The fact is that we have to find the life-giving panacea in Islam itself, and not get lost in wandering away from it. We have to refit ourselves in the Islamic framework of faith, reason and justice. Let us raise ourselves above sectarian controversies and be guided in our own day-to-day life by the life-giving ideology of Islam, and thus enable ourselves to play in the world the role of the people of the Middle course, the balance-keepers, and the peace-keepers.
But for playing that role, we will have once again to combine faith with good deeds, the two basic rocks on which rests the edifice of Islam.
Islam raised man's status in his own eyes. For the first time it salvaged man from the clutches of his fellow men. Islam goes a step further. According to it, Allah bestows man, His best and noblest creation, with such bounties of reason and knowledge as to enable him to distinguish good from bad, right from wrong, lawful from unlawful, proper from improper, and thus so enriches his life as to enable him to send forth the great calls of the call to success (Hayya Alal Falah), both here and in the Hereafter. It is also the call towards welfare, the welfare of all men. Faith and welfare are the objects of a Muslim's life. Thus, every Muslim is expected to make his contribution, however humble, to the common good of all.
The world is moving at such an advance pace that any community who is afraid to think openly will be left behind and signs are here to approve this statement. The Muslim community everywhere in the whole world is suffering from the consequence of the lack of thinking. We are living Islam on a day-to-day basis without any clear vision for our future. We ignore exactly where we are standing? What is our stock? What are our shortcomings and our strength? What are the opportunities that lie ahead and what are the threats that may affect our lives in the long run?
We should recognize that we are presently facing a severe sense of crisis and that only bold and provocative thinking, whether rightly or wrongly sometimes, which will get us out of the morass.
The Quran says: "Allah has created humankind according to the best patterns. But Allah can reduce such people to the lowest of the low."
These verses seem to say something to our community, which is not vigilant, neither reflective, nor pro-active, that it is at the lowest of the low and that is the danger we are facing.
That is the assessment we have to make. How close are we to the best patterns, in which God has created us or how close are we to the lowest of the low? We need to assess where we are because it is only through accurate assessment of where we are which will allow us to continue our way to the abyss.
Further, the Quran says: "In revelation of the Quran there is for the Believers a Healing and a Mercy." These are the two things of which we are in dire need. We need not to depart from the present revelation in order to attain Healing and Mercy of Allah.
Our betterment lies not in going away from Islam but coming nearer to it - real and living Islam, and not the stagnant variety which we find around us, encroached upon by un-Islamic assertions of time and space.
Nowadays when everyone is talking of empowerment, let eminent Muslims from all walks of life and various schools of thought come together and pledge to work for the empowerment of Muslims. Keeping in view the pathetic conditions of Muslims in educational and economic fields, the urgent need demands to reshape our thinking and to chalk out an action plan to achieve the objectives of the movement for educational, economic, political, administrative, social and cultural empowerment of Muslims.
Muslim is the only community whose share in every area of national endeavour had come down since the demise of Sir. A. Rajack Mohamed, while the share of all other communities increased.
In terms of literacy rate, Muslims lag for behind their compatriots. The enrolment rate in all institutions – private or public- for tertiary studies stands to nearly nothing. No mechanism exists to identify the reasons and to find remedies. The relative backwardness of the community and its economic deprivation had frozen the role of our Madrassa. The community, particularly the Muslim Scholar, has to strengthen the Madrassa system with requisite reform.
A survey will confirm that in public sector only few Muslims are senior officers or at top management level. The representation of Muslims in private sector is even less. In the armed forces, para-military forces and police, Muslims account for merely a few per cent of the total strength.