Continuation of my Contentions Series

2. We must not overestimate the calamities of our age. A misplaced rigorism is less dangerous than an improper liberalism.

To understand this contention, I had to draw a relationship between calamities and liberalism. A calamity is a dire event, resulting in loss. And liberalism, by its nature is a movement with a free-thinking attitude.

The contention states that “misplaced rigorism” is less dangerous than “improper liberalism”. Rigorism means harshness or strictness in conduct, judgment, or practice. This seems straightforward: it is safer to be stricter about things that you don’t have a need to be strict over, than to introduce concepts of change where there is no need of change.

The Sheykh is advising us not to consider all the evils that have occured to the Muslim community and the world as bigger than they actually are. If we consider them of such importance, we begin to question the faith that we held when we brought about such calamities upon ourselves. It is also a reminder to myself and others that the world is just that, the world, it is transitory in nature. Muslims should respect the world, but also have a certain level of abhorrence for it. The best sufi’s are those that completely divorced themselves from the world, but yet they impacted the world greatly with their presence.

To consider the worlds problems so close to ones heart that it begins to adjust and modify your very identity and faith is a disease of this world. It is simply another way to show a love for this dunya, when we should be concentrating our love of Allah.

This contention reminds me that it is not the world we want to save, it is the soul. By paying atttention to the souls of the world with education, knowledge, and spirituality we will save the world as a secondary reaction.

I think this beautifully ties into the recent blog discussions on Progressive Islam. They have seen some womens rights abused and some other problems with this ummah, and they have overestimated the problem to the point that they react with complete liberalism (free-thinking) and abandon traditional thoughts completely. With Progressive Islam, we have seen this contention come to life.

Traditional Muslims need to consider the fact that the problems that “Progressives” are reacting to are not impossible to deal with within the framework of traditional Islam. It is a sign of lack of knowledge of the fundamentals and a love for this world if you begin to change your Islam because a certain problem in this world especially bothers you .

Furthermore, every problem is a test sent to this community, and we need to remember that our community has suffered through worse tests than anything that we have seen today.

Maybe this is becoming more my thoughts than interpreting the Sheykh’s. I would love to hear comments.