Are we losing our faith?Prudence is key to knowing Islam [Archives:2004/793/Culture]

By Nawal Zaid
For the Yemen Times
The matter of guidance is at the behest of the Almighty. This doesn't imply that we shouldn't call for the true religion of Allah. But before shouldering the responsibility of this call, we have to evaluate ourselves, to see whether we are following the right way or deviating.
All misdeeds in the Islamic community are absolutely related to the lack of prudence because it is associated with faith. Prudence is avoiding doing all shameful things and what affects moral and injures the noble human emotions.
Lack of prudence means loss of religion that signifies the loss of morals and noble behavior and placing the wrong ones instead. Our life becomes full of barbaric behaviors because of being away from the didactic principles of our religion that sets detailed rules for the whole life.
Everything is clearly presented in a way that may not contradict or even be mixed with other topics. If we consider our life today with a prudent vision, we will discover that it is nearer to the life of animals than to the life of human beings.
The weakness of our belief and our little exposure to the rules of the true religion, Islam, makes us a nation that is led by its whims from all directions looking for what is beautiful in life regardless of the religious view in that respect.
The nation then becomes weak or paralyzed. This is happening when we lose prudence and the real correct example in the society, and have the enemies as the only example. We are looking for the secondary things avoiding the basics and this is how our life will go on since we are not ashamed of ourselves.
I agree with him who says, “Do whatever you want unless you feel prudence”. It is prudence that stops a person, who is like the car that has no brakes. When likening the human being to that car, we understand that the possibility of falling down a steep increases. That's our today's status, Moslems' conditions are getting worse and worse because we no longer keep the rules our Prophet Mohammed taught us.
The various devices of modern technology helps in leading us away including the space channels, Internet, etc. It let me think that our being Moslems is just because our fathers are so, there being no actual understanding of the real identity of Islam.
Our connection with religion has become so surface, we know only that prayers and fasting as part of the religion. We don't of course understand the rules which we have sacrificed. We also lose the social relations when many parents don't teach their children how to interact with the society because they lack the religious awareness.
In schools, teachers don't take care of this part of teaching. Students do always listen to lessons without understanding the meaning. The cause of this state is not being taught the actual principles of Islam by teachers and parents.
Students spend their time with bad friends who drag them to the misuse of the Internet and the space channels that make them ignore prayers and religion as a whole. They deal with what they acquire from these means as signs of intellectual and social development. This is the way they grow up forgetting our Islamic traditions that protect us from wrongdoings.
The preachers that speak in mosques tend to complicate their lessons. They describe the lawful as unlawful and consequently religion seems so complex causing many people to avoid its principles.
Many people in the society want the woman to put off her hijab in order to see her in the best picture as they watch the space channels. Otherwise, they describe her as an uncivilized ugly woman.
We see on the other hand an increasing number of foreigners who adopt Islam and they obey its rules well. How do we teach them that religion while we are getting deteriorated? How can we do that while we abandon reciting the Holy book and if we read it we don't understand its meaning? How can we do that while we become selfish? Those people believe in this faith and they want to know more about it!
We should raise awareness among our children and whoever and ourselves as well about the significance of being well educated in this vital aspect of life.
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