Page 100 - The Winter of Islam and the Spring to Come

THE WINTER OF ISLAM AND THE SPRING TO COME
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als. It is enough to enter one of the mud huts they live in to see how
low their standard of living really is. The huts generally consist of two
rooms. There are a few unusable pots and pans. Also one or two beds,
if they can properly be called that. A mother sits in the corner with a
baby on her lap. A pan boils over an earth fire, where a few branches
that someone has managed to scrounge up are burning. There's ab-
solutely nothing to eat anywhere! I was too embarrassed to look
under the lids off any of the pans. In none of the tents was there any-
thing to eat or to sleep on! A very old piece of cloth was spread out in
the middle of the floor in one of the tents. Maybe that was used as a
bed. When I asked how many people lived in that tent, I was told 11.
Outside, a single pot was boiling… 19

The above example is just one of the refugee dramas experienced
all over the world. The living conditions of the millions of refugees in
Palestine, the sufferings of the nearly one million Muslim refugees dur-
ing the Kosovo War, and the hundreds of thousands of Chechen
refugees are even worse.
In all these situations there lies wisdom that all people of con-
science need to grasp. There is wisdom in all things that happen in the
world, as they are intended to be a test. The lesson that believers must
learn from the experiences we have been considering is the clear impor-
tance of explaining the existence of Allah and the rewarding morality of
the Qur'an to the whole world. What they need to do in the face of that
truth is to fulfill their duty of waging a war of ideas against all tenden-
cies that deny Allah, and to lead men from doing wrong and command
them to do what is right. In this way, people with strong consciences,
who fear Allah will emerge, and all cruelty will disappear. Those who
oppress others will pay the price for their deeds, both in this world and
the next. Allah reveals this truth in the following verses:
Those who oppose Allah and His Messenger will be subdued and
overcome as those before them were also subdued and overcome.
We have sent down Clear Signs. The disbelievers will have a hu-
miliating punishment. On the Day Allah raises up all of them to-
gether, He will inform them of what they did. Allah has recorded it
while they have forgotten it. Allah is a Witness of all things. (Surat
al-Mujadala: 5-6)