I must thank the Habibiyyah Islamic Society, Abuja, for the great privilege to address this distinguished assemblage of Muslims and Islamic scholars on a subject that is of concern to all genuine Muslims. This is a time of perturbation for me, as it should be for every true Muslim, about the state of the Ummah in Nigeria and the world over. To be sure, the West and the Christian world have always had an uneasy relationship with Islam. This is partly because they are competing faiths and partly due to gross misunderstanding of what Islam really represents. However, since September 11, 2001 when some terrorists flew fuel laden planes into buildings in the United States, killing about 3000 people in the worst terrorist attack in the country, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in what scholars now refer to as 'Islamophobia'. In Nigeria, for about three years now, a group popularly known as 'Boko Haram' has engaged the law enforcement, Islamic groups and clerics, Christian churches, innocent Nigerians, political leaders and traditional rulers in a bloody confrontation and has left in its trail agony, blood and death. Boko Haram claims to be Islamic and is asking as a minimum condition the Islamisation of a section of the country and abolition of anything western, especially, its education, which it deems diabolical.Following the activities of Boko Haram, there have been renewed expressions of worry on the stability of Nigeria and there are palpable fears of sectarian pogrom on religious and ethnic fault-lines if urgent steps are not taken to address the insurgency.There are already reports of reprisal attacks against Muslims who are adjudged to be guilty of the attacks by virtue of their being Muslims. If Muslims then engage in counter reprisal apparently in self defence, an unending cycle of violence would have been opened in which there would be mutually assured destruction (MAD). This scenario is foreboding and should send cold shivers down our spines. Let nobody be under any illusion, it is an unwinnable war for any of the parties.In my part of Nigeria, Christians and Muslims are so interwoven in communal living that a religious war and forcible conversion are unthinkable. There is no family that does not have a generous mix of Christians, Muslims and traditional religious worshippers. Even though I am a Muslim, my uterine sister is a fervent Christian. I am from a community renowned for great Christian clerics and was the epicentre of Pentecostal revival and evangelism in the mid-20th Century. There is a famous saying among Christians that Ilesa is God's headquarters. I am proud of this heritage although it does not subtract anything from my Islamic faith. This is not a reaction to Boko Haram. Any fairly honest Nigerian knows that what the group stands for does not approximate Islam by any stretch of the imagination. This however is about the dynamics within Islam and if this is not well managed it could affect its perception by the larger world and its fortunes in a changing world.The global perception index of Islam, and Muslims, is probably at its lowest since its emergence 1,433 years ago. These are times when a typically committed Muslim who is passionate about his faith is viewed as a terrorist, especially in the non-Muslim countries of the West. The Ummah of Muhammad (SAW) is greatly troubled. Yet the situation has not always been like this. It is the case that in human affairs, different times bring different fortunes. This applies to individuals, to communities, to nations, and even ideas. It is with this in mind that we are gathered here in this holy month of Ramadan to examine some of the salient issues ' Education and the Principles of Jihad ' that impact upon the destiny of the Muslim Ummah today.A look at IslamIslam is a religion and a way of life. Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that Allah revealed through all His Messengers and Prophets to humanity. A clear fifth of the world peoples are Muslims believing in Islam as a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness that is totally devoid of the absurdities being associated with their faith.As a general term, Islam shares the same root with 'salaam', meaning peace. In a technical sense, Islam implies submission, willing submission, to the Will of Allah. It is an unforced submission. This is better demonstrated by the encounter between Allah (SWT) and Prophet Ibrahim (AS) which is captured in the following verse: 'When his Lord told him, 'Aslim (Submit yourself to your Lord),' he responded: 'aslamtu li Rabbil 'aalameen (I have submitted myself wholly to the Lord of the worlds)'' (Qur'an 2:131). Flowing from this, submission in Islam must be a conscious, willing, peaceful one. Nobody must be coerced to submit to Islam; nobody must be forced to accept Islam. Allah taught us this much in the Holy Qur'an: 'there shall be no compulsion in religion'. That is why He declares: 'Had Allah willed, He could have made all of humanity one nation (of believers).' As the scholars make clear, while combining the two strands of meaning of Islam, a Muslim achieves peace through willing (peaceful) submission to the will of Allah. Therefore, for a Muslim, the end and the means of Islam are one and the same ' PEACE. Muslims demonstrate their submission to Allah by serving Him and following His commands. The peace that they attain through this obedience is reflected in their relationships with Allah, with themselves and with others.The whole world is the handiwork of Allah. The whole of mankind is His creation. Believer and unbelievers, the faithful and the unfaithful, the heedful and the heedless, He created us all. Indeed, Allah points out in the Qur'an that: 'He (Allah) it is Who created you, then some of you are disbelievers and some of you are believers.' In Islam, mankind is one big family. We all descended from Adam and his wife, Hawaw (Eve). It does not matter that we differ in our ways and choices; Allah remains our common God. He is the Lord of the worlds (Rabbul 'aalameen). The Qur'an attests to this in Surah Al-Nisaai (4:1): 'O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women.'By Islamic standard, the differences among Allah's creation are in accord with His divine wisdom which no man can unravel. That this diversity is a source of strength for mankind is neither far-fetched nor sublime. Allah, the Creator, Himself directs our thought to this in Surah Al-Hujuraat (49:13): 'O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know (not despise) one another.'What else can anyone add' How can anyone define Islam differently from the idea of the Creator Himself' This is a lesson for us all: wherever Allah puts a full stop, we must never replace it with a comma. Islam is Allah's deen (religion) not ours. As Allah emphatically proclaims: 'Upon Allah is the responsibility to explain the Straight Path' (Qur'an 16:9).Over a billion multi-racial, ethnic, culture and diverse peoples across the globe, from Philippines to Nigeria, are united by their common Islamic faith. About 18 per cent live in the Arab land, with Indonesia having the largest Muslim community in the world followed by India. Substantial parts of Asia and Africa are Muslim while significant minorities of Muslim exist in Russia, China, North and South America and Europe.Education in IslamI strongly believe that education, formal and informal, remains the most potent force for the liberation of the people and the development of the human society. The human society is founded on knowledge. The development and progress of the human race is anchored on knowledge. The difference between development and underdevelopment can be seen as a reflection of the gap in the knowledge available to different societies. Similarly, poverty and underdevelopment are closely connected with lack of education and ignorance.(To be continued)(Being a Lecture delivered by the Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, at the 2012/1433 National Unity Ramadan Lecture of Al-habibiyyah Islamic Society of Nigeria, Abuja, at the Women Development Centre, Abuja, on Saturday July 28, 2012)
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