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This
article by Imran Khan appeared on Arabnews; a leading English daily in
Saudi Arabia -A REAL EYE OPENER which communicates real feelings of many
a true Muslims in these trying & tested  times. 

 THE PAKISTANI CRICKETER IMRAN KHAN

 Why The West Craves Materialism & Why The East Sticks To Religion

 By Imran Khan

My
generation grew up at a time when colonial hang up was at its peak. Our
older generation had been slaves and had a huge inferiority complex of
the British. The school I went to was similar to all elite schools in
Pakistan.   Despite gaining independence, they were, and still are,
producing replicas of public schoolboys rather than Pakistanis.

I
read Shakespeare, which was fine, but no Allama Iqbal – the national
poet of Pakistan. The class on Islamic studies was not taken seriously,
and when I left school I was considered among the elite of the country
because I could speak English and wore Western clothes.

Despite
periodically shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ in school functions, I
considered my own culture backward and religion outdated. Among our
group if any one talked about religion, prayed or kept a beard he was
immediately branded a Mullah.

Because
of the power of the Western media, our heroes were Western movie stars
or pop stars. When I went to Oxford already burdened with this hang up,
things didn’t get any easier. At Oxford, not just Islam, but all
religions were considered anachronism.

Science
had replaced religion and if something couldn’t be logically proved it
did not exist. All supernatural stuff was confined to the movies.
Philosophers like Darwin, who with his half-baked theory of evolution
had supposedly disproved the creation of men and hence religion, were
read and revered.

Moreover,
European history reflected its awful experience with religion. The
horrors committed by the Christian clergy during the Inquisition era had
left a powerful impact on the Western mind.

To
understand why the West is so keen on secularism, one should go to
places like Cordoba in Spain and see the torture apparatus used during
the Spanish Inquisition. Also the persecution of scientists as heretics
by the clergy had convinced the Europeans that all religions are
regressive.

However, the
biggest factor that drove people like me away from religion was the
selective Islam practiced by most of its preachers. In short, there was a
huge difference between what they practiced and what they preached.
Also, rather than explaining the philosophy behind the religion, there
was an overemphasis on rituals.

I
feel that humans are different to animals. While, the latter can be
drilled, humans need to be intellectually convinced. That is why the
Qur’an constantly appeals to reason. The worst, of course, was the
exploitation of Islam for political gains by various individuals or
groups.

Hence, it was a
miracle I did not become an atheist. The only reason why I did not was
the powerful religious influence my mother wielded on me since my
childhood. It was not so much out of conviction but love for her that I
stayed a Muslim.

However,
my Islam was selective. I accepted only parts of the religion that
suited me. Prayers were restricted to Eid days and occasionally on
Fridays, when my father insisted on taking me to the mosque with him.

All
in all I was smoothly moving to becoming a Pukka Brown Sahib. After all
I had the right credentials in terms of school, university and, above
all, acceptability in the  English aristocracy, something that our brown
sahibs would  give their lives for. So what led me to do a ‘lota’ on
the Brown Sahib culture and instead become a  ‘desi’?

Well it did not just happen overnight.

Firstly,
the inferiority complex that my generation had inherited gradually went
as I developed into a world-class athlete. Secondly, I was in the
unique position of living between two cultures. I began to see the
advantages and the disadvantages of both societies.

In
Western societies, institutions were strong while they were collapsing
in our country. However, there was an area where we were and still are
superior, and that is our family life. I began to realize that this was
the Western society’s biggest loss. In trying to free itself from the
oppression of the clergy, they had removed both God and religion from
their lives.

While
science, no matter how much it progresses, can answer a lot of questions
– two questions it will never be able to answer: One, what is the
purpose of our existence and two, what happens to us when we die?

It
is this vacuum that I felt created the materialistic and the hedonistic
culture. If this is the only life then one must make hay while the sun
shines – and in order to do so one needs money. Such a culture is bound
to cause psychological problems in a human being, as there was going to
be an imbalance between the body and the soul.

Consequently,
in the US, which has shown the greatest materialistic progress while
giving its citizens numerous rights, almost 60 percent of the population
consult psychiatrists. Yet, amazingly in modern psychology, there is no
study of the human soul. Sweden and Switzerland, who provide the most
welfare to their citizens, also have the highest suicide rates. Hence,
man is not necessarily content with material well being and needs
something more.

Since all
morality has it roots in religion, once religion was removed,
immorality has progressively grown since the 70s. Its direct impact has
been on family life. In the UK, the divorce rate is 60 percent, while it
is estimated that there are over 35 percent single mothers. The crime
rate is rising in almost all Western societies, but the most disturbing
fact is the alarming increase in racism. While science always tries to
prove the inequality of man (recent survey showing the American Black to
be genetically less intelligent than whites) it is only religion that
preaches the equality of man.

Between
1991 and 1997, it was estimated that total immigration into Europe was
around 520,000, and there were racially motivated attacks all over,
especially in Britain, France and Germany. In Pakistan during the Afghan
war, we had over four million refugees, and despite the people being so
much poorer, there was no racial tension.

There
was a sequence of events in the 80s that moved me toward God as the
Qur’an says: ‘There are signs for people of understanding. ‘One of them
was cricket. As I was a student of the game, the more I understood the
game, the more I began to realize that what I considered to be chance
was, in fact, the will of Allah. A pattern which became clearer with
time. But it was not until Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ that my
understanding of Islam began to develop.

People
like me who were living in the Western world bore the brunt of
anti-Islam prejudice that followed the Muslim reaction to the book. We
were left with two choices: fight or flight. Since I felt strongly that
the attacks on Islam were unfair, I decided to fight. It was then I
realized that I was not equipped to do so as my knowledge of Islam was
inadequate. Hence I started my research and for me a period of my
greatest enlightenment. I read scholars like Ali Shariati, Muhammad
Asad, Iqbal, Gai Eaton, plus of course, a study of Qur’an.

I
will try to explain as concisely as is possible, what  ‘discovering the
truth’ meant for me. When the  believers are addressed in the Qur’an,
it always says, ‘Those who believe and do good deeds.’ In other  words, a
Muslim has dual function, one toward God and the other toward fellow
human beings.

The greatest
impact of believing in God for me, meant that I lost all fear of human
beings. The Qur’an liberates man from man when it says that life and
death and respect and humiliation are God’s jurisdiction, so we do not
have to bow before other human beings.

Moreover,
since this is a transitory world where we prepare for the eternal one, I
broke out of the self-imposed prisons, such as growing old (such a
curse in the Western world, as a result of which, plastic surgeons are
having a  field day), materialism, ego, what people say and so on. It is
important to note that one does not eliminate earthly desires. But
instead of being controlled by them, one controls them.

By
following the second part of believing in Islam, I have become a better
human being. Rather than being self-centered and living for the self, I
feel that because the Almighty gave so much to me, in turn I must use
that blessing to help the less privileged. This I did by following the
fundamentals of Islam rather than becoming a Kalashnikov-wielding
fanatic.

I have become a
tolerant and a giving human being who feels compassion for the
underprivileged. Instead of attributing success to myself, I know it is
because of God’s will, hence I learned humility instead of arrogance.

Also,
instead of the snobbish Brown Sahib attitude toward our masses, I
believe in egalitarianism and strongly feel against the injustice done
to the weak in our society.  According to the Qur’an, ‘Oppression is
worse than  killing.’ In fact only now do I understand the true meaning
of Islam, if you submit to the will of Allah, you have inner peace.

Through
my faith, I have discovered strength within me that I never knew
existed and that has released my potential in life. I feel that in
Pakistan we have selective Islam. Just believing in God and going
through the rituals is not enough. One also has to be a good human
being. I feel there are certain Western countries with far more Islamic
traits than us in Pakistan, especially in the way they protect the 
rights of their citizens, or for that matter their justice system. In
fact some of the finest individuals I know live there.

What
I dislike about them is their double standards in the way they protect
the rights of their citizens but consider citizens of other countries as
being somehow inferior to them as human being, e.g. dumping toxic waste
in the Third World, advertising cigarettes that are not allowed in the
West and selling drugs that are banned in the West.

One
of the problems facing Pakistan is the polarization of two reactionary
groups. On the one side is the Westernized group that looks upon Islam
through Western eyes and has inadequate knowledge about the subject. It
reacts strongly to anyone trying to impose Islam in society and wants
only a selective part of the religion. On the other extreme is the group
that reacts to this Westernized elite and in trying to  become a
defender of the faith, takes up such intolerant and self-righteous
attitudes that are repugnant to the spirit of Islam.

What
needs to be done is to somehow start a dialogue between the two
extreme. In order for this to happen, the group on whom the greatest
proportion of our educational resources are spent in this country must
study Islam properly.

Whether
they become practicing Muslims or believe in God is entirely a personal
choice. As the Qur’an tells us there is ‘no compulsion in religion.’
However, they must arm themselves with knowledge as a weapon to fight
extremism. Just by turning up their noses at extremism the problem is
not going to be solved.

The Qur’an calls Muslims ‘the middle n

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ation’,
not of extremes. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was told to
simply give the message and not worry whether people converted or not,
therefore, there is no question in Islam of forcing your opinions on
anyone else.

Moreover, we
are told to respect other religions, their places of worship and their
prophets. It should be noted that no Muslim missionaries or armies ever
went to Malaysia or Indonesia. The people converted to Islam due to the
high principles and impeccable character of the Muslim traders. At the
moment, the worst advertisements for Islam are the countries with their
selective Islam, especially where religion is used to deprive people of
their rights. In fact, a society that obeys fundamentals of Islam has to
be a  liberal one.

If
Pakistan’s Westernized class starts to study Islam, not only will it be
able to help society fight sectarianism and extremism, but it will also
make them realize what a progressive religion Islam is. They will also
be able to help the Western world by articulating Islamic concepts.
Recently, Prince Charles accepted that the Western world can learn from
Islam. But how can this happen if the group that is in the best position
to project Islam gets its attitudes from the West and considers Islam
backward? Islam is a universal religion and that is why our Prophet
(peace be upon him) was called a Mercy for all mankind.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/217634