with the the external world. By undergoing a struggle to improve our relationships and our interactions with others and the world, we will purify ourselves. This spiritual progression can be analogized to physical exercise. For example, the isometric exercise of pushing against a wall does not have an observable effect of moving the wall. Someone can exert all their energy but still fail to affect the wall. Yet the goal of this exercise is not to move the wall, but to increase one’s strength and exercise their muscles. Similarly, the intention behind jogging is not to move rapidly from one place to another, but to affect our bodies. In the same way, we are commanded to engage with people and society for the purpose of training ourselves, improving our character, and gaining closeness to Allah (swt) through this process. The goal in changing the world is really to change ourselves, though each process is inseparable from the other.