THE SIN OF SILENCE.

Towards Building a Moral Society… GAWAH EXPRESS 23 APRIL2023 THE SIN OF SILENCE. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. The siege is within…-IS IT WORTH? Mute spectators or change activists? Who are you? This is truly secondary when it comes to speaking truth. -Should we wait for the change or change ourselves? What will our excuse be tomorrow before Allah? I would like to stress the importance of the undermining of our noble values in the relative security of our daily life.DR FIAZ MAQBOOL FAZILI ---------------------------------------- The term ‘Last Day’ in reality stands for the ‘Last Age’, or the age which would culminate in the end of history—Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prophesied of the Last Age that: “People would follow a way of life other than mine, and give guidance other than mine”…“I fear for my people ….”…“Before the Last Hour there will be great liars, so beware of them. The time will be years of confusion. People will believe a liar and disbelieve one who tells the truth. People will distrust one who is trustworthy, and trust one who is treacherous. (Ahmad) This is an important message that needs to be heard. The Last Hour will not be established until they will remain those people who will neither be aware of the virtues and never prevent the vices. (Ahmad)) Moral decay and Kashmir have unfortunately become synonymous with growing crimes, increased social evils and moral waywardness becoming norm as the education on morality is prolonging so is the moral decay of the Kashmir society. Year, 2022-2023 shall be remembered as a year of social reckoning, as truth became a casualty in the trials of morality. Son kills mother- father kills daughter, a predator beheads young girl chops her into pieces, drug misuse and addiction has touched all-time high, heinous crimes previously unheard in Kashmir are now taking place on regular basis and scandals related to immorality too are surfacing during Ramadan .The basic cause of rising crimes and moral decay in our society is lack of proper monitoring of children by their parents and school teachers as they show no interest in monitoring activities of their kids. As a result we witness our younger generation going towards wrong activities. We need to be accountable as family leaders and everyone should fulfil his role and then we can save Kashmir society from further destruction.” When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage. My plea is for truth. I believe we have to find ways to restore. Everything is not ‘okay’ in our land, and we are about to reap from what we have sown. The wrong sides of Obscenity , liberalism and modernity has led to drastic changes in the way we look upon morality in our society, “chalta hai;hota hai; an amoral escapist attitude has culminated in our lives The need for noble purposes in an evil world is yearning for courage to stand up for our most noble values, to defend them when they are threatened. If people are not reminded of the things which they should be cautious in Islam,’’ the day is not far off when our inaction will allow prohibited acts and customs to be justified as a part of our culture. The recurring incidents of the moral degradation in our traditionally modest society, many of us are disturbed and frightened. Why? Because, like it or not we still are part and parcel of this society, and we cannot choose to opt out of it so simplistically. A sizable number may indeed be part of the "silent majority", although it is debatable, if all are such a homogeneous whole. We are quite at ease in compartmentalizing our lives such that the governance of moral values of our society or our religious doctrine is neatly delegated to a particular class who have been opting for silence every now and again. So long as we are left well alone to pursue our own economic and social livelihood, we can live with that. Because of this general apathetic attitude, we prefer to be labelled as apolitical. Hence, they prefer the muted response of the so-called "silent majority", as if the unspoken thoughts of the masses were a show of unanimity to support whichever side they choose to affiliate with. Surely one can discern the fallacy of such a tautological argument. -that we are passive, and a submissive person is therefore an established fact. But like it or not, we the valleyities will sooner or later have to realize and get released from this mental block, nurture our own socio religious awareness to preserve at least the values which identify us with our faith. When does silence become a sin? Moral decline begins when transcendent moral values, which have proven to be beneficial over time, are discarded in preference to various ideas which man finds more conducive to achieving ultimately destructive lustful desires like Alcoholism,moral corruption etc ,to observe silence on such occasions while your friend,neighbour or family member is scouting Allah's commandments taking the devil's part, assisting him in his evil work by indulging in all deadly lusts; so they`'` commit grievous sins in their amours. In a true Islamic society , a person is not likely to ever reach the point of dependence. Friends, family and neighbors will not just look away while a person destroys himself,his family and his society. Muslims are supposed to be very involved in correcting wrongs that they see. Islam is a very community-oriented faith. There is no place for an individual to do what he wants to do, if it hurts others. And by hurting yourself through evil deeds, you inadvertently hurt others and ultimately the society. Actually, all this is not surprising. The aspects of this social deterioration we see happening so prevalently today are clearly related in the Qur’an, and predicted by the Prophet (pbuh) fourteen centuries ago. Moral degradation, and all the various problems associated with it, are the inevitable result of human beings’ forgetting Allah and the purposes of their creation, and abandoning religion and its spiritual values. Allah's Messenger (saw) described the End Times as “When people suffer strife and social upheaval” (Ramuz al-Ahadith). We the valleyites are generally a discreet and quietly compliant lot. Many of us would like to live unobtrusive, encapsulated and secluded lives. Many believe that getting involved in any public-spirited endeavour particularly socioreligious ones, is restricted to a particular class of clergy. They believe that socioeconomic and religious matters don't mix, and that the potential repercussions are too heavy a price to pay. Fear of the many unknowns keeps many people from speaking out. And when they do, many prefer the safer choice of echoing sentiments which they believe would help maintain the status quo and not raise controversies and follow a devilish whisper "Don't speak unless you can improve the silence..."which temporarily affected me also and clearly undermines the religious dictum that during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. The Qur'aan and the hadith have however informed us about various signs which will occur prior to Qiyamah and which will be indicative of the closeness of the event. It is indeed very unfortunate to note that despite having before us the various warnings and signs regarding Qiyamah which have been mentioned by none other than Prophet (Saw), that evil must be removed, whether by your hand or the hand of someone else, If that is not possible then it must be done by your tongue (by your speaking out), and you should not worry whether they listen to you or turn away from you; all you have to do is convey the message. Allah may sow the seeds of guidance in the heart of one of them because of your words, but the Satan may also suggest to you that you should forget about denouncing them on the basis that they will not listen to you – so beware of that.Some people may have some kind of excuse,each person knows best about himself and whether his excuses are genuine or false. On the Day of Resurrection all matters will become clear. It is not necessary to be in a position of authority in order to change evil actions by one's hand, or to be a scholar in order to change them by one's tongue, rather it is sufficient to be able to change them provided that that does not result in a greater evil than the one that you are denouncing. It is sufficient for you to know that this is evil according to sharee’ah, so you denounce it by speaking. Every one of us has the duty to prevent others from going astray, and don’t consider any sin which you see to be insignificant, as seeing a sin constantly, the hearts become devoid of the light of differentiation and rejection. When evils frequent the heart and when they are repeatedly seen by the eyes, their seriousness and their denunciation disappear from the heart to the extent that a person sees them, but he does not even consider them to be evils and he does not even think that they are sins. So Silence becomes a sin when we remain silent in the face of evil, we are turning our backs on the very essence of our Prophet’s (pbuh) teachings, that we the Muslims should act as responsible catalysts of change by leading the way forwards towards a moral society .We believe that everyone can play a role in trying to shape our collective future. But we have to start one little bit by one little bit. We can and must believe that we can make a difference, even if it is a small one. (Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili is Consultant Surgeon, contributes in National and international faith-based publications on topics usually concentrate on Socio religious issues)