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Friday Sermon: Chronicles of Corruption 3

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By Babatunde Jose

Political sophomores were in the First Republic, learning the art of bribery and election rigging. They graduated in the Military Government of Yakubu Gowon and post-graduated in the Second Republic. We now know of ex-political office holders living from hand to mouth. Any ex-top military officers in the same situation? –  Babatunde Jose; Walking A Tightrope, 1985.

No doubt, if Alhaji José were alive today to witness the unbridled corruption ravaging the land with impunity and government’s lackadaisical attitude to it, he would have been forced to review his statement to give the ‘victor ludorum’ to the civilian governments of the 3rd Republic.

It is even possible that God has seen our iniquities and abandoned us to our fate. After all, he did not ordain us to loot our treasuries nor did he ask us to vote for treasury looters and gangsters. As far as the Lord is concerned, we are on our own. We can cry ‘Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?  Matthew 27:45-46 for as long as we like. Our level of corruption in the last two decades is enough to drive a man into the warm embrace of atheism. Yet we know that God has not forsaken his people. We created this mess and we shall all have to find a ‘final solution to it.  The bottom line is that we are not doing enough to fight corruption: That is the naked truth!

All reasonable laws against corruption are in our status books, anti-corruption agencies are all there some with overlapping functions, there is a national assembly of lawmakers with oversight functions but they have turned against the people who elected them. Corruption goes on with impunity and careless abandon.

Under Gowon in 1975, a corruption scandal surrounding the importation of cement engulfed many officials of the defense ministry and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Officials were later accused of falsifying ship manifestos and inflating the amount of cement to be purchased. The Cement Armada!!!

During the same administration, two individuals from the middle belt of the country were accused of corruption. The Daily Times gave great publicity to denunciations of the administration of Gomwalk, and Federal Commissioner Joseph Tarka by Aper Aku and Godwin Daboh respectively. It was a classic crusade against corruption in high places which we do not see these days: A situation where the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Estates of the Realm have gone into an unholy alliance. At that time the press was a bastion against corruption in government as the Tarka case will elucidate.

The following is a summary of the allegations made by Daboh against Tarka:

“That sometime between 1968 and 1974, Tarka caused a company known as Nigerian Investment Quest Limited, to be incorporated. The managing director of the company was Mr. Simon Ikowe, a personal secretary of Tarka.

”That in spite of the fact that Mr. Ikowe was not a civil servant, Tarka provided him with an office at the General Post Office, Marina.”

 “That the Nigerian Investment Quest Limited operated an account with the United Bank for Africa Limited, to which Mr. Ikowe was the sole signatory.

 “That Daboh had documentary evidence, including the tape-recorded voice of Tarka demanding six percent commission from a company working for the Ministry of Communications.

The Daily Times waged a crusade against Tarka and the government in which their front page editorial below captures the moment of the time: The Daily Times of August 3, in a front page editorial titled: “TARKA VERSUS THE PEOPLE said:

“Sixteen days ago, this newspaper published stories concerning the allegations of improprieties brought against the Commissioner for Communications, Joseph Tarka by a Lagos businessman, Mr. Godwin Daboh. Since then, newspapers, students’ organizations and members of the public have called on Joseph Tarka to take the honorable path and resign his office.

“. . . . . . But to his tragic discredit, Joseph Tarka has refused to take that honorable path.

“The Federal Government, which we strongly believe should not, for one moment tolerate within its rank, a commissioner whose integrity has been called to question, has also been called upon to suspend Joseph Tarka, pending the time he would have clearly and satisfactorily been proven innocent.

“It is a matter for deep regret that so far, there has been no official reaction to these allegations against an appointed officer of the government. It is sad for the country as a whole and for the government in particular, which came in as a corrective body with an avowed commitment to the maintenance of unimpeachable standard in public life.

“The failure, thus far, to comment or take any known action against Joseph Tarka is an indication that the government merely pays lip service to probity and uprightness in our public life.

“There is also a deep contradiction between the present inaction and what the government professes to stand for.

“Meanwhile, as the government continues to delay positive action, the possibility of necessary documents and papers being tampered with becomes real. For example, in our editorial of Saturday, July 20, on the Joseph Tarka affair, we raised, among other questions, the issue of the propriety or otherwise of an official government telephone in Lagos No. 22140, being assigned to a girl-friend of the commissioner who is neither a civil servant nor otherwise entitled to the privilege of such free use of a government telephone service.

“A few hours after Mr. Daboh filed his affidavit, the telephone No. 22140 was changed by a cowardly and frightened bunch of saboteurs with a guilty conscience. The change was effected with advice No. ANL/1042/74. The telephone was replaced with a Lagos one, 52279, said to have been removed from 13B, Kingsway Road, Ikoyi.

“The rental of telephone 52279 was changed from A. H. Anthony, to J. S. Tarka of 42, Norman Williams Street, Ikoyi, the same day. And Miss Francisca Hadejia Afegbua lives in the 42, Norman Williams Street house.

“The question then arises: What is the relationship between Joseph Tarka and Francisca Afegbua to the extent that she had been, for so long, enjoying the uninterrupted free use of government telephone, Lagos No. 22140 which has now been converted to 52279 in J. S. Tarka’s name?

“It is our well-considered view that no individual Nigerian citizen no matter how highly placed, should be above the law of the land. It, therefore, logically follows that any-public official, appointed or elected, must be accountable to the people of Nigeria.

“Any responsible government must never allow a gap to develop between what it professes to believe in and what it actually does. If such credibility gap is allowed to develop and widen, as we believe is happening now, the generality of the governed will begin to lose confidence in the government.

“We, therefore, feel that there is no substitute to an immediate open judicial inquiry. This inquiry will help put a stop to the deepening frustration of our citizens who see our nation as one without conscience or bearing. It is a judicial inquiry that will offer Tarka the opportunity to defend himself against grave allegations of impropriety. It will also satisfy the public’s widespread outcry for justice.

“So, in the interest of this nation. TARKA MUST BE REMOVED and a high-powered probe instituted TODAY.

The following day, August 4, the Daily Times published another front page editorial titled “EXIT JOSEPH TARKA”. Tarka resigned but our own Akpabio is yet to resign; Magu did not resign and a host of other public officers caught with their pants down in corruption. Neither had any minister of the Republic ever been interdicted or dismissed from office.

The above Times editorial might have been speaking to our government today: It is not only very apt, but poignantly so!

It is instructive to know that after Tarka resigned and sued the Daily Times, the paper went to all lengths to fight him, something our media these days would not have done. The Times did not shy from any expense to get its facts: For its defense in the alleged libel case, a number of lawyers, Mr. Afe BabaIola, Mr. Jaiyelola Faloye and many others offered their services free. The Daily Times had for several weeks mounted the most intensive exposure of improprieties unparalleled in the history of press crusade in Nigeria. Godwin Daboh gave very useful information. The Times  sent him and its legal adviser, Dr. Olu Onogoruwa to London, New York, Geneva, Zurich, Milan and Bonn to obtain at any price, materials to prove their allegations. By the time the paper filed its defense Tarka knew enough to know that they knew too much about him.

Why is our press not in the vanguard against corruption? There are suggestions that many of them have been compromised. This is one of the reasons corruption has grown wings and is becoming near impossible to tame. When the Newspaper Association of Nigeria could collect N120Milion from Dasuki; Raymond Dokpesi, owner of RayPower and AIT Television could collect N2.1Billion from Dasuki and Nduka Obaigbena, a foremost Publisher could also collect N670Million from Dasuki, all out of the Security Fund, and then we can understand why there is no outcry against the current spate of corruption.

Shortly after the Tarka, Gomwalk scandals, Yakubu Gowon was overthrown by Murtala Mohammed. A fiery, firebrand of a military leader, Murtala too was not without his flaws. Murtala Mohammed had been saved by death and today he is on the positive side of history. But has not always been like that. In the good old days before becoming Head of State, he was noted for his hard drinking, ‘smoking’, a frequent patron of Fela’s Shrine and a ruthless soldier whose troops were said to have emptied the Central Bank in Benin during the Civil War. He was also alleged to have amassed property in Kano. However, as soon as he became Head of State he met the ‘Holy Prophet’ on ‘the road to Mount Arafat’ and became a changed man. My late father had this entry of the man in his book ‘Walking a Tightrope’: “When he was a Brigadier and Federal Commissioner for Communications, he had a disagreement with the Director-General of Telecommunications, Chief Theo. Akindele over an offer from a company to equip some telephone exchanges. Akindele had refused to consider the proposal from his commissioner not only on the ground that the company’s offer was unsolicited, but that the price was out of the way and the completion time was impossible. A committee of technical experts in the Ministry valued the project at N32m as against N197m by the company. The disagreement between Murtala and Akindele went to the Cabinet. Akindele could not be faulted and Murtala almost said Gowon should choose between him and Akindele. Gowon ruled in favor of Murtala that he should take a final decision on the contract. Murtala decided that Akindele should go on indefinite leave with effect from November 12, 1974. Before Akindele resumed duty in February 1975, the contract was awarded for N197m.

Five months after, July 1975 Murtala Mohammed became Head of State and Akindele was retired with what he himself described as “very generous” benefits paid inside 48 hours.

“At about the same time, Murtala as Commissioner for Communication had open disagreement in the cabinet with Imeh Ebong, Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Economic Development over the N100m Aerostat Balloon telecommunication project. Ebong wrote strongly against the project that it had not been successfully operated in any other country. Again Gowon ruled in favor of Murtala

“Today, twelve years after, time has proved Akindele and Ebong right. The balloon system is not working. When the Nigerian Television Authority was setup in 1977 with the promise that viewers would have six channels, it was on the false assumption that the aerostat balloon would work. The telephone exchange project too was completed much later than scheduled and the attendant escalation of cost.”

There is no doubt, corruption is here to stay. Our press needs to do more than they have hitherto been doing. We need more investigative approach to allegations of corruption. Marshaling of incontrovertible facts, unlike the ghost allegations we see every time by so-called concerned citizens of Lagos and the like. Corruption is not all about allegations, there are compelling reasons to get the facts right because when they are frivolous, people’s character will be at stake. However, there is ‘darkness visible’ when the voice of the people is attenuated and the voiceless are cheated and trampled upon. What has become of the labor unions with their compromised leadership, organized civil society, students’ body and other mouthpiece of the oppressed? If the situation is not arrested, we would be walking with eyes wide open towards an insurrection: And that would be very fatal indeed.

Barka Juma’at and Eid Mubarak

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Friday Sermon: Signs of Isa’s (PBUH) Second Coming

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By Babatunde Jose

The Hour is coming-there is no doubt about it. But most of mankind have no faith. (Qur’an, 40:59); He (Jesus) is a Sign of the Hour…(Quran, 43:61)

A world of peace and security in which abundance will replace poverty and justice will prevail instead of cruelty, conflict, and tension – this is the longing of humanity. Due to all of the twentieth century’s misery and pain, not to mention the ongoing problems all over the world today, this longing has become even more intense. A great majority of people desperately hope for a helping hand and wait for a savior who will save them from this misery, a person who will eliminate the negativized elements of the current system; ensure justice, peace, and security; and guide people to the truth and all that is good.

Everyone is waiting for this redemption: the needy who wait for an extended hand; the well-off who are in pain because of spiritual distress; and those who long for justice, order, peace, and moral excellence. By God’s Will, this event may be very near. The developments that we see all around us today are the signs indicating the closeness of this salvation. The End Time is upon us.

The great event that will be a means of humanity’s salvation is the second coming of Prophet Isa (peace be upon him). Mentioned 78 times in the Quran, his return to Earth, a belief held by both Christians and Muslims, will end this world’s all-pervasive cruelty and injustice, and transform it into a place of peace, abundance, and justice.

According to the Quran, approximately 2,024 years ago God thwarted the unbelievers’ plots to murder Prophet Isa (pbuh) by raising him up to Himself. See Quran 4:157.

The Qur’an and the related hadiths tell us that he will come back to Earth again in the End Time.

We need to emphasize that the world is also getting sociologically prepared for such a great event. The chain of events through which humanity has passed during the last two centuries has, both covertly and overtly, raised the expectation of a savior in the minds of people all over the world. People have increasingly seen that materialistic ideologies and lifestyles cannot save humanity; rather, they lead humanity closer to disaster and emptiness. This situation has caused many people to turn to the morality of religion.

Meanwhile, some secular researchers, scholars, or historians who analyze these developments also think that the world is searching for a Messiah and that this pursuit will deliver substantial results. For instance, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, the British researchers who received worldwide attention with their book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Dell: 1983), wrote another book, The Messianic Legacy (Dell: 1989), in which they examined Prophet Jesus (pbuh) and this expectation. In their book, they make the following comment:

“Different as our modern world may be from the world of two thousand years ago, it is astonishing how much our own epoch has in common with what Jesus and his contemporaries regarded as the Last Times. We may, today, be technologically more adept and endowed with considerably more knowledge. But regrettably, we do not appear to be any wiser, any more intelligent… We are once again living through an acute crisis of meaning, an uncertainty about our direction and our goals.”

The various systems, programs, and ideologies which, less than a century ago, seemed to promise so much have all, to one degree or another, proved hollow. As in Jesus’s time, there is a pervasive awareness that something is disastrously wrong. Each new terrorist outrage, each new air crash, each new natural disaster produces a frisson of panic.

The profound and rapid changes in our civilisation, the dissatisfaction with our systems of government, the increased use of indiscriminate murder and terrorism as a means of political protest – all have fostered a sense of general collapse, a wholesale disintegration of values. Society feels itself ‘held to ransom’… And, disillusioned by materialism’s failure to answer the question we seek.

The authors add the following: “As in Jesus’s time, we live, quite palpably, in the shadow of an impending apocalyptic event… We are all helpless hostages to a reality we no longer fully control… And beneath the general anxiety, the maddening sense of impotence, the disillusionment with inept or irresponsible politicians, there is a profound longing for a genuine spiritual leader… who will understand, will take charge and – without of course violating established democratic freedoms – assume the role of guide, conferring meaning once again on lives which have grown increasingly empty.”

The return of Prophet Isa (pbuh) is also being prepared for in the sociological sense. And yet our age appears determined to embrace another form of Messianic myth in order to obtain a sense of meaning.

It is no coincidence that this sociological infrastructure has been established at a time when the signs of Prophet Isa’s (pbuh) second coming appear one after another. The hadith literature provides us with a detailed account of these signs. In addition, the signs of this event as revealed in the New Testament have parallels with those stated in the hadiths. The great majority of these signs have come true in our day, one after the other and within the same period. That so many signs have come true in such a manner indicate the closeness of the second coming.

Signs of the second coming from the Islamic resources include: The Splitting of the Moon; The Iran-Iraq War; A Great Battle between the Tigris and the Euphrates; The Occupation of Afghanistan; Stopping the flow of the Euphrates; Lunar and Solar Eclipses in Ramadan; The Rise of a Comet; Storming the Kabbah and the subsequent bloodshed; Sighting a Flare in the East; A Sign out of the Sun.

A Tribulation of Dust and Smoke; The Emergence of Widespread Slaughter; The Killing of the Rulers of Damascus and Egypt; The Killing of Abdullah, the former King of Jordan; The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks; An Embargo against Iraq and Damascus; The Restructuring of Iraq; Iraqis Flee to Damascus and the North; Fitna in Damascus; Chaos in Damascus, Iraq, and Arabia; The Division of Iraq into Three Parts; A War between Muslims and Jews; The Killing of Innocent Children; Pervasive Corruption; One Type of Fitna Will Spread Everywhere; Religious Prohibitions Gain Acceptance; Openly Denying God; Replacing God with Other “Deities”; The Global Pervasiveness of Chaos and Conflict; The Current Situation of the Islamic World; Muslims Are Subjected to Severe Troubles; Loss of Hope in the Mahdi;  Poverty and Hunger; Drought; A Weakening Economy in Specific Years; The Cutting of Trade and Roads; Decreased Earnings;

The Division of National Wealth among the Rich;  An Increase in the Number of Earthquakes; Earth’s Collapse; Conversion of Homes into Graves; Winds and Tornadoes; Violent Rain; An Increased Amount of Lightning;  Abandoning the True Religion and the Quran’s Moral Values; Not Pondering over the Quran in a Sincere Manner; Muslims’ Yearning for non-Muslims; Fitna Alienates People from the Quran; Propagandists Distancing People from Islam’s Morality; Hypocritical and Fraudulent Clergy; Degeneration among Politicians; Abandoning “Enjoining the Right and Forbidding the Wrong” as an Act of Worship; Good Is Confused with Evil;  Close People Will Encourage One Another to Evil;

The Number of True Believers Being Very Few; Use of Mosques for Different Purposes; Appearance of People Who Recite the Qur’an for Personal Benefit; Faith in Horoscopes and Refutation of Fate; Making Hajj for Purposes Other than God’s Good Pleasure; People Inclining to the Desires of their Lower Selves; Social Deterioration; Adherence to Traitors, and Considering the Righteous as Treacherous;

The Decreasing Number of Reliable People; The Decreasing Number of Trustworthy People; Abandoning Almsgiving; Abandoning Salah (Prayers); The Spread of False Testimony and Slander; Giving Positions of Responsibility to Incompetent People; Considering One’s Superiority To Be in Wealth Rather than in Awareness of God; The Decay of Human Relations; The Decay of Family Relations; Diminished Love and Respect among People; Weakening of the Family Structure; Increase in Worldly Ambition; Prevalence of Hypocrisy and Ostentation; Spread of Cursing and Abuse; Spread of Forgery and Bribery; Increase of Gossip and Derision; Some Young People Turn Away from Religion’s Morality; The Collapse of Moral Values; Spread of Adultery; Acceptance of Homosexuality; Epidemics; Reports of Sudden Death Will Multiply; An Increase in Murders; Increase in Suicides; Civil Wars and Conflicts; Time Grows Short; The Appearance of False Messiahs.

We also read in the Bible portents of expectations of the end time and the second coming.  There are three main events that make up the End Time: the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ.

Scripture commands us: “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Matthew 24:6 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Matthew 24:42-44

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 1 Timothy 4:1

God has promised those of you who believe and do right actions that He will make them successors in the land, as He made those before them successors; will firmly establish for them their religion, with which He is pleased; and give them, in place of their fear, security. “They worship Me, not associating anything with Me.” Any who disbelieve after that, such people are deviators. (Surat an-Nur, 24:55)

As we celebrate Easter and look forward to the end of Ramadan, let us renew our resolve to be better believers and be our brother’s keeper. Only then would we have benefitted from the Lent and Ramadan Fast.

May Allah accept our Fast, Prayers and Supplications.

Happy Easter and Ramadan Kareem.

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Friday Sermon: Ramadan: Time for Religious and Divine Reflection 3

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By Babatunde Jose

“Fasting in Ramadan develops in a person the real spirit of social belonging, of unity and brotherhood, and of equality before God. This spirit is the natural product of the fact that when people fast, they feel that they are joining the whole Muslim Ummah (which makes up more than one fifth of world’s population) in observing the same duty, in the same manner, at the same time, for the same motives, and for the same end. 

No sociologist or historian can say that there has been at any period of history anything comparable to this powerful institution of Islam: Fasting in the month of Ramadan. “People have been crying throughout the ages for acceptable ‘belonging’, for unity, for brotherhood, for equality and justice, but how echoless their voices have been, and how very little success they have met…” says Hammudah Abdalati, in Islam in Focus.

As Muslims we reject any sort of violence in the holy month of Ramadan, as we do in any month. Yet there are those recalcitrant elements that will not follow this injunction, but rather foment trouble all over the land; maiming, kidnapping, and killing their fellowmen for some warped reasons and in the process, giving Islam a bad and odious name. They are the terrorists in religious garb; killing people all over the place in the guise of ‘herdsmen or Boko Haram, ISIS, or whatever name they call themselves. They act as if God’s love can descend upon them through such horrible acts. We have only one name for them; Terrorists! They are not also Islamist as they are often referred to because, there is nothing Islamic about their acts.

“In the past 10 years we have seen more than 17 mass kidnappings. It’s a bad record for any country and government, a total breakdown of the social contract,” regional security expert David Otto told CBS News about the situation in Nigeria.

“Most of the victims are women in these attacks, and when you attack women, you have attacked society. The recent attacks — when 200-plus people were just taken — show after two decades of fighting insurgency, the government is still unable to protect society from terrorist groups.”

Otto spoke as the parents of more than 280 children voiced their anger over a mass abduction in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna state. The students, boys, and girls between the ages of 8 and 15, were seized by armed men from the elementary and secondary schools in the town of Kuriga.

The parents told local media outlets that bandits had taken their children and they implored Nigeria’s government to pay any ransom being demanded to secure their safe return. The President has, however, vowed that the government will not pay ransom to terrorist kidnappers anymore.

Immediately after the Kaduna abductions, gunmen seized another group of children from a school in Sokoto, in northwest Nigeria.

That was a smaller kidnapping, with about 15 children said to be missing, but it was the third incident reported in just a week, following reports that as many as 300 internally displaced people had gone missing near a camp in the northeast state of Borno. All these during the holy month of Ramadan!!!

In a BBC mini documentary that went viral on social media, a kingpin of a terrorist gang was interviewed, and he boasted about the number of victims he had killed. And he is a Muslim. Hmmmmn. What Quran has he been reading, and which Allah does he pray to?

The emergence of terrorism in Nigeria is traceable to factors such as bad governance, religious extremism, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, political greed, and foreign influence.

We need to spend time during this holy season worrying and praying about the state of the world, and particularly our country Nigeria. There is too much hate in the air. Everything is seen through the prism of tribe, ethnicity, or religion. Social media has become one big market for mudslinging and character assassination; all in the name of politics that is now heavily garnished with bigotry and religious intolerance.  

Instead of seeking forgiveness for our own sins we should seek forgiveness for everyone who is misled, who thinks the end justifies the means, who does not understand the teachings of Islam as beautiful and pure and peaceful. The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) taught us to pray for our enemies, and I admit it is hard, but it must be done – if not for them, then for our own spiritual enlightenment.

We need to pray for a lofty goal – peace in the land – that we as human beings have probably been praying for since the dawn of modernity.  We should pray for a safe world for our children, and our children’s children. But the news these days is ugly, and we are constantly reminded of the following verse in the Quran: 

“Surely God changes not the condition of a people until they change what is in their hearts”. (Quran 13:11)

Prayer and reflection only help when one is surrounded with peace. One can recite the Quran and offer additional night-time prayers and fast every day for 365 days, but nothing changes the fact that we live in dangerous and perilous times; and unless we stand up and do something about it, the impending conflagration will consume us all, both the perpetrators and idle spectators. 

Politics is part of life now and along with fasting, individual Muslims need to do much more. Protesting, calling our representatives to order, marching with others, helping our neighbours, and even getting educated about a topic we didn’t know much about… all these are ways to make worship more meaningful. Whatever issue one worries about, we need to make change happen. To be docile in the face of monumental injustice is a sin, worse than breaking ones fast. After all, in Islam, worship not only describes rituals related to God, but encompasses everything one does to serve God; standing up for justice is one of such acts.  

We must therefore be ready to stand on the side of justice and equity. We must be ready to die at the barricades when the fight starts, to claim our rightful place in the scheme of things. We must be able to protest loudly and vehemently if our leaders refuse to listen to us. We must be prepared to fight for the right of our children to live a better life in future.

Of course, it doesn’t and shouldn’t apply to Muslims alone. People of all faith – or no faith – can join in making these changes and improving our impact upon the world: Right now, the goings on in Gaza should concern us all, particularly the fate of a blockaded people who are being denied medical facilities by their Israeli ‘warders’. The fate of our people in Kaduna, Benue, Taraba, Sokoto, Borno and other places where human life has become cheaper than that of common chicken should elicit concern and action.

This is the time for action and change, meaningful change. Moreso, when there is a spiritual convergence of the two major faiths, Islam, and Christianity: Ramadan Fast and Lenten season. This year, only 10 days separate Easter and Eid al Fitr.

The current climate of hunger has no religious affiliation. The hunger that whacks the Christian also racks the Muslim, the price of beans, rice and gari are the same for adherents of both faiths in the market, the scarcity of goods is the same for both Joshua and Yussuf and the debilitating effects of inflation and high cost of living blows both ways. Just as the Christian child is kidnapped on the way to school in Aba, the Muslim children are kidnapped in their schools in Kajuru. We are all in it together and must reflect and find solutions together.

So, let us get out into our communities and make a difference, not just in Ramadan but throughout the year. Only then can we say we are really worshipping God.

“Oh Allah, guide me with those whom You have guided, and strengthen me with those whom You have given strength. Take me to Your care with those whom You have taken to Your care. Bless me in what You have given me. Protect me from the evil You have ordained. Surely You command and are not commanded, and none whom You have committed to Your care shall be humiliated (and none whom You have taken as an enemy shall taste glory). You are Blessed, Our Lord, and Exalted”. (Abu Dawud, Book 8, Number 1420)

Barka Juma’at and Ramadan Kareem

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Friday Sermon: Ramadan: Time for Religious and Divine Reflection 2

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By Babatunde Jose

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said: “You see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves and showing love among themselves and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it.” – (Al-Bukhari)

We want others to put themselves in our shoes and view the world from our perspective. That is empathy – putting oneself in someone else’s shoes. We feel close to the person who is empathetic to us, find it easy to share our thoughts with them, go to him or her when we’re in trouble and seek solace. Each of us has a natural sense of empathy through which we connect to others. 

There are two aspects of empathy: cognitive and affective. Cognitive empathy is about understanding another person’s point of view, their emotions and needs at the intellectual level. Affective empathy is about actually feeling an emotion that another person is experiencing.

If only our leaders would empathise with the suffering multitude, they would do the needful and set the country on the path of sustained development. They should feel the hunger being experienced by the people, their sense of want, deprivation, and impoverishment.

But they would not. These are stone-hearted people who are bereft of the milk of human kindness. The Prophet attested to this when he said: “None of you will have faith till he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself.” (Al-Bukhari) A man without empathy will therefore be devoid of faith.

This hadith necessitates cognitive empathy. You must firstly imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes and think from their perspective to understand what you would do in their situation. If only the leaders would come up with solutions to the growing poverty in the land occasioned by their policies.

A believer who has achieved excellence of faith will feel this special love for others.

The Quran stresses that righteousness is not in precise observance of the rituals but in acts of compassion and kindness.  It says that the litmus test for true belief and genuine worship is that it leads to compassionate living:

It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards the East or West; but it is righteousness – to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and to practice regular charity; to fulfil the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the Allah-fearing. (Quran 2:177)

This verse talks about a set of beliefs and then a set of good deeds, the intricate relationship between the two escapes many if not most. 

In his commentary, Yusuf Ali said: “As if to emphasize again a warning against deadening formalism, we are given a beautiful description of the righteous and God-fearing man. He should obey salutary regulations, but he should fix his gaze on the love of Allah and the love of his fellow- men. We are given four heads: (1) our faith should be true and sincere; (2) we must be prepared to show it in deeds of charity to our fellowmen; (3) we must be good citizens, supporting social organization: and (4) our own individual soul must be firm and unshaken in all circumstances. They are interconnected, and yet can be viewed separately.

“Faith is not merely a matter of words. We must realize the presence and goodness of Allah. When we do so, the scales fall from our eyes: all the falsities and fleeting nature of the Present cease to enslave us, for we see the Last Day as if it were to-day. We also see Allah’s working in His world and in us: His Angels, His Messengers and His Message are no longer remote from us but come within our experience.

“Practical deeds of charity are of value when they proceed from love, and from no other motive. In this respect, also, our duties take various forms, which are shown in reasonable gradation: our kith and kin; orphans (including any persons who are without support or help): people who are in real need but who never ask (it is our duty to find them out, and they come before those who ask); the stranger, who is entitled to laws of hospitality; the people who ask and are entitled to ask, i.e., not merely lazy beggars, but those who seek our assistance in some form or another (it is our duty to respond to them); and the slaves (we must do all we can to give or buy their freedom). Slavery has many insidious forms, and all are included.”

Every Friday in the second part of the sermon, Muslims all over the world hear a verse, which stresses, justice, kindness, and natural mutual love as among the closest blood relatives:

Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you that ye may receive admonition. (Quran 16:91)

He makes His relationship or His Providence to the common man, conditional to common human compassion, by claiming that those, who wish to find Him, will succeed only if they are kind and compassionate to the common people:

Fasting cleanses your soul and makes you appreciate all your blessings. Fasting humbles you; it makes you feel compassion for the poor who experience that type of hunger ev­ery day. At the end of the day, however, we have a big dinner; the poor don’t have that luxury. That is why Muslims are required to give zakat on an annual basis. Many choose to do this during Ramadan. This money is either given personally or through a charity. The main thing is that it must be paid.

We are taught to not only fast from food and drink but to try to refrain from conflict, anger, and mean words. Our prophet (peace be upon him) says, “Saying a nice word is like giving to charity.” And he also said, “To smile in the face of your brother is like giving to charity.” We are to be kind and loving to each other. We are to be forgiving, not only in this month but in every month. But for some reason, this month brings out the best in everyone. 

During this holy month, we spend a lot of time reading our Quran: We also spend a lot of time praying, trying to help those who are less fortunate and performing good deeds, which in turn cleanses our hearts and souls. For one month, we truly do become less selfish, less self-centred and more focused on what really matters in the world.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, in sharing his wishes, for all observing the holy month of Ramadan, urged action on behalf of millions of forcibly displaced people worldwide. 

 “Through our reflection, we come to recognize that while words may reassure, it is only through action that we can truly see tangible change,” he said. “We continue to live in extremely complex times where violence is multiplied, conflicts are protracted, and tens of millions of people are forcibly uprooted or on the move. This has created unprecedented levels of human suffering and desperation.

“Millions of people like you and I are living in a constant state of conflict, insecurity, and persecution: Their loved ones torn from them under inexplicable circumstances. Think of civilians in Syria or Yemen. Think of the plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and the other countries to which they have fled”. 

And I urge you to also think of the castrated and emasculated people of Palestine: Between 7 October 2023 and 6 March 2024, at least 30,717 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 72,156 were injured, according to MoH in Gaza. A sad Ramadan for Gaza as Israel continues attacks. Amid Israel’s war, the people of Gaza don’t feel the joy of the holy month. Pray for them and remember them. “Then, surely with hardship comes ease:” “Surely, with hardship comes ease,”(Quran 94:5-6)

May Allah make it easy for us, Ameen.

Barka Juma’at and Ramadan Kareem

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