Degenerate, religious fools

That was when I did realize it was indeed 4.30.  The morning prayers are said in Bida at 5.30am.  So this fool, making noise in the mosque thinking that he’s doing good, had no business waking people up one hour before prayers. However, since, I was awake, I tried to pray the optional night prayers, […]

That was when I did realize it was indeed 4.30.  The morning prayers are said in Bida at 5.30am.  So this fool, making noise in the mosque thinking that he’s doing good, had no business waking people up one hour before prayers. However, since, I was awake, I tried to pray the optional night prayers, but I couldn’t keep my concentration because of the noise coming from the mosque.
I was drawn to recall that the same thing had happened the previous day in Minna.  I woke up before the alarm rang.  In Abuja, morning prayers are said from 5.05am, so it made sense to wake when it lacks some minutes to the hour (of five), not knowing when exactly Minna people pray.  As a result, I woke up the house while struggling to open the door.  When my friend suggested bringing me some perfume, I told him to forget it, for we were running late. 
At the mosque, we met only one person, the Muazzin (the caller of prayers), which at that moment he hadn’t called.  This meant we came too early.  However, from another mosque, the Qurán was blaring from a recorder.   That was what woke me.  Thinking that prayers had started, I remarked to friend, “I like the way this people recite the Qurán in a beautiful voice.”
My friend who should know better, because he goes to Minna every weekend, didn’t tell me it was a tape recorder, not the Fajr prayer.  He probably thought I was suffused in a new religious spirit and therefore wanted to do more duties with extra zeal, including going to the mosque at night.
Islam’s position on this matter would be made clearer through a retell of a meeting a friend had with his wife.  The wife was more religious, therefore fasted more and like most women, prayed more than a monk.  She used to wake up in the middle of the night to do tahajjud, which is encouraged in Islam, but optional.  Of praying in the later part of the night Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, said:
“Our Lord, the Blessed, the Superior, comes every night down on the nearest Heaven to us when the last third of the night remains, saying: “Is there anyone to invoke Me, so that I may respond to invocation? Is there anyone to ask Me, so that I may grant him his request? Is there anyone seeking My forgiveness, so that I may forgive him?” Bukhari Vol. 2 : No. 246.
Thus, my friend’s wife was doing a commendable act, but she wasn’t mandated to wake anybody to pray along with her.  But this she sought to do, not directly, but by clanking things, banging doors and generally raising a nightmare while the husband slept.  So my friend called his wife: “Look, what you’re doing is good.  I wish I could do the same.  But Islam wants us to be careful not to infringe on the rights of our neighbours when performing our religious duties.  It’s my right to sleep.  The Qurán says sleep is created for us as a tool for rest.  Even the Prophet (SAW) didn’t wake his family to pray at night except on the last ten days of the month of Ramadan.  So say your prayers, but don’t wake me or my children.  Doing so would be abusing our rights, hence committing sin. ”
What my friend did was to invite his wife to think.  And that’s what the Qurán calls us to do. The holy text is laden with such exhortations.  Many verses end with: “this is for those who reflect”, “do they not think?” and other similar variations.  Many start with “do they think”, and so forth. So the Qurán doesn’t encourage us to be unthinking automatons. Thus, every verse or hadith should be understood in the larger context of social justice.
However, this wickedness of visiting nightmares on the sleeping innocent is repeated at Jumaat mosques around the country; where roads are deliberately obstructed during the 30 minutes or so it takes to say the noon prayer on Friday. 
Dr. Mahathir, the former no-nonsense Malaysian prime minister was asked a question (at a lecture I attended) about a religious verdict passed in another country.  He said, “If it’s not justice, it’s not Islam.”  I find this to be a succinct kernel of Islam.
The essense of Dr. Mahathir’s argument is that Islam is clear about its mercy to the alamin (all the worlds, not only the Islamic nation).  Thus, that mercy cannot turn around and become wickedness.
So, it’s not justice to wake our neighbours (Muslim or non-Muslim) at night in the name of praying to Allah.  The prophet said, he was instructed to safeguard the rights of his neighbours so much that he thought he would be instructed that neighbours (Muslim or non-Muslim) would inherit Muslims.  When non-Muslims learn the definition of neighbours in Islam, they’re amazed. And when you follow the numbers and hear the count, your neighbours could be the entire town or village.
Also, it’s not justice to block roads only because you want to pray.  What if a woman (Muslim or non-Muslim) is in labour and needs to go to the hospital while roads are blocked?
I’ve asked mosque committee members and reasonable imams but none of them have given me any religious reason to block roads during prayers.  Indeed many of them agreed with me.
In Malaysia, where it is in the constitution that the state has an Islamic character and people are proud of their Islamic identity, nobody blocks roads during prayers.
Many Muslims would say Christians are even more brazen in these activities (long hours of noisy night vigils, closure of even the major roads in Abuja, etc., whether Boko Haram or no). The argument is at once true and a depraved point of view.  Islam teaches us to compete in doing good, not bad.  Mosques and imams should keep this in mind during the forthcoming blessed month of Ramadan.  Ramadan Mubarak to everyone.