It is not in our stars that we are underlings

As we evaluate we come across this fact, while the world has been moving from one stage of progress to another, Muslims have been stagnant and sterile, severely eclipsed. This is what enforced me to use pen as a piercing medium for expressing the sufferings and drastic demise of Ummah and making an attempt to make them feel the truth to bring revolution and ignite the spheres of consciousness and creativity by unraveling the causes of failure. Muslims are passing through a phase of decline; present deteriorating condition reveals that sharp contrast is taking place in Muslims morals and ethic. This is personal reflection of the realization of severe demise of Muslims. To admit this fact of decline on part of whole Muslim Ummah is an exercise in pain and anguish, the heart aches and brow wrings. These ugly reflexes made me shudder in my spines. Muslims are reduced to the barren remnants devoid of creativity and dynamism. They have become the combination of ineptitude and inactivity, they have been unproductive over the past 1,000 years, no tangible contributions been made in grooves of sciences and learning. This causes a spate of disillusionment. The Muslims were distinguished in the early phases of Islam by creative activities and dynamic spirits. In the short span of 50 years, Islam expanded far beyond its original borders and their achievements left lasting imprints on the nations of the world. They eventually rose as a great force, wielding its scepter of authority over a world greater than of Alexander the Great, greater than of Rome. Corruption, criminality and killing of innocent people are not the attributes of the Ummah. This is not the society which Quran conceived and the prophet evolved. Such a society was accorded the highest accolade of being the best of all nations. It was their true faith and believes their courage and creative thoughts and actions that inspired the followers of Islam to accomplish the highest ideals of life. Now they are divorced of the essential ingredients of Islamic education that led them not only to the tottering of Islamic empires but also to decay and disintegration. Sheikh Al Ghazali, contemporary Muslim scholar of Egypt, observes faith can never be upheld or promoted by imbeciles or lethargic people: Muslims only have become a liability to Islam and an easy target for their enemies. Since they lost their enthusiasm for life and ardor of success and achievement. Muslims have been living in the cobweb of a spider without learning from it, the techniques of survival and sustenance. They are with a glaring discrepancy between thought and action. With the growing violence and extremism, conflicts and sectarian killings Muslims are not moving in right direction. The whole fabric of Muslim Ummah is ruptured because their ways of living are not abide by the rules and principles enunciated by the Islamic code of life. There no action of reformation and reconstruction is visible. In the aftermath of 9/11, they have been exposed to the worst assaults in Afghanistan and Iraq but dismounted as they are failed to counter the attacks. The only thing employed by them is the verbal condemnation without any practical actions. This shows the lack of unity and inability to grasp the significance of the realities and respond to the challenges confronting them. As they deviated from the right path, they polluted the pattern of Islamic thoughts and by doing so they were condemned not only to transgressors, but in fact became a shame and a liability for Islam. We have forgotten the dictates of wisdom and sagacity and unite strategy. Forgetting that it is not in our stars that we are underling They are astray from the path of progression. The history pages are testified and authentic prove of this fact that Muslims were at its peak from 8th to the earliest period of the 12th century with their genius at its apex and Islamic civilization was opening up new vistas of learning and advancement all over the world. Now need is to have rational approach that is only possible through education and moral regeneration to rekindle the sense of glory which was haul mark of Muslim Ummah. We are in need to follow the foot steps of our ancestors and to grip the rope of faith and belief tight. This reminds me the dictum that Long Fellow long ago wrote so beautifully: Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives, sublime, And departing, leave behind us foot prints on the sands of time. We are in need to seek our real identity; the present imprints we are giving to this world are not our recognition, because it is not the fate of the Muslims either to be ruled over by other nations or their inner malice and ill thoughts. Ms. Shazia Hafeez Lecturer, Chief Editor Federal Science College,GW