The Hidden Truth

After a long tiresome winter, the pleasant fresh air and beautiful green nature of Toronto provides a calm and tranquil relief. Looking beyond the nature’s beauty and serenity, we encounter precarious human achievements, resulting in various social, political, cultural and religious events.

The question that immediately comes to mind, is why human being has ignored the peace and beauty of nature, in light of achieving their personal possessive goals. He selfishly acts with greed, engages in war and commits crime, which results in breaking peace and violating rights of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. A commonly used method by dominating power is to cover up and misrepresent the truth on various issues in order to shape and solidify public opinion to their own benefit. This has become much easier to achieve in the current community arrangement times with help of electronic devices, international media, rapid electronics and social networking medium services. This method creates the ideal setting for the supreme, seeking power taking over the society and influence their thoughts and ideology by weakening, unwanted revision, or twisting the facts that are naturally meant to awaken the human race. One of the topics often targeted by different authorities in North America is the peace-seeking Islamic movements, which is based on teachings and enlightenment of prophets of Allah. It pursues social justice by means of spiritual knowledge that can protect society against encroachment, corruption, and discrimination.

Sadly, however, Islam has been portrayed by dominating powers as the religion of violence and murder against innocent people, as presented by ISIS, Wahhabism, and Salafism. The unfortunate truth is that these dangerous activities have only been shaped to grant wishes of the powerful and elite, according to US Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton. As a result, the genuine face of this constructive and enlightening religion has been scarred by deviance and aberration. The consequences of such deviation is nothing but murder of thousands of innocent civilians, enslaving and assaulting thousands of innocent women and children , and finally destruction of cities leading to thousands of people running away from their homeland taking refuge to different countries. While some European countries welcome the refugees, some wealthy Arab countries turn a blind eye on this crisis with no sympathy. This is what we are witnessing today in the Muslim world. However, Islam is completely different from today’s reality of Muslim world.

The teachings of Islam is against violence and prohibits any harm, killing and unfair punishments. The beauty and simplicity of Islamic preaching are closely coordinated with the human nature. The truth-seeking people are fascinated when presented with proper Islamic teachings, and the proof being number of newly converts to Islam (2011 international statistics showed tens of thousands of people convert to Islam in different countries such as Germany, Great Britain, France, and the United States). Therefore, the only way to distort the true face of Islam would be to use its name as an instrument for justification of wrong actions and unfair branding. Barbarity, cruelty, enormity, outrage, ignorance, and monstrosity have been done in the name of Islam by the evils and the immoral agents and should not be written in the name of a real believer. Obviously, through this dictated and predetermined route, Islam has suffered and became less appealing to those, who are less knowledgeable about religion.

The identity of those living in Western countries that truly believe and know Islam as a peaceful religion and have a comfort of peaceful practice, becomes compromised. They lose their confidence, as well as their chances of growth and success. Those who don’t have a sound knowledge and understanding of their religion may start to feel the tension and confusion and would eventually lose their identity and deviate from their principles.

Another dangerous aspect of this issue currently discussed in Islamic societies, is creation of division between different Islamic groups, which could be an important factor in weakening Muslim’s unity around the world; Quran and Hadith has explicitly instructed us to avoid this, (‌واعتصمو بحبل الله جمياً و لا تفرقوا  فتفشلوا و یذهب ریحکم).

Unfortunately, creating division and separation between Islamic societies, is on a prepared agenda of the powerful governments, according to a report by Mr. Seumas Milne, political editor of The Guardian.

In conclusion, we arrive at the question that, what measures we have, as members of a Shia Islamic community in Toronto and Canada, taken to establish universal justice and to spread peace, tolerance and coexistence with the people of other faiths. What have we done bring awareness to our neighbours  about the peaceful nature of Islam and to help them differentiate between the very reality of Islam versus ideology of hatred and killing promoted by Salafi Wahabism.

Some questions we should be asking ourselves as Muslims:

• Have we done any planning to recover and brighten the true image of religious beliefs among ourselves and our children?
• What have we done to express our faith and love towards Allah?
• How prepared are we, in revealing and manifesting the truth about our religious belief?
• Are we prepared to let go of our earthly belongings and dedicate ourselves to finding the truth and spreading it amongst our society so Allah would be satisfied with us?

Ultimately, we can get inspired by studying lives of our infallible Imams, Imam Ali (A) and Imam Hussain (A), adapting their standards toward our dedication, growth and guarding our religious values and in an effort to keep them in line with Quran and wisdom (the true Islam).