Religion and sincerity

This year we mark the blessed birth of our beloved Prophet by reflecting on "sincerity," one of the most important values he laid down.

Religion has been defined, in one respect, as sincerity. In the relevant noble hadith, when our Prophet says that "religion is nasihah (sincere counsel)," it is related that the Companions who heard this asked, "To whom, O Messenger of God?" Thereupon the Messenger (pbuh) answers, "To God, to His Book, to His Messenger, to the leaders of the believers and to all Muslims." (Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Nasa'i).

What is striking here is that the concept of "nasihah" is used in the same sense as sincerity. Thus, being in a sincere approach toward God, His Book, His Messenger, the leaders of the believers and all Muslims is defined as the essence of religion.

Since there can be no question of "advising" God and His Messenger in the sense of the word as we know it, the concept of "sincerity" here conveys the heart of the matter very well. A person's religion is determined by his relationship with these five fundamental elements.

A person is gathered together with those he loves. That is why loving for God's sake and taking a stance toward certain people for God's sake is essential. And the basic measure of this is to love those who love God, those who grasp the Tawhid that God has laid down and live in accordance with it, and to be one with them and together with them. Conversely, it is to be in a stance against those who wage war against God, His Book, His messengers and the believers.

A person belongs to the religion of those toward whom he shows sincerity.

Of course, sincerity is not embracing everyone, without choosing, in a naive humanist outlook, without distinguishing friend from enemy. Especially in an environment where oppression, immorality and injustice run rampant, to take an attitude embracing everyone is to miss the measure of sincerity. There is no doubt that when the measure of sincerity is lost, the measure of religion is lost too.

That is why, although on the one hand our Prophet, in response to the proposal that even those who tortured him be destroyed, displayed a magnificent depth of compassion and mercy by saying "O God, they know not what they do," this did not keep him from recognizing the enemy in every situation and struggling against him. On the contrary, one requirement of sincerity toward God, His Messenger and the believers is to hold a perception of, and a stance toward, an enemy against those who do not carry this sincerity, indeed those who carry a feeling of complete hostility.

After all, one cannot even pronounce the basmala without stoning Satan, and one cannot declare devotion to God without rejecting the false gods who pose as deities over people. Does not the essence of Tawhid begin first of all with this consciousness and stance of rejection? Lailahe illallah.

When we know that the essence of religion is sincerity, we are bound to check with whom and against whom, and in which rank, we stand. One cannot be a Muslim while standing in the wrong rank. One cannot even pray in Mosques of Dirar, set up to spy in favor of certain people against God and His Messenger. Yet in appearance that too is a mosque and has all the formal features necessary for worship. But that mosque also has a function, and only from within the Muslim's world of sincerity can it be understood whether it is a mosque of dirar. When this is understood, those mosques have collapsed upon the heads of those who built them. One needs to look, also, at whom those who are Muslim in appearance, those from whose mouths Muslimness pours, stand in rank with. This shows clearly whether the mosques or institutions they have set up and are running serve as a Quba or as a Dirar.

The concept of sincerity and its states is in any case hard for modern man to understand, because it is generally seen as a reckless opening-up and surrender that entirely removes the distances between people. For modernity is precisely a process that builds distances on civil measures and claims to substitute politeness for sincerity. Truly, in this approach sincerity is seen as a kind of immoderate intimacy, familiarity and even informality. Yet just as sincerity, in the sense of a kind of authenticity, does not prevent the operation of the codes of politeness, so too the reduction of sincerity to such a code points to a disease of a quite different kind.

Despite this definition of sincerity, our Prophet advises believers to be measured in both their praise and their censure. That is why it is not possible to see sincerity as a state that conflicts with, or demolishes, the manners required by civil relations. On the contrary, the Islamic civilizations have, before anything else, an extremely strong culture of manners.

Truly, the sincerity dimension of religion is concerned less with this dimension of manners than with a very powerful political philosophy showing the maximum togetherness of creed and politics: With whom are we, and against whom? While trying to win whose heart, are we leaving whose hearts by parasangs? That is the whole matter.