By: Kamoru Sodiq, Osun
FELLOW Brethren, I’m not really sure how many of us know and still remember this succinct and famous hadith (saying) of prophet Muhammad (SAW) which says; ” Alcohol is the mother of all sins.” If you attended a prototype ilekeu (Islamic school) and read “forty hadiths”, you are likely to be quite familiar with that epic revelation and witty statement. During our days as kids in the evening modrasah, we memorized the text, swallowed the interpretation of this hadith and the experience still lingers and floods my memory fresh and pure till today. Though, as we were then, we were incapable of analytical deduction and critical exposition of its in-door teaching. But one thing is certain, the prophet does not talk out of his own volition. So, there is no point in contesting the accuracy of the flawless mortal or squabbling the veracity of his statement. Road block!
Much as I found the hadith uncontestable because, I cannot risk subjecting the words of the prophet into debate and argument. And don’t ask me jamb question! I don’t want the prophet to deny me before Allah the way Peter denied Jesus. Away from the proverbial sermon, my little tap of experience and exposure as a young growing Muslim youth in a gripping and sinking terrain has shaken me up like a jelly and taught me to believe that, the most cancerous, ulcerous and damning trial tackling and boxing Muslim youths nowadays is “internet.” Please, argument apart and I am not in a race for philosophical challenge.
My beloved brother in faith, before you prides yourself out and grandstands that you parade the most expensive and talk of town internet gadget ever available on the planet, just hear me out! This life is a trial and our greatest challenger and arch contender is our soul. It abhors vices and virtues all alike but, reneges with virtues while relishes with vices like a fly to palmwine. The seat of trials and tribulations is our desires and nothing destroys spirituality faster than pornography. I doubt if there is anyone here who has never in one time or the other be a victim of this on internet! Even to some, it is considered as a normal pastime or amorous gift.
Let face the reality as it is and don’t accuse me of lopsidedness or balancing remark because, I don’t set out on this piece to crackdown on internet and its indubitable usefulness neither do I intend to declare the internet users as an agents of sex or lustful selfies. God forbids! This piece is not for that and I will never drum support for fallacy. My singular thesis is that internet has drained our spirituality dry and sucked our faith empty. And it cut across boards, from Ustadh to student, from scholars to novices, from monks to fun-lovers.
We are frequenting the masjid (mosque) every now and then yet we remain unholy. We are shopping dawah-centers like market, instead of our faith to boom, it continues signalling battery low and flatting out. Where lies our travails? The answer is simple. It is in what we see everyday. And anyone that is a good student of faith knows the significance of our eyes. The eye is the central connector of other organs. It attracts lightness or darkness to the soul. That is why they say, experience is the best teacher. Because, whatever we sighted physically or psychologically continues to live forever in our memory. Seeing is believing likewise, sin is real.
Please, forget about the shakara of brothers and sisters who try to act angelic. If truth be told. No one is holier than his/her soul. Of all things we may want to argue, we must accept the fact that, our faith-suckers outsmart our intelligence. They can see beyond our tomorrow, they know our strength and they have waited for us with road blocks at every corner, days and nights. They see us and know what we like to hear and see. Excellently, hardly will any brothers or sisters come eyeball to eyeball with an half-naked babe without lowering his/her gaze and say subhanallah! Right? But unfortunately and ironically that samething we saw and gulped revulsion has now been taken down into our backyards, kitchens, living-rooms and other rooms! Even inside our pillows and phones. We don’t need to scout anymore.
By a simple press of bottom, you get to see the list of every stunning ladies displaying their wares and talents like the tits, butts and weird faces. Others might put on provocative dresses or show whichever part of their bodies they felt hold the best attention for men.
Chai! For anyone that is new in the trade of networking and accessing internet, it is an exciting experience as the good, the bad, and the absurd take place under the cover of air or away from the knowledge of second party. The most interesting aspect of internet experience or bizzare part of it, if you choose to call it that, is the sensational flooding of pictures on the pages like fireflies enthralled by the coming of darkness. Log in to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp group and judge me if I am wrong? So brothers, before you search into that porn website, sisters, before you open that hot vidoe, be rest assure that perdition has set-in and the devil is smilling! Pride comes before a fall and some falls are so cataclysmic that it is almost difficult for the victim to recover if he/she will recover.
The reason I am sounding like this is that, some puritanical fellows may want to dismiss my argument as a busybody ranting or crap preacher. Believing minds, please, take to the row voice of reason and eyesore experience. I have had my own sordid sides of internet razzle-dazzle and the relics still sting me till tomorrow. Not until you are caught in a limbo that you start learn to live with caution. Repentance is good but innocence is best. They say, risk is worth taking, check the phones of an average Muslim youth, see the hell they are watching and receive the shock of your life. It does not matter those who brought you up. Youths who are expected to be full of energy and faith are now spiritually-bankrupt. Youths who should be able to raise their hands and feets up-high calling out to Allah for more than three hours in tahajjud (night prayers).
Today, cannot afford five times daily prayers. Shame! Youths who are to lead a revolution are now as weak as five naira.
The problem lies in what they watch.They open the internet dailies and their faith get formated instantly and totally. Phones get hierarchy according to class and status, but the bigger the risk and the smaller the better. We must not compare sleep with death. The evil at the disposal of a smartphone user is too wide a gap compare to a Nokia 33x user in google searching.Sadly, this life that Allah has given us, the eye that lights our body, the ear that communicates our organs. The brain we use to think and all the blessings Allah has endowed us are now being used to fight Allah in sinful acts.
Today, our youngsters with their eyes they watch nothing but (erotic) TV series, African magic alike. With their ears they hear nothing but pop music, highlife stuffs. We are challenging Allah with our ears, eyes and phones. I ask you and all the readers before me, your phone, your phone you are holding. Your phone that Allah has blessed you with, which contains a simcard, credit and maybe a secret number. All the photos, videos and clips that no one knows what is hidden there except Allah, I ask you. Your phone. Does it serve Islam? Or destroy Islam? If you are among those who spread goodness, spread the teachings of Quran and the prophet (SAW) then, with your phone you are serving Islam. But, if you are among those who spread hot photos, viral videos and wet-clips that displeases Allah and kills your soul then, you are destroying Islam, you are disrespecting Allah and fighting against the Quran.
For those of us that have not done anything to wrestle our hedonistic inclination and funfare philosophy over the years, but became slaves of our tastes and lifestyles. This should be a wake-up call! Get involved in any capacity. Fill up your phones with Quran, hadith and its lessons. Mass-circulate life-changing videos and sites. Wide-broadcast beneficial post and keep your eyes safe at all time from obscenity. I know, no amount of preaching can change some homo sapiens. They will always excuse themselves and say; “I will soon change.” Please, stop living on fable promises and misguided hopes. Because hope is a myth. Remember, today, we can fire and hire, we can make and mar but, tomorrow, shoulder high we shall be carried to our grave. Our time to shine and change is now or never!
I will leave you with these heartrending verses of the Quran thus; “Till, when they reach it (hell-fire), their hearing (ears) and their eyes, and their skins will testify against them as to what they used to do.”, ” And they will say to their skins, “why do you testify against us?” They will say: “Allah has caused us to speak, as He causes all things to speak, and to Him you are made to return.”, ” And you have not been hidding against yourselves, lest your ears, and your eyes, and your skins testify against you, but you thought that Allah knew not much of what you were doing.”, “And that thought of yours which you thought about your Lord, has brought you to destruction; and you have become (this Day) of utterly lost! Suuratul- Fussilat, Q 41: 20-23. May Allah preserve and protect our eyes, ears and skins from the torment of the hell-fire. Aamin.
Kamoru Sodiq wrote via kamorusideeq@gmail.com.
