Page 48 - Passivity in Religion

PASSIVITY IN RELIGION

These people, who do not fear Allah as they should fear Him, feel
intense fear instead for other people. This is also stated in the verse;
"You are a greater cause of terror in their breasts than Allah! That is
because they are people who do not understand" (Surat al-Hashr,
13). For this reason, as the verse, "… They imagine every cry to be
against them. They are the enemy, so beware of them." (Surat al-
Munafiqun, 4) calls attention, they assume everything to be
arranged against them.
From another verse, we understand that they experience fear
and anxiety, although they live in a Muslim society:
They swear by Allah that they are of your number, but they
are not of your number. Rather, they are people who are
scared. (Surat at-Tawba, 56)
By stirring up phony crises and conflicts, they also try to impart
the same anxiety upon the Muslims. Even a minor issue may seem
grave to them, disregarding the fact that everything is predestined.
Through their volatile temperaments, they may also influence oth-
ers of poor faith. They want especially to impart intense panic and
fear, the prevailing feelings they suffer, hoping to create the im-
pression that there really exists such a situation for which there
should be fear or panic.
As Allah states in the verse, "… You made trouble for yourselves
and hung back and doubted and false hopes deluded you until
Allah's command arrived. The Deluder deluded you about Allah."
(Surat al-Hadid, 14), they are consumed with doubts. Because they
fail to believe with their hearts that Muslims will prevail by Allah's
will, they try to create the impression that they are faced with insur-
mountable problems, by exaggerating those incidents that seem at
first sight to represent adversity. Because they consider chaos and
conflict as conditions that will diminish Muslims' strength, these they
want to instigate among the Muslims, by overstating something that
would appear negative, though in fact it is insignificant, as a great
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