Muslims and internal religious disputes in SriLanka part - 6

(Dr Rifai - Uk)

Due to internal disputes we have done greater damages to the good name of Islam and Muslims in Sri Lanka : This is not limited to our country alone and it is a universal phenomenon today in  Muslim world as I reiterated before in this series of article. Yet, as a minority our religious disputes have done greater damage in Sri Lanka. 

Every group got good intentions and that good intention is doubt to help and protect our community. Every group claims that it works for the good course of Islam.  That is good sign and it means our community is still vigilant: yet, why do we fight each other in the very name of our religion and look at other communities do we see Buddhists or Christians fight  in the name of their religions. Not at all, yet we do fight openly in public in Sri Lanka without any consideration to the social context of Sri Lanka. 

How many  groups do we have ? May be hundreds of them and all are working without any systemic planing ? Our resources are very much limited and yet, we are divided into hundreds of groups. We all need to realise that we are living in a non- Muslim country as second minority : as a minority community we should give preference to certain issues over others : for some groups there is no priority in religion and as such they will copy cut the methods of Saudi or some Arabic countries in preaching Islam here in Sri Lanka too. In Saudi imam Muhammed ibn Abdul Wahab did great job and eliminated all kinds of religious innovations. That is fine and no more innovations in Saudi and yet , what is the point even now we are concentrating on fighting innovations alone at the expenses of other collective religious duties. Our Islamic preaching is epitomised at this aspect of Islam at the expense all other aspects of Islam. 

 what are the priorities of Muslims community today in Sri Lanka? Is it just fighting all kinds of religious innovations alone ? What about all other collective social duties and responsibilities as a minority community . Look at this in light of general philosophy of Islamic law or higher objective of Islamic law : is it our priority to fight each other in the name of Islam ? Is it our priority to fight each other over some Islamic legal opinions ? Is it our priority to complete one group over other in the name of Islam? Is it unity a priority ? Is it theological issues that should be given priority? Or educational problems of Muslim community? Or economic problems of our community? Or political problems of our community ? Or mere existence of our community which one should be given priority in Sri Lanka? Or is it problems of poor /window and weak in the community ? Which one should be given priority in Sri Lanka? Or do we consider all these are equally important issues . 

 We have hundreds of problems and challenges in Sri Lanka? Our political leadership is crafty and corrupted. Our university admission is below all other community. our community : most of them live below poverty line and most of our youths do not have employments and unemployment rate is high among us. Muslim population in jails are more than any other community in Sri Lanka comparing all other communities, above all, we do not have unity among religious leadership as well. Yet, we are fighting each other in the name of Islam. It is a dangerous trend and precedent we are setting to our next generation, 

 I think I may be wrong today divisions among our Muslim community is biggest enemy of Islam and sadly it is in the name of Islam we do more damage with our disunity and divisions. Our problems can not be solved with imported solutions of Saudi or any Muslim countries and we have to identity our priority and work with unity among us. Otherwise we doom to suffer more and more in future . Look at how hundreds of missionary groups work in Sri Lanka and hundreds of people are converted into Christianity and yet no advertisement about it. All works are done in clandestine manner without making any noise. 

 I know well that we have hundreds of problems and challenges. Please do not take me wrong I do not discourage any one or any group doing good activities in our community and yet, I'm worried with levels of disunity and inner fighting among us. We are fighting as if we are born to fight in the name of Islam. As a minority we must work hand in hand and cooperate in common good.  It think that the danger to our community comes from two sources: one from abject poverty of our community and other one is due to lack of eduction among us . All Islamic groups should work hand in hard to improve educational and economic problems of our community: we should be dividend in working for good course end for common good in Islam: 

We have a lots of challenges and burning issues in front of us in Sri Lanka: It may be reaching out with Islam to wider community or other internal communal problems. Loot at conditions of our Arabic colleges and we have hundreds of them. They have lots of problems and we should bring them one centralised institution to plan and provide good Islamic education in Sri Lanka at international standard. Disunity among us hinders all these good work. It is communal suicidal to be divided in country like Sri Lanka. 

   So, issues and challenges are not that simple as it appear but I think we need to sit down and find out and list priority of our problems.  I just suggest one simple project. Please try to ponder over it and I think if all Islamic groups and organisations without bias and discriminations could do something about it inshallah in 10 years we would have made some improvement in one aspect at least. 

I think that we should expand educational opportunities for our schools drops out as matter of priority : drop outs from schools : specially males are really economic burdens for families, societies and country, 

I suggest that we collect names of school drop outs from each and every district and have a central office somewhere in Colombo. Suppose we have one thousand schools drop outs who nearly missed university entrances and yet have good A/L results: these students are our potential human resources of our community 

What we could do to help them? Collect datas of these students in order of results and marks:'

Then professionally  approach some international universities in Muslims and non-'Muslim countries and approach some international funding  bodies within Muslim countries and beyond Muslim countries : 

This should be done by some professional bodies such university staffs and some academic organisations. Many universities in middle east do not have talented students and yet our students are much talented and skilful. We should know how to utilise the resources and opportunities of Muslim countries.! Unfortunately, our communication network is very poor with outside Muslim world . Even if we have some connection, we have some narrow minded thinking in that each group prefer to support their group people rather working general interest of Muslim community : otherwise. If we could do such projects we could see some excellent result and opportunities for our next generations. We can not expect that our university system could provide education to all.  We should unitise external sources to educate our community . All community have been funding hundreds of Arabic colleges for many years and I do not think that it is sustainable in long run and alternative mechanism should be found as well. So, community problems are countless and we could come out of them if we have good planing and systemisation. 

To do all these projects we should have unity among us. I hope we will realise this reality one day.