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What does it mean to be a Muslim today?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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To be a Muslim today—or any day—is to live in accordance with the will and pleasure of Allah. Muslims often say, with joy and pride, that it is easy to be a Muslim since Islam is ‘the straight path’ leading to paradise. What this means, in other words, is that the principles of Islam are simple and straightforward, free of ambiguities, confusions, inconsistencies or mysteries, and that comprehending them or living in accordance with them is not difficult. The assumption here is that if one somehow comes to ‘the straight path’ by accepting Islam, which is Allah’s last and final revelation to humanity, one will fairly effortlessly arrive at the destination which is a state of eternal blessedness in the presence of Allah. I must confess that I am totally amazed, and overwhelmed, by this assumption. To me, being a Muslim today—or any day—seems to be exceedingly hard, for to be a Muslim one has constantly to face the challenge, first of knowing what Allah wills or desires not only for humanity in general but also for oneself in particular, and then of doing what one believes to be Allah’s will and pleasure each moment of one’s life.
In view of the stereotyping of Islam and Muslims which has gone on in the West for many centuries, and especially since the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979, it is necessary to state at the outset of this article that ‘the world of Islam’ is not a monolith and that Muslims differ as sharply within their “ummah” of one billion persons as do adherents of other major religious traditions within their own respective communities.
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- Copyright © 1990 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 “Ummah”: community.
2 The Qur'an, Surah 15: Al‐Hijr:85.
3 The Qur'an, Surah 21: Al‐Anbiya':16.
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