More than 4000 years ago, in the then city of Ur, a young man by the name of Abram or Ibrahim stole in the temple of Nanna, when the high priests were away attending a town festival and broke all the idols, the false objects of worship and submission, as he thought to himself. This was perhaps, the first act of ideological revolution in a civilized settlement of humans and the first ever expression of the rejection of false gods.

In so far as the archeologists have excavated, explored and unrivalled the history of civilization, the first ever civilization, which has revealed itself was in Mesopotamia (that is in present day Iraq). There were those Sumerian cities on the banks of the river Euphrates. Then some time in the third millennium B.C. a strong man by the name of Sargon conquered the various cities and established the Akkadian empire centered in the city of Akkad or Agade. Then after a few hundred years, when the Akkadian empire was waning, there was a short Sumerian revival and a third Sumerian dynasty came to power in Ur. At the time of Ibrahim (A), there was a king by the name of Ur-Nammu. The Judaic traditions mention his name as Nimrod, although the Qur’an doesn’t give the king any name: simply talks about him as malik (king). This king was very powerful. He gave the world the first ever legal code, 300 years before the code of Hammurabi. He erected Ziggurat (Zaqqarat), the tall structures like the pyramids. This king, also, probably for the first time in human history institutionalized polytheism, idol worship, in violation of what was engrained in human consciousness from day one. There were temples dedicated to sun, the moon and various other objects. The temple of Nanaa was the temple dedicated to moon. This was the temple where the young Ibrahim (A) carried out his act of idol breaking. With this historic act began the battle between Towheed and Shirk in human history. The legends associated with this battle have come to us through the Bible but the Qur’an gives us a wonderful narrative of a dialogue which ensued between the king, who ruled at the time and Ibrahim (A), one, an idol maker and the other, an idol breaker. This dialogue is a masterpiece of logic ever to be found in any literature.

Alam tara ila al-ladhi hajja Ibrahima fi rabbihi an atahullahul mulk.

Have you not seen the one, who argued with Ibrahim about his lord, the one whom Allah had given the kingdom?

Idh qala Ibrahimu rabbi al-ladhi yuhi wa yumit

When Ibrahim said that my Lord is the one who gives life and takes it away

Qala ana uhi wa umit

He replied: “I give life and I take life.”

(Legend has it that the king ordered two prisoners, who were condemned to death, to be brought in. He ordered one prisoner to be executed and pardoned the other one.)

Qala Ibrahimu fa innallaha yati bisshamsi min al-mashriq fati biha min al-maghrib fa buhitat al-ladhi kafar.

Ibrahim said: “ But surely Allah makes the sun rise from the east. You make it rise from the west. The one who talked kufr was thus confounded.”

No discussion, no debate and argument between the greatest philosophers of the world could be as clear and conclusive as in this dialogue given in the Qur’an. It’s beauty and simplicity is astounding.

As we can see, this conflict between the truth and falsehood, monotheism and polytheism, Towheed and Shirk started right at the dawn of civilization and is with us ever since. The Qur’an says that Ibrahim (A) was the imam (the leader) of the mankind. A leader is the one, who sets out to articulate his message; in this case inviting people to believe in one god and to reject false gods. As the history has told us, Ibrahim (A) left Mesopotamia; went to Kan’an, Syria and Egypt (the so called Fertile Crescent), before settling in Kan’an, the present day Palestine. This was the whole world of civilization at that time. Wherever he went, he invited people to Towheed (belief in One God, the creator, the one who gives life and takes life, the one who makes the sun rise from the east, acts which no one else in the universe can emulate, nor have any share in such action. Thus the essence of the kalmia: La ilaha illa Allah, the first element of the Islamic faith was institutionalized and which permeated the consciousness of every human being for all times to come.

Inviting people to Allah, which we call Da’wah is the most important Abrahamic tradition. Also, the breaking of idols as we have seen is another tradition of Ibrahim (A). The battle began with the smashing of idols in the temple of Nanna. You can take it as the manifestation of the first political action. History suggests that Ur-Nammu was the first to establish a kingdom. This action, this battle is never a one-time battle. The conflict is ongoing and eternal. Once you have broken some idols you cannot sit on your laurels, as the idols have a tendency to pop up again and again, at one place or another. Ibrahim’s (A) Sunnah had to be repeated by Prophet Mohammad (S) after he conquered Mekka. He smashed the heads of Lat wa Manat with his own hands. There is a symbolism here. Idols may not be made of stone. The icons of falsehood come in various shapes and forms. Sometimes the idols are ideas of falsehood. Sometimes, they are abstract like tyranny, oppression and injustice. With the smashing of their heads at one time and place in history, they do not disappear forever. They germinate again in suitable circumstance. It is therefore of absolute necessity that the revolutions made by Ibrahim (A) and by Mohammad (S) are kept alive, active and continuous. This continuous revolution is named in the Qur’an: amr bil maroof wa nahi an al-munkar enjoining good and forbidding evil..

In the context of our own history the conquest of Ka’ba did not solve the problem for ever. There was only a respite for a period; then the idols came back and set themselves up in Arabia, in Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus and in all the other cities of the Crescent. For centuries, it looked as though the Sunnah of breaking the idols was in abeyance. The hands which are made to break the idols were paralyzed. It is only now, it seems that a ray of hope has penetrated the darkness of despair and we have witnessed the so-called Arab Spring, in Tunisia and in Egypt. The struggle continues in other countries. Time and again, year after year, we stood here as khateebs and decried the subjugation, which Muslims suffered and cursed the tyrants, who had terrorized the Muslim Ummah. We had given up hope and thought that the moment of liberation would not arrive at least in our life time but we had underestimated the spirit of our young people. They rose up, first in Tunisia, then in Egypt, in Libya, in Yemen and in Bahrain. However, the biggest challenge we are facing today is how to keep the Spring free from infiltration and contamination. The enemies of Revolution have joined the ranks of the revolutionaries, looking for opportunities to sabotage and subvert. There are ex-colonialists and neo-colonialists. There are demons coming forward wearing the faces of angels. History shows that any gold they have touched has turned into dust. The revolutionaries need not rejoice too soon. They need to be forever vigilant.

Our generation is living through one of the most tumultuous times in history. Only two decades ago, the world was divided into two camps: communism and capitalism. The protagonists of each camp believed in the absolute validity of their beliefs. They believed that their own system was the answer to all the problems of mankind. Then all of a sudden one camp tumbled and disintegrated, making the other camp the master of the whole world, allowing it to be arrogant to the extreme, hitting out in all directions and proclaiming a “new world order”. Soon the surviving camp realized that it was witnessing the second phase of a new world disorder. Communism was gone and capitalism is tattering at the edge of a disaster. It is committing suicide. People have woken up and a world revolution has begun, in New York, in Oakland and in almost every capitol in the world. While the communist system suffered from a lack of incentive and ownership, resulting in low productivity, capitalism gave incentive and utmost freedom to a few people to exploit and plunder. The vulnerability and the misery of the people was a commodity sold for exploitation. The gap between the rich and the poor kept widening and now it has reached a danger point. As we now well know 1% of the people own 40% of the wealth in this country (USA). A recent study has shown that one in fifteen people in America is suffering from extreme poverty. Who is to blame? A presidential candidate, who is a billionaire and happens to be black, has said that if you are not rich it is your own fault!

So, how did this gap between the rich and the poor develop and is widening every day? The answer is not as complicated as some people may think. It lies in the phrase: “redistribution of wealth”. This phrase is associated with socialism i.e. take from the rich and give to the poor. In fact it works both ways. What has happened during the past few decades is that the wealth has flown in the wrong direction: from the poor to the rich. Wages have been stagnant; benefits reduced, unions busted. Globalization has brought extremely competitive labor market. Jobs have been exported. All this has caused the income of the poor and the middle class to drop and the profits to increase, which the employers have refused to share with the employees. There was a time, when they used to share it with the workers and the wages were linked to productivity; not any more. Many corporations, including the pharmaceutical companies do not pay a penny in tax. The GE has paid zero income tax in America. At this time of widespread unemployment, the corporations are sitting on three trillion dollars of cash, which they could invest but are not investing and yet there is a lie being spread that if you give the rich a tax break they would invest that money and the economy would improve.

The oil companies wait for a small upheaval in the Middle East. As soon as it happens they jack up the gas prices. Each increase in the gas prices, while making windfall profits for the gas companies, increases food prices worldwide. As a result, people who are living on the edge of poverty fall off the edge. This is the grand larceny, which goes unpunished, even rewarded under Capitalism. Why are they unpunished? It is because they share some of their loot with the lawmakers.

We are only too aware of how the whole world economy was brought to a ruin by the greed of a few people recently, making scores of people homeless and throwing millions of people into misery, hunger and poverty. As it happened they first sold the so-called subprime mortgages to the unsuspecting, uneducated and vulnerable people; then packaged those toxic assets and sold them to unsuspecting investors. Knowing that these assets were going to fail, they bet against them and made enormous amounts of money. We all know what happened since. The banking system crashed, the whole world economy collapsed, making millions of people unemployed and homeless. What happened to these criminals? Did they go to prison? No. Our government again took our money and gave it to them under the pretext of stabilizing the system, which they used to give themselves bonuses. Goldman-Sachs has set aside $292,000/ per staff member as bonus this year, while millions of people in this country are struggling to make ends meet as a result of their criminal acts.

They threw the Patriot Act at us, setting themselves up as the symbols of patriotism. In fact it is the 1% elite, who are anything but patriotic, the antithesis of patriotism. They include the politicians, legislators, the incumbent presidents and the prospective presidents, who come to you for votes but serve the special interest groups after being elected. They have nobody’s interests in mind except their own. Marx and Engels had declared: “workers of the world unite”. They did not but the capitalists of the world did.

They start wars so that the businesses associated with the war industry may prosper, appealing to your patriotic instinct, designing and fashioning enemies for you, whom you are expected to hate in the darkness of your prejudiced minds, which they have crafted for you. This country of ours sent our sons and daughters to two world wars, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, two Gulf wars and the Afghan War. What were your interests in those wars? The WWI started because a crackpot Serbian assassinated the crown prince of Austria: Archduke Ferdinand and the major European monarchs declared war against each other. The WWII started as Germany was economically oppressed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles and the German territories were taken from Germany and were given to the adjacent countries, forcing a resurrected Germany under Hitler to go to war to regain those territories. Wars in Korea and Vietnam were fought to stop the Domino Effect, whatever it meant! Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought on behalf of an unjust and unlawful state in the Middle East. Can any man in the street say that he benefitted from these wars? Those who benefitted were in the top one percent of the population, the capitalists and the industrialists, who paid the politicians to carry out these operations on their behalf. And of course like the elite members of the Roman Senate they claimed the crown of patriotism for themselves.

This country of ours, founded on the noblest principles of freedom and justice is now flouting justice domestically and internationally. Our prison population is one of the highest in the world. The poor are more likely to be convicted and executed than the rich. The black people, who are only 7% of the population, have a 32% share in the prison population. Our present administration, drunk with unchallenged power has broken every international law. Extrajudicial killing is its favorite pastime. Once in the middle ages there was this Old Man of the Mountains called Hassan Ibn Sabah, who created the act of assassination on the world stage. Centuries later, our government, equipped with drones instead of daggers is staging the same act in a grand finale.

In 2012, the circus of elections begins again. In 2008 the young people in this country were very optimistic. Today, that optimism has evaporated. They are on the streets now to occupy Wall Street and close down Oakland. They do not have any trust in the system or in the politicians. This may be the beginning of a revolution, at least in the thinking.

We as Muslims, have a greater reason to be skeptical. We know that both Communism and Capitalism are not the solutions to the ills of the society. We knew at the outset that these systems would fail. We have a better system, economic, social and political but we do not have a model of this system anywhere in the world today because of the dark ages which have interrupted our civilization.

The big question however is whether we should partake in the political circus of elections which is to come shortly while many honest non-Muslim citizens are rejecting it. I think that we should do well by keeping our distance from this ugly drama of treachery and deceit.

By Dr. Waheeduddin Ahmed

Life, Death and the Hereafter:

Hamd wa Thana

Allah (T) says in the Quran:                                                                                                     كُلُّ مَنْ عَلَيْهَا فَانٍ

“All that exists on earth will perish”

وَيَبْقَى وَجْهُ رَبِّكَ ذُو الْجَلالِ وَالإكْرَامِ

“Save the face of your Lord with its magnificence and glory”

Every now and then our preachers, our scholars and our khateebs remind us of this fact. Sometimes we listen to them inattentively, sometimes we yawn; other times we shake our heads up and down in agreement without particularly moved by what they have said, until it hits us personally, when there is a death in the family; a loved one passes away and a life familiar to us suddenly comes to an end.

Well! last week two members of our Islamic family were snatched away from us by the cruel hand of death. One was our beloved friend Numan Tugan  (alaihi Rahmah) who was a familiar face in this congregation. The other was Dr. Farooki who was afflicted with malaria on a hunting expedition in Tanzania and died. Born in India, educated in England, having practiced medicine in America, he died in Africa, spanning three continents. All this must prompt us to reflect on the question of death in the light of the Quran.

Verily, the knowledge of the hour is with Allah alone. It is He, who sends down rain and He who knows what is in the wombs; nor does anyone know what it is that he will earn  in the morrow; nor does anyone know in what land he is to die. Verily with God is full knowledge and He is acquainted with all things (Qur’an 31:34)

Neither the Late Brother Farooki nor his family nor his friends had any knowledge that he would die in Africa during a visit from another continent. By the same token, we have no choice where we are going to be born, in America? in the thick forest of Africa? or in the dust bowl of Arabia? We cannot choose to be a member of an affluent family or a starving family. We cannot be Black or White by choice. Our fates. our places of birth, our genus and our race are determined for us by our Creator.

Let us now think about our strengths and our prowess as human beings. We are scientists; we are engineers; we are doctors and researchers. We make great strides in all these fields. We probe deep into matter; unfold the secrets of nature; send spacecrafts into the cosmos; station Hubble telescope in space and catch the glimpses of galaxies billions of light years away. We discover cures for hitherto incurable diseases.  We think that we have conquered nature but are our conquests unlimited? Are we not helpless in determining where we are born and how we shall die? Death comes to us suddenly with a mosquito bite, a contemptible, miniscule creature. Our spacecraft takes us far into space but only as far as we are allowed to go, as the Qur’an declares:

“Oh assemblies of jins and humans, if you are able to pass beyond the zones of heavens and earth ,do it by all means but you will never be able to do it without authority  (from Allah).”  Our prowess is only to the extent we are empowered to, by God.

Everything, which is created has two points on the scale of existence: a starting point and an end point. Everything, which has a beginning in time has an ending in time, whether it is man, animal, heavenly bodies, sun, moon planets or stars. The cosmologists say that the universe began with a Big Bang, when a compact ball of energy exploded. With it began the time and the contours of space which are continuously expanding and in which the galaxies, the stars and the satellites are taking shape. The stars are then sinking into Black Hole, in a reversal of the Big Bang process. Thus it seems the universe will come to an end as it is sucked into a Black Hole.

Everything, which is created has a linear dimension on the time scale, with a beginning point and an end point. There is also a lateral dimension, which determines the field of existence — the capacity field. This is the enclosure in which every species’ capacities are confined. This also holds for the cosmos. The satellites and stars confined to their orbits. Every animal has a size limit, which is written into its DNA. A cat cannot grow into a tiger. Men cannot grow to be sixteen feet tall. Our perceptions have their ranges. Man’s vision has a range. He cannot see beyond violet at one end and red at the other, whereas some animals can see what man cannot see and hear what man cannot hear.

Likewise, our intellect has a range too. Human brain is getting bigger as the brain cells increase. We may not have reached the maximum range of our intellect yet, as more discoveries are awaiting us. Our space travel has not reached its farthest point, as our destinations are yonder still but the limit is imminent.

The Unseen (ghaib):

What is imperceptible to our eyes and ears and undetectable by our scientific instruments, the Hubble telescope and what is inconceivable by the regions of our brain fall in a realm, which, in the Qur’anic language is called Ilm- al-ghaib(knowledge of the unseen) Belief in the unseen is a fundamental tenet of Islam. The Qur’an declares in the very beginning:

“This is the book in which there is no doubt, a guide for the God-fearing, those who believe in the unseen, establish prayer and spend of what we have provided them with.” ِ

Ghaib means something that cannot be perceived by man howsoever he tries, for instance, the reality of God and the times and places of death. This also means that one must reject the notion that what cannot be seen does not exist. This is the contention of the naturalists, which our faith categorically rejects. Humans live in a very small world of their perception and knowledge. There is an infinite amount of reality beyond the scope of our knowledge.

Apart from perception, imagination and speculation, there is another property of our brain, which is called rationalization. Rationalization is essential for our survival. For instance, driving at a speed of one hundred miles an hour may cause us to lose control and have a fatal accident, so we slow down. This is rationalization. Hearing a smoke alarm, we rationalize that there may be a fire and we take necessary action. However, there are many things we cannot understand, cannot assign the causes and cannot speculate their effects. They are beyond the scope of our rational thinking. There is a death in the family. A young child dies, leaving the old, the mother, the father and the grandparents behind. Why should the young die, leaving the old to linger? Who can give a rational answer? Which branch of science can explain this? Science can often answer the question: how, the death caused by malaria, typhoid and so on but can it answer the question why? The answer does not lie in science but in the concept of Ghaib.

You are driving along on a road, whistling and listening to music, oblivious of what is ahead of you. Suddenly, you make a stupid mistake, causing a near fatal accident but you escape death by the skin of your teeth. You remember that days ago, a friend of yours, a very cautious driver, had got into an accident for no fault of his, hit by a drunk driver and was killed. Why was it that he should die and you survive? What is the rationale? There is none. The answer belongs in the realm of Ghaib.

Let us now look at another aspect of life and death One of our famous Urdu poets said:

Zindagi kya hai anasir men zahoor-e-tarteeb

Maut kya ait inhi ajza ka pareshan hona

What is life? It is the manifestation of order in elements.

What is death? It is the scattering of the very same elements.

Human life is the coming together of some elements in a unique order and harmony and the death is the reversal of that process. Life is order and death is disorder. Our bodies are composed of water, some elements like calcium, magnesium and phosphorous supplied by earth; carbon, supplied by carbon dioxide, a component of air, all compounded into biological matter as energy from the sun (fire) is added. So, they were not far off who said that we were made of water, dust, air and fire. When we die, our bodies disintegrate and revert back to these basic elements, dust to dust, water to water and air to air!

“It is He, who brings out the living from the dead and brings out the dead from the living and who gives life to the earth after it is dead and thus shall you be brought out.”

And also:

مِنْهَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ وَفِيهَا نُعِيدُكُمْ وَمِنْهَا نُخْرِجُكُمْ تَارَةً أُخْرَىٰ ٰ

“From the earth did we create you and into it shall we return you. And from it shall we bring you out once again.”

Rooh (spirit)

Mechanical mixing of elements does not create life. What makes life happen is another mysterious element, which we call Rooh (spirit) but is the Rooh a common element like air and dust? The answer is no, because water can go back to water, air can mix with air and dust can return to dust but Rooh cannot merge with a common pool of Arwah (spirits). It had made an individual different from any other individual that had ever existed but we do not know its nature. The knowledge of it belongs in the realm of Ghaib. The Qur’an says;

وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ ۖ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّنَالْعِلْمِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا

“And they ask you about spirit. Say: The spirit is in the realm of my Lord. Of the knowledge, only a little is communicated to you.”

Creation and resurrection are both in the form of body and soul. Life cannot be sustained without the soul. A living body cannot decompose as long as the body functions are active. You can take a powerful hypnotic drug and sleep for seven days, your flesh will not decompose; only a dead body disintegrates into its elements. The elements go back to their respective pools and the individual ceases to exist on the worldly plain.

Akhirah (Hereafter)

Let us now move to another tenet of our beliefs: Iman bil-akhirah (belief in the Hereafter). The Qur’an describes the God-fearing (Muttaqoon) in the verses already quoted earlier, as those who, among other things, have a firm belief in the Hereafter.

Life after death and the concept of reward and punishment, not only have a spiritual dimension but have an important sociological dimension too. There are two factors, which play a part in a society’s survival: legality and morality. Legality can be administered and enforced — although not completely — by the government machinery, consisting of a police force and a court system. Fear of punishment is a very important deterrent in enforcing legality. However, morality is something, which cannot be enforced by legislative and legal means. Secular societies only lightly recommend it. Greed can very easily strangle morality. The economic crisis we are undergoing today, caused by the devilish avarice of the operatives in finance, banking, oil, insurance and pharmaceutical industries is only the tip of the iceberg. These people do not care about the sick, the poor and the vulnerable. All the laws of the land favor them. No law will ever be written to stop them from devouring mankind’s resources. There will be no patriot act against them and no Guantanamo Bay will ever be awaiting their arrival. What a difference it would have made if these people had a touch of conscience and belief in the Hereafter!

Another argument, which supports the validity of the concept of Akhiah is belief in Divine Justice. When you see people, who are corrupt to the core, doing well in this world, living in luxury, without any apparent difficulties and discomforts, while some others, every bit virtuous, suffering all kinds of calamities: you ask: where is justice? The answer is simple. Divine Justice is never far away. One of the most important attributes of Allah is Adl (justice). We must understand that our life on this earth is only one phase of our spiritual existence. Each individual has his/her share of comfort and discomfort, grief and happiness, pain and pleasure. If it appears that one has a longer span of misfortune in this life, Allah’s justice requires that it must be compensated for on a different plane of existence. It can only happen if there is life after death

The second cause is the global political conflicts in which Muslims are seen as occupying the center stage. Incessant news and events depicting individuals committing terrorist acts, with their religion specifically highlighted in the media if they are Muslims, constantly plays on the minds and emotions of the American people. The worst act of terrorism in its history occurred in New York on September 11, 2001. It was carried out by a few foreign miscreants from the Middle East with Muslim names and had roots in the Arab-Israeli conflict. While it shook the world, it sent chills down the spines of the Muslim inhabitants of America. They were hit the hardest just by name association. They walked the streets under suspicious and disdainful eyes and are still struggling to reclaim their rightful place in the American society.

We are living in an era sequential to global communism. The phobia which dominated that era was the fear of the great Bolshevik conspiracy, which would undermine our freedoms and individual liberties. The product of that phobia was the Cold War, generating thousands of nuclear weapons, sufficient to obliterate human race many times over and which gave birth to scores of dictators all over the world, who subjected their countrymen to tyranny and humiliation. The succeeding era would not pass without a phobia to decorate it with.  Islamophobia readily served the purpose. The bogey of the worldwide Islamic khilafa replaced that of the Communist conspiracy and is beginning to inflict the psyche of the American public. If there are any people, who are unaware of this khilafa “conspiracy”, it is the Muslim people themselves.

The Phobia and its Profile: The Mosque Controversies:

Proposals to build mosques to serve the religious needs of Muslims countrywide have brought out deep-rooted prejudices even from the members of the clergy, from California to Wisconsin to New York. Acts of vandalism against the Muslim places of worship such as in Tennessee proliferated. In Sheboygan, Wisconsin a Muslim doctor who owned a store type building proposed to convert the property into a place of worship for hundred or so of Muslims. The place was close to the hospital he worked in. A public hearing brought out some of the patients he had treated and had faith in, who spilled out venom against Islam, a faith they had no knowledge of. It shook the wits out of him and many of the citizens. In Manhattan, Muslims had been praying at Burlington Factory House at Park51 a makeshift mosque for a year before the Cordoba House proposal. On Fridays the congregation at Farah Mosque nearby would spill over on the street for want of sufficient accommodation. It was not a matter of “desecrating” Ground Zero but a matter of dire necessity and equal rights under the constitution. The proposal became such a big controversy that everybody from the president to the governor to the archbishop to the Jewish Defense League weighed in. It was made to look as though the proposed Cordoba House was a monument of Muslim “triumphalism” at Ground Zero.

Ban the Sharia Legislations:

The campaign against the Cordoba House project was started in a blog “Stop Islamization of America”, a xenophobic campaign, playing on the aforementioned fears of people, of the perceived impending transformation of the country’s religious face and its cultural profile. This is an outrageous presumption and a wildly imaginary scenario. Exact statistics are lacking but according to a study conducted by the American Jewish Committee there are 2.8million Muslims in America, while many Muslim organizations have been claiming that the total number stood at about six million. This makes the range of percent population to be from 0.9 to 1.9%. The true number may be closer to the lower figure than the higher one. Of the total population, the practicing Muslims may be less than half that number, scattered over a continent and among the population of 308.7 million. What a force for the Islamization of the United States of America!

The force behind this anti-Sharia tirade is an Arizona lawyer: David Yerushalmi, a White supremacist, an anti-Islam hate monger and the founder of the “Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE)”. He argues that whites are genetically superior to Blacks.  He wrote: “Some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones.” He urged that the United States must declare war on Islam and all Muslim faithful. This puts him in the same category in hate mongering, as the likes of Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz and Peter Emerson. He had pushed legislation in 2007 to make adherence to Sharia a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Sadly, it is him and the likes of him, who are driving the conservative legislative agenda in this country. He is either the author of or the consultant for most of the anti-Sharia bills, which have been introduced. The American legislators, who have been led onto this path by people like Yerushalmi, in the name of patriotism, should realize that their actions are mutilating the values and the principles on which this country was founded.

A majority of the anti-Sharia bills is considered to be, in the main, innocuous and inconsequential, emotive rather than practical, save SB1028, the State of Tennessee bill as originally proposed, which would have dangerously violated the basic human rights of Muslims, guaranteed in the constitution, by criminalizing the day to day acts of worship. The other acts of legislation have been rightly branded as: “A Solution in Search of Problem”. However, there are some very complex legal implications, which cannot be overlooked.

Sharia, meaning “the way” or “the path” encompasses many disciplines such as ritual worship, moral principles, trade, charity, dietary rules, monetary transactions, matrimony, inheritance as well as criminal law. Many of the Sharia rules have been absorbed into cultural norms and adherence to them is almost subconscious, such as the dietary rules. Although ritual worship is an essential part of religion, some Muslims pray and some don’t and those who pray would do so even under the shadow of a guillotine. The criminal law (the Sharia penal code) is in abeyance in a majority of the Muslim countries, as secular criminal laws have taken its place. The laws of marriages, divorce and inheritance are in general followed, except that polygamy is now obsolescent among the common people. Most of the laws of Sharia, including the penal code, bear striking similarity to the laws of the Old Testament (Halacha) and those followed in early Christian communities. Reformist movements in Judaism and the Church in Christianity have amended those laws but since in Islam there is no Church, Pope or “reform” authority, the Sharia has remained immutable, except where the rules are amenable to ijtehad (dialectical derivation).There is a corpus of exegesis in Sharia law but its implementation however, has been effected with a varying degree of laxity.

As for the criminal law, it must be noted that Muslims have lived under secular laws for ages without protestations. There are only two countries where Sharia law is applied, albeit selectively: Saudi Arabia and Iran.  American Muslims have therefore no qualms about living under the law of the land. Civil laws however are a different matter. Let us take the example of India, home to 161 million Muslims (13.4%) among a total population of 1.2 billion. The criminal law is the law of the land and is applicable to every resident. Muslims are not clamoring for the imposition of hudud, qisas or ta’dhir (elements of religious criminal law).  In civil matters, Muslims are allowed to follow their own “personal law” or opt for the secular law. Western countries would do well to consider this precedence.

The Archbishop of Canterbury had proposed a similar procedure for the British courts, where arbitration, with the consent of the contestants, would amiably settle disputes without burdening the courts with costly trials and litigations. In any case, in the matters of divorce, inheritance, child custody and child support, the parties would have an option between the Sharia and the secular laws, whichever they think serves their interests best. This kind of arrangement, if mutually agreed upon by the parties and allowed by the courts, does in no way threaten the integrity and the tranquility of the society; it may on the other hand enhance them. Nevertheless, we must ensure that the women’s rights and the children’s welfare are safeguarded by the courts in the best way possible. There will be times when the Sharia will serve women better than the states’ laws. In California recently a court ruled that meher payment (a contractual sum payable to a woman by her husband on divorce under the Sharia) violated the state law prohibiting spouses from “profiteering” from divorce. Loss to the woman in this case is obvious. In general the interests of the citizens as well as of the state would be best served when the courts are independent and have discretion — not obligation — in when to reference religious laws and when not to do so.

“Foreign” Law and the U.S. Courts:

In many states legislation prohibiting the courts from considering “foreign” law or international law is being pushed with a vengeance. This raises a number of very complex legal issues, involving international treaties and trade. Compliance with international treaties, when ratified, is vouchsafed in the U.S. constitution and may be outside the jurisdiction of any one state. However, there may be areas of trade and labor laws, where complications may arise and hamper businesses of American companies.

In the U.S. courts presently marriages contracted abroad and under the Sharia are recognized, so are divorces executed abroad. The integration of many immigrant families is based on this provision. In the matters of matrimony, parenthood, inheritance and execution of wills disputes do arise in courts and could not be settled without reference to “foreign” laws. There is a serious concern that the ramifications of ban on foreign law now or in the future may put strains on the justice system and adversely affect the social structure of the American society.

Islamophobia, the Underlying Reason:

It is hard to believe that the proponents of the ant-Sharia bill of Tennessee, as it was originally written, were unaware of its unconstitutionality. Clearly, their intent was provocation and their motive was historic religious prejudice. It is not uncommon in the American history and in the history of many other countries for hate groups to arise in certain political and economic circumstances and by their actions and rhetoric malign the very society whose wellbeing they claim to protect.

It was said after 9/11 that “history begins now” or words to that effect. How true! Muslim Americans have been living in the full glare of history ever since, with their faces lit with bewilderment, although some governmental agencies, the top political leadership of both the parties, the law enforcement agencies and the leadership of almost every faith have helped to take the attention away from them. We still remember with gratitude the president of the United States’ visit to a mosque in the aftermath of the tragic event and the kind words uttered. This brought out what was good in the American people and averted a possible catastrophe. We appeal to the same good nature of the American people not to heed to bigotry, prejudice and electoral polemics. America will lose its soul if it succumbs to religious intolerance. It will lose its reason for being.

Muslims in America are a highly diverse community, consisting of almost every race, ethnicity and culture, including a large indigenous section. Among them are doctors, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and workers, enriching the economy with their contributions. There are Nobel laureates such as Ahmed Zewail news anchors such as Fareed zakaria and many sports celebrities. There are highly regarded congressmen and mayors in many cities.

Muslim contribution in highlighting the moral values is an asset to the society, which should not be ignored. The mosques are not a threat to anybody but beacons of light. They are centers of spiritual uplift as well as of education, social activism, moral reformation and charity.  Most mosques have prison visit programs, which have resulted in transforming many individuals into productive and law-abiding citizens. Many mosques in the inner cities have food pantries, counseling and crisis management programs.  Above all they curtail social ills. Consider a man who comes to the mosque to pray early morning, early afternoon, late-afternoon, at sunset and at night, five times in Twenty-four hours, to renew his commitment to God. What are his chances of committing unsocial acts in between his prayers? If two million people do this in a society, is the society better off or worse?

By: Waheeduddin Ahmed, Ph.D.

Muslim citizens in the U.S.A., as well as in Western Europe are facing an unpredictable future because of the ever-increasing xenophobia which pervades these societies. Among the various causes is the compulsion of imperialist wars, started by the Bush administration and zealously expanded by its successor. Such wars are necessitated by the bulging unchallenged military power of any country as history has repeatedly shown. The socio-political dynamics in such a situation do not work in any ethical or moral framework. The military machine has momentum in accordance with its weight. Bush or Obama at the wheel make no difference. It is no accident of history that as the USA, finding itself the supreme unchallenged military power feels to flex its muscles, Muslims happen to be its choicest target. Weak, fragmented, non-nuanced, fratricidal and estranged from rationality, they are ready to be preyed upon.

At present, the American military machine has rolled into Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Other countries will follow, which offer suitable political landscape for such channelization. The wanton destruction of life and property and established institutions in their homelands has radicalized hundreds of thousands of Muslim youth worldwide. Nowhere will this effect be more prominent than in Europe and North America, which are home to millions of Muslim youth, native-born or immigrant, who will be angry to the point of committing irrational acts. Here lies the potential danger. It will be a fallacy to believe that they are controlled by Al-Qaeda or governmental or non-governmental agencies in their homelands. They are the products of the socio-political environment in vogue in the countries of their residence.

The Department of Homeland Security and its counterparts in the European countries are doing a good job in trying to prevent terrorist acts from happening, although there have been some clear cases of enticement to commit crimes and entrapment of gullible youth by the law enforcement agencies. However, we cannot expect these efforts to be 100% effective. Things will happen, which will change the dynamics of community relations and harden the attitudes of the people. The more our military destabilizes the Muslim countries, more will be the number of youth joining the terrorist groups and greater their chances of success. To make matters worse, the American government has put itself in a straitjacket by declaring that any act of terrorism on the American soil by ex-patriots such as the people of Pakistani origin will provoke a strong response against that country. This will close the loop of mutual destruction and usher in a terrible period of turmoil for the entire world. Unfortunately, nobody is looking at the obvious solution nor is the White House amenable to any suggestion from our side.

So, here is the question. What are we, the Muslims of America, to do in terms of self-preservation? Shall we resign to our fate and wait for the doomsday or shall we be stirred to action and at least develop a strategy to avert the impending disaster?  I suggest we opt for the latter.

There is no doubt that we have to treat this matter as a national emergency. It must be the fulcrum of all our activities. If we can learn  The meaningless and wasteful annual conventions should give way to focused debates and discfrom the Jews how to survive, we must. We should put “Islamophobia” at par with “anti-Semitism”. The meaningless and wasteful annual conventions should give way to focused debates and discussions. Strategies must be developed and solutions must be found. The urgency with which we are confronted, demands, first of all, that we obliterate commercialism, sectarianism, egotism, oligarchy and other negative traits from our institutions.

Secondly, we should stop looking towards our Old countries and detach ourselves sentimentally from them. They have created an unbelievable mess. For example, individuals and institutions in Pakistan are immersed in corruption from top to toe. It is only a matter of time before providence deals them a final blow. The Arab world, it seems, is peeping out from the dustbin of history. Events in Palestine, which is the epicenter of all the turmoil in the Arab and Muslim world, now presents a scene, which makes us think that we are hallucinating. Having told us a million times that Israel was theirs and our arch enemy, the Palestinian leadership is now aligned with the same enemy in exchange for peace and comfort and plots to use the Israeli gunships against their poor relations in Gaza. The most powerful Arab states tell the Israelis to attack other Arabs and finish them off quickly before the UN Security Council could intervene. It seems that we must exit from this world of madness, if we want to keep our own sanity intact.

After retrieving our sanity, we should look inwards and see if there is something we should or should not be doing. For one thing, it should not be difficult to surmise that while our actions have been quite benign; our mouths have been on a mission of quixotic self-infliction. We have killed hundreds and thousands of Kuffar in our verbose hallucinations invoking, falsely and stupidly, the injunctions from the Quran and Hadith. Many of our khateebs test their indiscreet verbosity at the pulpit. We must put an end to this.

Our opiate self-indulgence in irrational gossip and conspiracy theories is another problem, which keeps us sterile. The problem we have been discussing above has been solved and resolved as our detective masterminds have discovered that the Jews done it! We are now free to sit down for another round of dope. We must free the minds of our young men and women from lazy thinking and intellectualize them — Don’t take my word for it; see the various exhortations in the Quran. Teaching rituals is fine but rituals are not the end; they are a means to the end. We must broaden the scope of our teachings, in schools as well as in the masjids, to include religious as well as secular topics — Remember Dar-al Hikmah?  Anger is justified and anger against injustice is sacrosanct but we should sublime this anger into the spirit of competitiveness.

Friday khutbas are the greatest means of mass communication that our religion has bestowed upon us. People gather in numbers unachievable in other gatherings, captive in one place and attentive to a word. At no other time and at no other place can an educator get an opportunity to disseminate information with such ease. We should fully utilize this opportunity to fill the gap in knowledge and awareness, instead of sprinkling on the congregations, words which are fragrant but of no consequence. Inspirational speech must be occasional, not perpetual. Putting people in a trance does not translate into actions.

Interfaith dialogue is a significant part of our activities these days. No one can deny the usefulness of this public relations exercise. However, what is more urgently needed in the present circumstance is building bridges across communities and groups: rainbow coalition, as Rev. Jesse Jackson would call it. Traditionally, the first generation immigrants are inward looking and self-centered and very resistant to social intercourse with other communities. This is very prominently manifest among the first generation Palestinians, a majority of which owns businesses in inner cities. In many cases the nature of their relationship with their clientele borders on hostility. Experience has shown that this situation is not likely to change any time soon but the second and the successive generations must be malleable as the cultural orthodoxy gets diluted. It is this generation of immigrants which must be coaxed into being outward looking and to sever adhesion to parental attitudes.

There have been a number of incidents in which the converted Muslims are accused of committing or attempting to commit terrorist acts. We must recognize that New Muslims are our greatest asset. Since docility is not one of their characteristics, inappropriate militancy can be very easily induced and used by special interest groups to serve their ends. These special interests themselves do not proselytize. They attract people who are already in the fold of Islam but are looking for explanations and directions which the masjids have failed to provide them with. They are also looking for social adoption having been estranged from their non-Muslim families. The solution to this problem is obvious but not easy. Here again insular attitudes are the main culprit. A focused and concerted effort to meet their educational, spiritual and social needs is an absolute requirement for the security and the integrity of the community.

I am not a legal expert but I am baffled by the fact that the law allows a government agent to spend months and years with a gullible young person, slowly working up his emotions and wearing down his resistance to commit a violent act, whereupon the courts step in and commit him to life imprisonment. To me this is a travesty. Since there does not seem to be a legal recourse, we must have our own “counterespionage”. Also, the parents, the guardians, friends and companions and community leaders must keep a watchful eye on our vulnerable youth and their questionable associates in order to prevent things from getting out of hand. Our young men and women should be strictly forbidden to discuss politics with anyone except in large groups.

Lastly but not less importantly, I want to touch upon a complex issue: stereotypes. In France, they have legislated against women wearing veils. As is obvious, this is only a propaganda issue. The number of resident women wearing veils is miniscule. In the United States, one will have to wait for years, if one wants to catch a woman in veils and in a majority of the Muslim countries, veiled women in public places are a rarity and yet we have allowed our enemies to create controversy over a non-issue. However, the Islamic requirement of modesty is another matter. There is extraordinary leniency with regard to men as compared to women.

Men can dress in tuxedos or in beachwear.  They don’t have to wear a kufi at work and they don’t. Women, on the other hand are required to dress modestly, which is defined in the Quran and Sunnah. We must remember that hijab is a mode of clothing, not a style. This is where we have plenty of flexibility. Instead of wearing a uniform let our women diversify the “hijab” and be creative. Let us camouflage and offer multiple stereotypes rather than one. A case may be made that we must insist on our fundamental rights but the realities are often very ugly. There are various ways in which a woman wearing hijab could be discriminated against in hiring and in promotions, without a reasonable chance of successful litigation. We should not believe that we are living in a society of benevolent and compassionate angels.

To read my articles, you may refer to my website www.mjournal.org .

By Dr. Waheeduddin Ahmed

Life, Death and the Hereafter:

Hamd wa Thana

Allah (T) says in the Quran:                                                                                                     كُلُّ مَنْ عَلَيْهَا فَانٍ

“All that exists on earth will perish”

وَيَبْقَى وَجْهُ رَبِّكَ ذُو الْجَلالِ وَالإكْرَامِ

“Save the face of your Lord with its magnificence and glory”

Every now and then our preachers, our scholars and our khateebs remind us of this fact. Sometimes we listen to them inattentively, sometimes we yawn; other times we shake our heads up and down in agreement without particularly moved by what they have said, until it hits us personally, when there is a death in the family; a loved one passes away and a life familiar to us suddenly comes to an end.

Well! last week two members of our Islamic family were snatched away from us by the cruel hand of death. One was our beloved friend Numan Tugan  (alaihi Rahmah) who was a familiar face in this congregation. The other was Dr. Farooki who was afflicted with malaria on a hunting expedition in Tanzania and died. Born in India, educated in England, having practiced medicine in America, he died in Africa, spanning three continents. All this must prompt us to reflect on the question of death in the light of the Quran.

Verily, the knowledge of the hour is with Allah alone. It is He, who sends down rain and He who knows what is in the wombs; nor does anyone know what it is that he will earn  in the morrow; nor does anyone know in what land he is to die. Verily with God is full knowledge and He is acquainted with all things (Qur’an 31:34)

Neither the Late Brother Farooki nor his family nor his friends had any knowledge that he would die in Africa during a visit from another continent. By the same token, we have no choice where we are going to be born, in America? in the thick forest of Africa? or in the dust bowl of Arabia? We cannot choose to be a member of an affluent family or a starving family. We cannot be Black or White by choice. Our fates. our places of birth, our genus and our race are determined for us by our Creator.

Let us now think about our strengths and our prowess as human beings. We are scientists; we are engineers; we are doctors and researchers. We make great strides in all these fields. We probe deep into matter; unfold the secrets of nature; send spacecrafts into the cosmos; station Hubble telescope in space and catch the glimpses of galaxies billions of light years away. We discover cures for hitherto incurable diseases.  We think that we have conquered nature but are our conquests unlimited? Are we not helpless in determining where we are born and how we shall die? Death comes to us suddenly with a mosquito bite, a contemptible, miniscule creature. Our spacecraft takes us far into space but only as far as we are allowed to go, as the Qur’an declares:

“Oh assemblies of jins and humans, if you are able to pass beyond the zones of heavens and earth ,do it by all means but you will never be able to do it without authority  (from Allah).”  Our prowess is only to the extent we are empowered to, by God.

Everything, which is created has two points on the scale of existence: a starting point and an end point. Everything, which has a beginning in time has an ending in time, whether it is man, animal, heavenly bodies, sun, moon planets or stars. The cosmologists say that the universe began with a Big Bang, when a compact ball of energy exploded. With it began the time and the contours of space which are continuously expanding and in which the galaxies, the stars and the satellites are taking shape. The stars are then sinking into Black Hole, in a reversal of the Big Bang process. Thus it seems the universe will come to an end as it is sucked into a Black Hole.

Everything, which is created has a linear dimension on the time scale, with a beginning point and an end point. There is also a lateral dimension, which determines the field of existence — the capacity field. This is the enclosure in which every species’ capacities are confined. This also holds for the cosmos. The satellites and stars confined to their orbits. Every animal has a size limit, which is written into its DNA. A cat cannot grow into a tiger. Men cannot grow to be sixteen feet tall. Our perceptions have their ranges. Man’s vision has a range. He cannot see beyond violet at one end and red at the other, whereas some animals can see what man cannot see and hear what man cannot hear.

Likewise, our intellect has a range too. Human brain is getting bigger as the brain cells increase. We may not have reached the maximum range of our intellect yet, as more discoveries are awaiting us. Our space travel has not reached its farthest point, as our destinations are yonder still but the limit is imminent.

The Unseen (ghaib):

What is imperceptible to our eyes and ears and undetectable by our scientific instruments, the Hubble telescope and what is inconceivable by the regions of our brain fall in a realm, which, in the Qur’anic language is called Ilm- al-ghaib (knowledge of the unseen) Belief in the unseen is a fundamental tenet of Islam. The Qur’an declares in the very beginning:

“This is the book in which there is no doubt, a guide for the God-fearing, those who believe in the unseen, establish prayer and spend of what we have provided them with.” ِ

Ghaib means something that cannot be perceived by man howsoever he tries, for instance, the reality of God and the times and places of death. This also means that one must reject the notion that what cannot be seen does not exist. This is the contention of the naturalists, which our faith categorically rejects. Humans live in a very small world of their perception and knowledge. There is an infinite amount of reality beyond the scope of our knowledge.

Apart from perception, imagination and speculation, there is another property of our brain, which is called rationalization. Rationalization is essential for our survival. For instance, driving at a speed of one hundred miles an hour may cause us to lose control and have a fatal accident, so we slow down. This is rationalization. Hearing a smoke alarm, we rationalize that there may be a fire and we take necessary action. However, there are many things we cannot understand, cannot assign the causes and cannot speculate their effects. They are beyond the scope of our rational thinking. There is a death in the family. A young child dies, leaving the old, the mother, the father and the grandparents behind. Why should the young die, leaving the old to linger? Who can give a rational answer? Which branch of science can explain this? Science can often answer the question: how, the death caused by malaria, typhoid and so on but can it answer the question why? The answer does not lie in science but in the concept of Ghaib.

You are driving along on a road, whistling and listening to music, oblivious of what is ahead of you. Suddenly, you make a stupid mistake, causing a near fatal accident but you escape death by the skin of your teeth. You remember that days ago, a friend of yours, a very cautious driver, had got into an accident for no fault of his, hit by a drunk driver and was killed. Why was it that he should die and you survive? What is the rationale? There is none. The answer belongs in the realm of Ghaib.

Let us now look at another aspect of life and death One of our famous Urdu poets said:

Zindagi kya hai anasir men zahoor-e-tarteeb

Maut kya ait inhi ajza ka pareshan hona

What is life? It is the manifestation of order in elements.

What is death? It is the scattering of the very same elements.

Human life is the coming together of some elements in a unique order and harmony and the death is the reversal of that process. Life is order and death is disorder. Our bodies are composed of water, some elements like calcium, magnesium and phosphorous supplied by earth; carbon, supplied by carbon dioxide, a component of air, all compounded into biological matter as energy from the sun (fire) is added. So, they were not far off who said that we were made of water, dust, air and fire. When we die, our bodies disintegrate and revert back to these basic elements, dust to dust, water to water and air to air!

“It is He, who brings out the living from the dead and brings out the dead from the living and who gives life to the earth after it is dead and thus shall you be brought out.”

And also:

مِنْهَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ وَفِيهَا نُعِيدُكُمْ وَمِنْهَا نُخْرِجُكُمْ تَارَةً أُخْرَىٰ ٰ

“From the earth did we create you and into it shall we return you. And from it shall we bring you out once again.”

Rooh (spirit)

Mechanical mixing of elements does not create life. What makes life happen is another mysterious element, which we call Rooh (spirit) but is the Rooh a common element like air and dust? The answer is no, because water can go back to water, air can mix with air and dust can return to dust but Rooh cannot merge with a common pool of Arwah (spirits). It had made an individual different from any other individual that had ever existed but we do not know its nature. The knowledge of it belongs in the realm of Ghaib. The Qur’an says;

وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ ۖ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّنَالْعِلْمِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا

“And they ask you about spirit. Say: The spirit is in the realm of my Lord. Of the knowledge, only a little is communicated to you.”

Creation and resurrection are both in the form of body and soul. Life cannot be sustained without the soul. A living body cannot decompose as long as the body functions are active. You can take a powerful hypnotic drug and sleep for seven days, your flesh will not decompose; only a dead body disintegrates into its elements. The elements go back to their respective pools and the individual ceases to exist on the worldly plain.

Akhirah (Hereafter)

Let us now move to another tenet of our beliefs: Iman bil-akhirah (belief in the Hereafter). The Qur’an describes the God-fearing (Muttaqoon) in the verses already quoted earlier, as those who, among other things, have a firm belief in the Hereafter.

Life after death and the concept of reward and punishment, not only have a spiritual dimension but have an important sociological dimension too. There are two factors, which play a part in a society’s survival: legality and morality. Legality can be administered and enforced — although not completely — by the government machinery, consisting of a police force and a court system. Fear of punishment is a very important deterrent in enforcing legality. However, morality is something, which cannot be enforced by legislative and legal means. Secular societies only lightly recommend it. Greed can very easily strangle morality. The economic crisis we are undergoing today, caused by the devilish avarice of the operatives in finance, banking, oil, insurance and pharmaceutical industries is only the tip of the iceberg. These people do not care about the sick, the poor and the vulnerable. All the laws of the land favor them. No law will ever be written to stop them from devouring mankind’s resources. There will be no patriot act against them and no Guantanamo Bay will ever be awaiting their arrival. What a difference it would have made if these people had a touch of conscience and belief in the Hereafter!

Another argument, which supports the validity of the concept of Akhiah is belief in Divine Justice. When you see people, who are corrupt to the core, doing well in this world, living in luxury, without any apparent difficulties and discomforts, while some others, every bit virtuous, suffering all kinds of calamities: you ask: where is justice? The answer is simple. Divine Justice is never far away. One of the most important attributes of Allah is Adl (justice). We must understand that our life on this earth is only one phase of our spiritual existence. Each individual has his/her share of comfort and discomfort, grief and happiness, pain and pleasure. If it appears that one has a longer span of misfortune in this life, Allah’s justice requires that it must be compensated for on a different plane of existence. It can only happen if there is life after death