Assalamualaikum,
..................continued from part 13
4. Promotion of virtues, prevention of vice. This obligation is better known as al amru bil ma'ruf wan nahyu an nil munkar. It is a command on all Muslims who had testified the syahadah to call for good deeds, not only for himself, but for all creations, man included. But it does not stop here; the command that calls for good deeds comes hand in hand with the command for all Muslimsto put an end to evil deeds.
كُنتُمْخَيْرَأُمَّةٍأُخْرِجَتْلِلنَّاسِتَأْمُرُونَبِالْمَعْرُوفِوَتَنْهَوْنَعَنِالْمُنكَرِ
وَتُؤْمِنُونَبِاللّهِوَلَوْآمَنَأَهْلُالْكِتَابِلَكَانَخَيْرًالَّهُممِّنْهُمُالْمُؤْمِنُونَوَأَكْثَرُهُمُالْفَاسِقُونَ
You are the best nation ever to be brought forth for people.
You order honor and forbid dishonor,
and you believe in Allah.
Had the People of the Book believed,
it would have surely been better for them.
Some of them are believers, but most of them are evildoers.
Ali Imran 110
The definition of what is good and what is evil is he sole previledge of Allah the Creator. The Muslims thuss can not inject their own interpretation on these, simply because human values vary diversely.
An important point to note here is, it is fairly easy to call for good deeds among human beings, such as requesting for aids when disaster strikes. On the other hand, the quest to put a stop to evil deeds is an ardous task. It is even more challenging when the evil deed can only be stopped with power and authority, like putting an end to gambling operations nation wide. This obligation of the syahadah requires Muslims to hold power and authority without which this obligation can never be fulfilled.
5. To make Islam sovereign. The fourth obligation naturally lands to the fifth, that is to make Islam sovereign and to give power and aouthority. In his famous lecture in 1952, Maududi (1960) explained that sovereignty only belonbgs to Allah. Power and authority therefore are vested only in Allah, and as such Islam must possess them. Rulers on earth are only Allah's representatives, and they conduct the administration within the framework of powerand authority entrusted in them.
Every Muslim must stirve to empower Islam with power and authority, and it is the only way Allah is made sovereign.
6. To enforce the syariah. The final obligation of the syahadah therefore requires that Islam has territorial control so as its sovereignty can descend on the people. The syariah is not an academic material to be studied only but a realistic tool to administering people.
Being a Muslim is clearly not just simply uttering the syahadah and the disregarding its implications and obligations. Being a Muslim is in essence submitting to Allah and making Allah great, in one's heart, on earth, in the universe as well as in all creations, from the world to the hereafter.
...................to be continued
