Something has been in my mind for a while now, it is an idea floating in my head, a project that I wish to embark on In Shaa’ Allah. What is this idea, well before I mention it I would like to mention the cause of it or the concerns I have that manifested this idea in my head. A couple of weeks ago I walked in to an Islamic book store that sold of course Islamic books, most of the books were in English. So where is my concern? Well as I started looking at those books I began to notice something happening to me, I was getting over whelmed and confused, I began to look closely and I realised something interesting. There were 10s of books written about the same topics, all by different writers and different printing publications. My mind begin to work in overdrive, actually let’s be frank my mind works in either over drive or at light speed, not that being at light speed is anything special I am travelling at light speed but going nowhere special. Anyway enough about my mind, back to the topic, so I started thinking about certain things I was researching regarding the history of Islam. I began to think the following points: A) Do we really need 10s of books on the same topic B) Can we guarantee the information in these books is 100% correct? C) Who is governing the release of these books D) Why can’t we have a unified source of information? E) Are we not creating more problems by introducing so many opinions to people? Some would ask why would you think like that, I would like to explain the following, I am an engineer, in engineering we work on the concept of achieving maximum results using the least amount of parts, why do this to be able to reproduce the projects cheaply and reduce repair cost. So what has this got to do with the books, simply put Islam is a pure religion, it is a religion of Tawheed, Our Prophet Peace and Blessings be Upon him provided us with all the knowledge we need to practice this faith. Okay so we know all of that, what is the point? Well without going in to details, if we look at the history of Islam we will see at certain points along the time line certain issues aroused, these issues became well known at the time of our four great imams, these issues are basically the injection of non-islamic material in to the faith which caused the creation of many sects we know today. The reason why this happened was simple, the growth of Islam in such a fast way had its negatives, these negatives are NOT from the faith itself on the contrary, it is actually from huge land mass the faith covered, Muslims began living in other cultures and many other cultures and other nations entered Islam, this caused problems of the introduction of cultural rituals in to Islam polluting it slightly, the need for correction became important hence the foundation of the 4 schools of thought. Fast forward in time and you see we are still suffering from these polluting factors. Now my concern, while I am advocate for knowledge and especially in Islam, I find the existence of such large number of books to be a negative. So what is the solution? I propose a Unified Information Architecture that introduces a system where all required Islamic information be made in to a standard. What does that jebbrish mean? I will use this example, say I need to find out about Salah, If I go in to a book store right now I will be bulldozed by the number of books on the shelf, a book by this doctor, or this scholar who is writing about what this scholar said and so on and so forth until my head explodes. What I believe there should be is 1 Book, yes 1 Book, It covers all that we need to know about Salah, from the 4 schools of Thoughts (Fiqh) To what the Giants of Islamic Scholars have to say. It needs to be simple concise and free from opinions. Only one book, we don’t need 100 opinions on Salah, Mohammad PBUH gave us all we need. Many of these opinions are not bringing anything new to the table, they are trying to tell us the same information others have, each person in their own way and their own understanding. Frankly we don’t need that, we need to simplify Islam as much as possible, bring it to its original pure form. We have the information we need, we have access to all that is required, we must work towards removing person opinion from the main realm. It was those personal opinions that put us at a collision course with danger and caused fractures in our ummah. I would love to walk in to a Book store and find what I need without being floored by so many different books. Make the books all the same format, clear and easy to read. Maybe I am being too much. But huqq must be said. Any opinions regarding this is most welcome. But please don’t get emotional about it :D
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 18:31:20 +0000
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