DUTIES OF A MUSLIM

BY MD. HADIUL ISLAM (FARUK) 

When you recite the Kalim : La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah, it amounts to your simultaneous affirmation that the only law for you is the Law of God your sovereign is only God , your ruler is only God, you have to obey only God , and only that thing is true and right for you which is vouchsafed through Gods book and His messenger.

 This means that you relinquished your independence in favour of God as soon as you became a Muslim. consequently you have forfeited your right to say now: ``My opinion is this, the practice in the world is this , the family custom is this , that  gentleman  and that holy person advises like this``.

 In the face of Allah's word and His messeger's Sunnah, you cannot put forward such excuses. Now your duty is to judge everything in the light of the QUR'AN and Sunnah. Accept what is in conformity with these and throw overboard what goes counter to these, irrespective of its being anybody's order or any body's practice.

 It is an exercise in contradiction to call oneself a Muslim on the one hand, and on the other , gives preference to ones opinion, or worldly custom, or any persons word or action over and above the QUR'AN and Sunnah. Just as a blind man cannot say he has eyes, nor can a noseless person claim to have nose , in the same way no such person can call himself a Muslim who refuses to subordinate all the affairs of his life to the dictates of the QUR'AN and  Sunnah and flaunts his wisdom, or worldly custom, or any human beings saying and practice, in preference to Gods injunctions and His messengers advice.

Whoever does not want to be a Muslim cannot be compelled by anybody to act against his will. He is free to adopt any religion he likes and calls himself a Muslim, he must fully understand that he can remain a Muslim as long as he is within the bounds of Islam. The bounds  of Islam are: to accept the word of God and His messengers Sunnah as the criterion of Truth and Justice, and to regard everything opposed to it as false. 

Whoever remains within these bounds is a Muslim and whoever transgresses them gets expelled from Islam. And if even after this expulsion he considers himself a Muslim and announces that he is a Muslim,he deceives his own self and he world too.