Words and Reflections – Moulana Mohammad Ilyas رحمه الله – Part 1

Moulana Mohammad Ilyas رحمه الله Words and reflections

Part 1

Words and Reflections

While talking to Maulana Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi, Moulana Muhammad Manzoor No’maani and Muhammad Shafi Quraishi Saheb رحمه الله , Hazrat Maulana رحمه الله said:

“It was the general condition of the Ummats of the former Prophets, that as they moved away from the times of their Prophets, their religious acts used to take the shape of mere customs and become empty of spirit and reality. Performance of these acts meant nothing but to celebrate established customs. Then, some other Prophets were sent to the Ummats for the correction of this misguidedness and waywardness, who, while removing these customary aspects, used to introduce the realities of religious acts and the actual spirit of Shari’at to the people. When, in the end, the Holy Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam received his call to prophethood. The condition of all the nations of that time who had any relation with some revealed religion was the same. Even if some part of Shari’at brought by their respective Prophets was present in them, its condition was no more than a collection of spiritless customs. Yet the people considered those customs as the real Deen and Shari’at. The Holy Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam then removed these customs and taught the real religious truths and commands.”

“The Ummat of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is also suffering from this very disease now, and its worships also reflect this customary trend. This error has grown to such proportions that even the teaching of deen, which should have been the means of correcting all faults of this kind, has also become a mere custom at many places. But, since the successive coming of the Prophets has been put to an end and the responsibility of such missions has been placed on the Ulama of the Ummat because of their being the representatives of the Holy Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, so they are the ones who are responsible to pay special attention towards correcting this misguided and corruption. The means for this correction is the ‘correction of intentions’. This is so because Customness comes into the deeds only when the sincerity to do an act solely for Allah and the marks of true obedience start disappearing from the deeds. With this correction of intentions, the direction of deeds gets turned towards Allah and reality comes in them in place of Customariness, and every deed is then performed solely with the true sense of Allah’s worship and obedience. In short, creating sincerity and reality in religious practices by making people attentive to correct their intentions is a very special responsibility of the ulama of the Ummat and the carriers of deen.”