Читать книгу Let Us Be Muslims - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi - Страница 11
ОглавлениеDifference the Kalimah Creates
Brothers in Islam! You become Muslims by reciting a few words called the Kalimah:
Lā ilāha illa ’llāh Muhammadu ’r-rasūlu ’llāh
There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
On pronouncing these words a man is supposed to have radically changed. He was an Unbeliever, now he is a Muslim; he was impure in faith, now he is pure. He deserved Allah’s displeasure; now he deserves to be loved by Him. He was going into Hell; now the gates of Heaven are open for him.
On a more concrete level, in social life, this Kalimah becomes the basis for differentiating one man from another. Those who recite it constitute one nation, while those who reject it form another. If a father recites it but his son refuses to, the father is no longer the same father, nor the son the same son. The son will not inherit anything from the father, his mother and sisters may even observe purdah from him. On the other hand, if a total stranger recites the Kalimah and marries into a Muslim family, he and his children become eligible for inheritance.
The power of the Kalimah is thus so strong that it takes precedence even over blood ties; it can join strangers together into a nation; it can cut members of the same family off from each other.
Why should the Kalimah make such a big difference between man and man? What is so special about it? After all, it contains only a few letters like ‘L’, ‘A’, ‘I’, ‘M’, ‘R’ and ‘S’. Joined together and pronounced, do they somehow have the power to work magic so as to radically change a man? Can merely saying a few words create such an enormous difference?
Brothers! A little reasoning will immediately tell you that merely opening your mouths and uttering a few syllables can never have such an impact. Idol-worshippers no doubt believe that by reciting some formula of holy words mountains can be moved, the earth can be split and fountains can gush out of it, even though they do not know its meaning. This is because they ascribe supernatural powers to letters, and believe that only uttering them is necessary to make their powers work.
