WHY SOMETIMES SOME INTELLECTUAL MUSLIMS FALL IN TRAPS OF LIBERALISM, FEMINISM, RATIONALISM AND EVEN ATHEISM ?
By dr. Ahesankhan Riyadh
Usually this is seen in countries with pluralistic society with secular democracies where we muslims are more exposed to these fitna 24×7.
I always use to get surprised that how can a well educated intellectual muslim fall victim to these aberrant, illogical and unislamic ideologies ? …after pondering upon this issue sufficiently and getting first hand experience of interactions with some of those ex muslims as well as with those on the verge of leaving islam who are under the spell of these ideologies I got this impression that among such intellectuals there are two categories mainly :
1. Those who started deviating from islam during their teenage itself ….due to their intellect and inquisitiveness they either didn’t interact with their parent’s for clarification of their doubts or parents were already strayed themselves or if not then didn’t have time for their teenage kids who were undergoing an ideological and faith related crisis and at this crucial juncture of life they were not available to them and the kids started to seek their answers by their own ‘efforts’ which due to lack of guidance and supervision usually misdirected towards literature written by writers of affiliation with left or the group of people who after passing through similar dilemma chose to turn as atheist , absolute rationalist or extreme liberal (who are disregarding the teachings of Quran and sunnah).
2. Those who turned towards these ideologies in their reasonably mature age after spending their childhood , teenage and some part of young life as a muslim having an average level of devotion to islam ….i.e. not a staunch or fully practicing person.
In material terms they are usually well qualified and well settled in their respective fields of life. In my present writeup I am focusing on this second category of muslims/ ex muslims and analysing the reasons behind their drift away or out of the fold of islam.
PREDISPOSING FACTOR :
One commonest factor in both these categories is lack of strong religious foundation and guidance at the level of parents and lack of religious atmosphere in family.
Factors PULLING :—
A. Literature by atheists, rationalists and liberals. It is an age old source for pulling any such person with weak foundation in Islam away from religion.
B. Personal one to one or in very small group interactions with atheists, rationalists and liberals.
C. Latest but most important factor which got added to this list is Social Media and Media which is an extension of the factor B but at virtual level and hundred time more amplified & potent and usually in full public eye of other followers / group members. On social media they venture into such groups or friend’s company for satisfying their craving for intellectual company which they can’t found sufficiently elsewhere . And those deviant groups and friends give them that satisfaction 24×7 with open arms. Those atheists, rationalists and liberals too need these platforms for expression of their views which were suppressed since millenia because they always found themselves in great minority in society so this newly established relationship between new entrants and existing groups is a mutually rewarding one. It has its own addictive , ego boosting effect. These friends and groups continuously bombard them with intellectual challenges as baits and in search of answers they are made to run in a fix direction specifically intended by those challenges because they don’t have answer to these due to lack of self study of islam from authentic sources or guidance from qualified scholars. And once these unanswered questions get foothold into their uninformed brains these take the form of satanic whispers as their minds started to accept the ready-made answers fed to them by their new found ideological mentors and their every step (comment/ post) is rewarded by these new manipulative mentors in form of LIKES and shower of immense praises through comments , which as we know has a great addiction and it is the ultimate food for intellectual ego which gives them a false sense of achieving higher pedestals of wisdom.
Fear to loose this support base and friends on social media hangs on the head of new entrant like a sword if in rare case he starts putting islamic perspective in these groups or in front of these friends. Only few has that courage to face that barrage of bitter criticism with epithets like ‘moron’ ‘retard’ ‘misogynist’ ‘regressive’ ‘terrorist’ ‘musanghi’ ‘mullah’ etc.
It becomes his ultimate fear of getting unfriend or blocked by those Social media ‘fans’ and he remains psychologically under their spell …sort of Stockholm syndrome. ..without realising it.
His new ideological mentors challenge him incessantly intellectually by few of their most favourite points :
a) Challenge of creation through “theory of evaluation”.
b) so called injustices by almighty according to them. Eg. Congenital malformations of newborns, extreme poverty, death of innocents (specially during pilgrimages) in accidents or otherwise.
c) crimes and injustices people are doing in the name of religion.
d) biggest tyrants enjoying fruits of this life
Etc.
B. Factors with PUSHING effects: —-
The mainstream media plays a double role both in pulling them psychologically towards liberal atheism as well as pushing them away from islam by showing negative aspect of it on the issues where it is not in conformity with their value system and propaganda.
Main stream media also influences the thought process of everyone very cleverly by some very shallow examples of attributing the failure of religious people and communities at material success & technological level and the same in the same field it wrongly attribute to liberal and atheistic societies as if it is owing it to their atheism and liberal ideology.
Social and mainstream media both highlights the “misuse of religion” by some criminal minded presumed followers of religion to thousands of times and fixes a preconceived notion in their brains that religion is man made and regressive system which should be kept within four walls and system provided by atheists & liberals is the real best system for mankind. Naive intellectuals get indoctrinated by these propaganda onslaught on their brains from every side, every platform, every forum over the years.
The media and liberals feed propaganda against religion at very shallow levels with disregard to its great longterm sociopolitical effects at mass level without showing the great harms at social level in longterm world will have if it is left at the mercy of liberalism and atheism. They draw their conclusion based on pure material success of our world in last few decades mainly with complete disregard to moral decay and other grave political risks world is facing today …which may even exterminate mankind from the face of earth.
Lastly half knowledge mullahs and scholars give bad name to religion by their misinterpretations or too rigid interpretations and media and social media never misses any chance to highlight their mistakes from roof tops by posing those half knowledge people as an ultimate authority on Islam.
Some of the age old tools of enemies of islam is to ….Quote the scriptures wrongly…..
Quote it partially……Quote out of context…..so as to make human intellect get a repulsive feeling.
BASIC CAUSE OF STRAYING AWAY OF INTELLECTUALS :
Being people of high intellect they get imbalanced in their approach towards REASON & REVELATION . They try to give undue uninformed unguided emphasis on REASON without studying or considering the role of REVELATION and Sunnah of prophet.
Role of both these are clearly defined in Islam but some of these intellectual muslims had this strange tendency to question even the aspects of faith like “DIVINE PREORDAINMENT” (Qadr) and they venture into the territory of reason to take it to extreme levels which takes them into the danger zone of disbelief. …sometimes irreversibly.
SOLUTIONS :
Not the all cases can be prevented from straying away but still these mentioned points may reduce such incidences to minimum :–
1. Having a will power at individual level.
2. To avoid excessive interactions with atheists , rationalists and liberals and to remain in company of good knowledgeable muslims and muslim scholars with in depth knowledge of islam.
3. Study religion ourselves with the help of authentic sources by devoting more time to it from our mundane life.
4. In case of any small or big doubt they should get into touch with correct sources or highly qualified scholars who have very clear & in depth knowledge without much delay. ….before Satanic Whispers get rooted.
5. Always one should pray to almighty Allah SWT to keep us steadfast on emaan.
(Dr.Ahesan khan basically belongs to Hydrabad, India)