Friday, 19 Ramadan 1445 | 2024/03/29
Time now: (M.M.T)
Menu
Main menu
Main menu

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 Nafsiya Reflections: The Correct Perspective on Culture

AssalamuAlaykum and welcome to today’s episode – ‘The Correct Perspective on Culture’

Growing up, we have had culture surround us. Usually this is the norms and practices from the region we and our families root back to - our countries. ‘Culture’ or ‘thaqafah’, can range from specific traditional clothing like shalwar kameez, Kanga or saris to numerous languages being spoken – Arabic, Somalian or Persian to a variety of foods like Manti, tabbouleh or Kabuli, to how weddings are celebrated with singing, dancing and drums. This culture tends to have a big impact on us, our behaviour, our tastes/our likes and our personalities. For example, in many cultures, we see that the arrival of a guest is seen with great importance. And so this understanding shapes the way in which people behave towards them, whereby the whole family welcomes their guest, food is prepared for them, and a good amount of time is taken out in entertaining them.

Like many cultural norms that are Islamically permissible to follow in the categories of food and clothing, there are some that have become the norm, despite the Shari’ prohibition attached to them, such as:

1. Your cousins are your brothers, you do not need to “do pardah” (cover your awrah) in front of them, or

2. The family of the bride must pay for all the expenses and the huge amount of “Jahez” (dowry) is a condition for the wedding.

3. The birth of a baby boy brings more rizq and prosperity in a household

4. Being fashionably late – turning up to events and weddings an hour or hours later, is okay. And another one is,

5. You shouldn’t marry an older woman or a divorced woman, and on the day of marriage, one must minimise the contact of the divorced woman with the bride out of fear of superstition or bad luck. And last but not least -

6. A man cannot get married before his unmarried sisters, and must have a huge bank balance in order to qualify for his marriage to a woman ..and the list goes on. Today, all of these mentalities are practiced actively in parts of the Muslim world, and are accepted as completely NORMAL!

These examples resemble back to the time of Jahalliyah (Ignorant era before Islam) where people would decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong, or what is good and bad. Unfortunately, these cultural norms and practices have had dire consequences. By incorrectly associating many of these practices to Islam, it has led to a distorted image of the Deen, which has put many off of Islam. Tens of thousands suffer as a result of these backward practices. For instance, in the Asian subcontinent, in India alone, twenty-one dowry related deaths are reported every single day.

In Afghanistan, 50% of the women do not receive their inheritance rights – due to being deemed inferior to their male siblings. Also, in many villages, grandmothers are often heard saying that “the birth of more daughters is going to break my son’s back.” Meaning, the birth of female children is an economic burden upon a household. As a result, many girls and young women are raised in an environment where they have to prove their worthiness on a daily basis - leading to low self-esteem and social anxieties. Divorce and second marriage are used as sticks to beat the women with, to taunt them for their misfortunes.

But not just this - the lack of adherence in Islamic social laws with non-mahrem relatives, has led to numerous cases of sexual abuse by male members of family who were considered ‘trustworthy’... And as we mentioned earlier with regards to dowry - untold amounts of families suffer financially after spending huge amounts of wealth on weddings - all just to live upto a cultural practice which might secure the success of their daughter’s marriage in the future. All of these examples show the ignorant practices that have left communities damaged and in a downward spiral of social and moral decline. They do not stem from Islam, but have been linked with its noble heritage.

So what was the starting point of this cultural distortion?

After the demise of the Khilafah in 1924, unIslamic traditions raised their heads once again on Islamic soil. The absence of Islam’s political entity, the western secular ideas became the benchmark for social laws and customs. Eventually over time, the pre-islamic cultural practices became normalised. The West who dismantled the Muslim world into 52 nation states promoted all they could to weaken the unity of the Muslims. They only had one agenda; to distance the Muslim as far as possible from Islam and its return as a ruling system.

Today - the broken societies of the Muslim lands are presented before the world as a symbol of Islam; as if the regression and cultural backwardness can be traced to Islam’s footsteps in those regions. When in fact, the truth is far from this. The shambles in our communities is due to the drive of the corrupt regimes in Muslim lands, who seek to spread secular kufr ideas and western values, instead of Islamic concepts and thoughts; and they achieve this via the various state media - namely the televised media and education curricula.

Dear listeners, Islam did not come to wipe out all cultures from the face of this Earth. Rather, Islam came to rid cultures of damaging and backward practices. To purify them of the negative, and let their goodness flourish. Hence, many cultural practices existed under the Khilafah, and are still present in parts of the Muslim world that belong to people of different ethnicities.

Allah says in the Quran [49:13]

(يَا أيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَاُنثَی وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ)

'O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you into peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.'

Allah swt permitted the diversity in our colours and languages. And while our Deen unifies our various ethnicities along the Shahada, with no preferential treatment given due to colourism, it does lay ONE feature which grades one person higher than the other - and THAT according to this ayah is ‘righteousness’ (taqwa) in the eyes of Allah. Hence, firstly it lays the standard for all of us to compete against each other, and secondly, it puts a check on what our cultural diversities bring to the table. Like the Aws and the Khazraj who were warriors before Islam, but Islam realigned their inclinations, so they only sought battles for Allah’s sake.

Today, we should always evaluate our cultural practices with a keen Islamic lens and never assume that something is ‘okay’, just because it is commonly practiced. We should also understand that the decline that we witness in the Muslim lands is a culmination of the various factors (educational, political as well as economic),that all stem from the ONE ideological problem that exists - the absence of the ruling system of Islam - the Khilafah (caliphate).

May Allah SWT grant us the glorious Islamic Khilafah that will rid our lands of the unislamic backward practices - and restore the correct perspective on culture.

JZK for joining us

Media

Leave a comment

Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated. HTML code is not allowed.

back to top

Site Categories

Links

West

Muslim Lands

Muslim Lands