" Turning unto Him (only); and fear Him and establish worship, and be not of those who ascribe partners (unto Him);

Of those who split up their religion and became schismatics, every sect jubiliant with what is with them." (30: 31 & 32)

Thoughts about our divisions and groups.

On reading my articles people say different things about me: "He looks like he is a salafee!", "He must be an ahl-e-Qur-aan member! ", "He definitely has joined hands with Shias!", etc. I wonder why it never strikes to any of them that: I must be a Muslim, which is what I am.
Confront your elders on the disunity in the Ummah. What is the program they have to eliminate it. Or, is the program they are promoting designed to or has the potential to achieve the unity in Ummah?

Allaah says about the People of the Book that if they had followed what was revealed unto them, they would have eaten from their above and their beneath.

" If they had observed the Towrah and the Injeel and that which was revealed unto them from their Lord, they would surely have eaten from above them and from beneath their feet. Among them there are people who are moderate, but many of them are of evil conduct." (5:66)

Does our present position of slavery, subservience and poverty (lasting since several centuries) suggest that we are following what was revealed unto us?

Ask the leader of your group:

Of all the groups, how you and your chief managed to be born in the only righteous group?

And did Allaah make the method such that it depended on mere "place of birth" to belong to the only righteous group? Did he chose you people to be in the Righteous Group and arbitrarily deprived other muslims, without a manifest guide !?!

One of the accusation against me was that I had joined the "Ahle-e-Qur-aan" group. Until then I didn't know that there was such a group and I thought "Why? Aren't all muslims "Ahle-e-Qur-aan"? Only when I happened to meet later an ahle-Qur-aan man, did I know the thinkings of the group.

The most important feature of this group is that they have an altogether unbelievable interpretation of the prayers, 'swalah'. According to them, 'swalah' is not the visible acts that we do everyday in prayer: Standing, Reciting, Ruk'u or Sajdah, but 'swalah', according to them is : our "central aim". So wherever the word 'swalah' occurs in Qur-aan, they interpret with their own unbelievable interpretation. He somehow avoided the 'ishaa' prayer, which occured during our discussions and later when I confronted this "ahle-Qur-aan" man with several verses of Qur-aan to disprove their belief, he excused himself and went away, saying he will send some proof. Some days later, I received the photocopy of a few pages of a translation of Qur-aan, which appears to have been specifically prepared to suit the intended misguidance of this group.

Are the 'aalims of Deoband Ahl-us-sunnah?

On a Haj trip, a cleric (an 'aalim) showed me an Urdu translation of an Arabic book, which was given to him by an Indian resident in Makkah. The cleric, in turn, gave it to me to read it while I am in Makkah. The title of the book is: meaning : "Are the 'aalims of Deoband Ahl-us-sunnah? ". The cleric told me that he had read the original in Arabic many years ago, and that till today none of our 'aalims (meaning, the religiously learned men of Deoband) have been able to give a reply to the questions raised in that book. I read only a few pages of the book and did not want to go deep into another worthless fight. However, the title of the book itself and the few words said by the cleric were of significance to me, for the reason given below:

1. The majority of the muslims in the world, as of today, are sunnis (i.e., Ahl-us-sunnah) and they consider only themselves to be "pure" Muslims, implying that only they are muslims.

2. The muslims of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh constitute a sizeable population of the sunnis, and almost all of them are attached to the Deoband school of thought, knowingly or unknowingly.

But here is an 'aalim of another sect of sunnis (I do not know whether he is a wahabi or a salafi or whether both mean the same), has quoted extensively from the the books of the senior 'aalims of old times, for whom the 'aalims of Deoband hold deep reverence. The cleric who gave me the book himself is a senior 'aalim (of the Deoband breed) and he admits that in so many years none of their 'aalims have been able to reply to the book. That means the author of the book has been able to successfully prove that the 'aalims of Deoband are not fit to be called Ahl-us-sunnah, the major and, according to them, the only 'pure' sect in Islaam. . It is of no importance to me, if the author had proved that the followers of the 'Deoband' school of thought are not Ahl-us-sunnah. But can he say that his belonging to a division, whether Ahl-us-sunnah or another, makes him a good Muslim?

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