I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why Muslims do not come together to form a unit.
In the book I am currently reading, it has become increasingly clear to me. Everything comes from the leadership.
A hadith
In a Hadith of the Prophet (sav), the Prophet tells of a man in hell.
He meets other individuals there who ask him: You have commanded us to stay away from the evil and command the good.
The man replies: I ordered you to do so but did not do it myself.
What do we learn from this?
This hadeeth is mostly used to make people clear that you should do what you recommend to others, but there is a very important detail hidden in this hadeeth.
If the leader commands others to do it, but does not do it himself, it does not work. The followers will not do it and ultimately they will not arrive on the right path.
The brotherhood
The biggest threat to cohesion is thinking about brotherhood. Everyone is somehow involved in his role as a Muslim within his clique and the rest is completely sealed off from it. That’s the way it is in every jamaah and that’s exactly what the followers do.
The imam has his friends breaks his fast with them. The leaders have their circle and do Iftar only with those and do not bother to expand their circle universally. And that’s exactly what the community is doing.
It was not always like this
The Islamic textbooks teach us, that at the time of the Prophet if people got together, you could not recognize who the leader and who the Jemaa was. It’s not like today.
The effect
The impact is obvious. There will always be new generations, who will speak again and again of brotherhood and charity, but no one will even begin to understand what they are talking about.
It’s the same as when a crowd talks about peace of mind but none of them ever experienced peace in their lives.
Conclusion
Many Muslims I’ve talked to about this topic have been upset about my opinion because they felt they were already doing good for fraternity. But what these Muslims confuse is friendship with Islamic brotherhood. That’s a difference like black and white.
The self-test
Anyone can do a self-test for themselves. We are in the last 10 days of Ramadan. Who invited you to dinner in this Ramadan?
If you have not invited anyone, you are still a long way from talking about brotherhood at all.
Did you usually invite the people you are always dealing with anyway? Then, in my opinion, you belong to the category that confuses friendship and brotherhood.
But if you’ve made up for it, and invited Muslims you do not have much to do with, I think you’re on the right path.
