Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I will create a vicegerent on earth." (Al-Baqra: 30)
As suggested above, no where in Quran can it be witnessed that Muslims are to restrict themselves only to their place of birth. The presence of a true Muslim is like a torch in the dark and lits up the entire environment.
It is mentioned in Quran, that angels will inquire the following from those people who didn't practice Islam before taking out their soul:
When angels take the souls of those who die in sin against their souls, they say: "In what (plight) Were ye?" They reply: "Weak and oppressed Were we in the earth." They say: "Was not the earth of Allah spacious enough for you to move yourselves away (From evil)?" Such men will find their abode in Hell,- What an evil refuge! - (An-Nisa:97)
This verse means that Allah(SWT) want from us to practice Islam whether we live in between the majority of muslims or in a secular western country. Incase, if there is any hurdle for us to practice Islam then we are advised to migrate to an environment feasible for our religious practices. We muslims, despite of having a general bias against west have to recognize that we generally get more rights in western countries as opposed to our own countries. Islam gives humanity a choice to choose their faith and despite of being in the west, we have that choice to practice Islam individually in its true form. We have mosques established in every other block of all major cities where local muslims pray five times in congregation, as well as on Jummah and Eideen. Muslims pay their zakat, offer hajj, and perform all rituals that our religion demands from us without any restriction. We have many Islamic schools providing quality education to the kids of those muslim parents who want to raise their children in an Islamic environment. We have the opportunity of dawah on our hand at every moment of our life where we could make non-muslims aware of the beauty of Islam. We have lectures, conferences and interfaith meetings throughout the year. There are various Islamic institutes which teache indepth knowledge of Islam to young and old alike. If we have all these opportunities then why should we think that living in West is against Islam? Why can't we spread the light of Islam to every one living near to us? No doubt there are alot of bad practices also in these countries as well but the influence of those bad practices could now even be witnessed in more traditional Islamic countries also with every passing year. The world has turned into a global village and we can't restrict ourselves from the exposure of those evils due to the technological reach. We have to educate ourselves and our next generation to tackle such evils head-on and eradicate them from the face of this earth instead of running away from them.We have to remember also that after the first migration of early muslims towards Habsha, many of them stayed in that Christian country despite of the fact that an Islamic State was formed in Medina over a decade ago. They did their business, they married locals, and they preached their faith etc. Habsha, which is now known as Ethopia, is a Muslim dominating country and is only so due to the efforts of those early muslims.
The main question that is usually confusing to Muslims population in general is as follows:
Are we going against Islam by living in a immoral society of the West? and should we move away from West after witnessing these immoralities?
It is quite evident that Muslims in the West along with the rest of the people are exposed to immorality of their civilization in a variety of situations during their every day lives. A simple walk in metropolitan cities like New York, Chicago or London would enable a person to witness the height of immorality in terms of revealing clothing of the young girls/women, immoral actions and activities around him etc. Some people suggest that the best practice is to not to live and breath in places like such. However, one has to realize that the morality of the humanity in general is on the decline whether we live in a Western country or in a predominantly Muslim country. Are we not witnessing a similar set of immorality in countries like UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Turkey etc.? What should we suggest to the Muslims of those countries to do? Are we also not witnessing a surge of such trends in more conservative countries like Pakistan, sweeping slowly the general public, especially young generation, towards the same immoral norms & shameless practices? Where should the Muslims of those countries run away from such evil among them? As suggested above, Allah (SWT) sent humans to this world as His vicegerent, with the following duties:
- To follow the divine guidance and bring about changes in their lives according to the set of attributes bestowed upon them by Allah (SWT).
- To propagate these superior morale and ideology to the rest of the people in the society, Muslims/Non-Muslims by means of their practices both in terms of verbal and physical conduct.
In a verse of Surah Al-Noor, Muslim boys/men have be instructed by Allah (SWT) the following:
Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do. (Al-Noor:30)
In another verse, muslims women/girls have been given a similar instruction:
And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, ..... (Al-Noor:31)
These verse clearly suggests that Muslims, regardless of their presence in a Muslim or Non-Muslim country have been commanded by Allah (SWT) to lower their gaze whenever they are in a situation where their modesty could be compromised by satanic urges arising due to an immoral exposure. At the next level, we Muslims are required by Allah (SWT) to make an effort towards the eradication of that immorality by means of preaching the true ideology to the people whom we interact.
Muslims living in the West have an important duty to perform in addition to meeting their personal financial obligations, and that duty is the propagation of Islam through oral and physical dawah at every possible chance they get during their interaction with the non-Muslims. Some people are of the view that all Muslim should strictly stay in an Islamic country having the Shariah law. Unfortunately, in the present world there is not even a single country which could be referred to as an Islamic state having the implementation of true Shariah Law. Without divine shariah we could never imagine that the true morality could nourish & flourish among us in a collective manner.
In the midst of this global turmoil that the Muslim Ummah is currently facing, the only way to stay Muslim and propagate the light of Islam is through the implementation of the true Islamic ideals in one’s own life as the very first step. The Islamic values of ethics, honesty, truthfulness and morality must become an integral part of our lives so that the others would witness the beauty of Islam through us in its true and beautiful form and hence would attract towards that goodness and as a conseuquence, the world would become a better place to live.
