Wake up call to Muslims

Wake up Call to Muslims
Mike Ghouse, May 30, 2007

The Swiss move to ban minarets, the French actually ban the Scarf for Muslim women in public, Australians are sending back the Sharia brokers and Soccer international is telling the Muslim girls to play by the rules or just don't play with the scarf on, ... and there is a lot more to come.

We have shamelessly complained about losing our civil rights, but have seldom done much about it. We want others do it for us, it is not going to work. Each one of us has to put in our time. I have a simple do it yourselves action plan, please consider it, on my part, I follow it every day.

All the good you intend to do is meaningless, unless you put your name to it.

As Muslims we do several things right, including attending the places of worship religiously and being good citizens. However, we fail in community relationship test miserably. This ought to be # 1 item on our list of priorities – getting to know our neighbors. We have to serve others in the community as much as we get served.

Why do we need to know others? Because many of the other people don’t really know who we are, and what they know is not necessarily the full truth. We don’t know about others either. This change would be the basis for earning a respectable place in our society.

Think about the wisdom of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) seriously for a moment, he gave us a step by step plan. The first lesson for us is to be Al Amin; the trustworthy, the truthful and the peace makers, ever ready to help others. Let’s request our Imams to focus their sermons on getting us to be the Amins of the society, please remember clearly the Prophet was called Al Amin by non-Muslims, it is a model of co-existence and living together, if we do this right, providence will move in and help us become the best citizens we can be, to be good to others and good to ourselves. Insha Allah all sorts of good things will happen to us.

What does it take?

1. Giving up the arrogance that the law is on our side.
2. Working on getting people to be on our side.
3. Getting to know the people we live with, work with and do business with.
4. Learning to be humble and avoid challenging that our system is better, what is the point?
5. Reciprocating and inviting neighbors to our weddings, birthdays, festivals and funerals.
6. Earning friendship on a plain human level.
7. Practicing and understanding that life is a two way street.

Our mission at the World Muslim Congress is driven by the Qur'an, Al-Hujurat, Surah 49:13: "O mankind! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. The noblest of you, in sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Allah Knows and is Aware." This verse is loaded with wisdom.

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio, discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. He founded the World Muslim Congress with a simple theme " good for Muslims and good for the world." Mike believes that if people can learn to accept and respect the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge. His personal Website is http://www.mikeghouse.net/ and his articles can be found on the Websites mentioned above and in his blogs: http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/ and http://mikeghouse.sulekha.com/ . He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com. Mike lives in Carrollton with his family and has been a citizen of Dallas for the last 27 years.