Curing the zombie virus

You’ve probably heard about zombies before. The ‘walking dead’ from the movies who would stop at nothing till they have all or most of you in their guts.

There’s something else you probably haven’t heard.

Zombies are from old voodoo myth, and are dead bodies that are ‘given life’ and made to do a Sorcerer’s bidding.

They have no intellect and only know one thing; obedience to master.

It’s amazing because, most of the time, it’s the same with religion.

A lot of the time, we find Muslims who do a lot of ibadah (worship), but barely understand what it is we do.

There are lots of us who carry out acts of ibadah with little or no understanding of what it is we are doing, whether it is observing salat without understanding what it is we say during salat, to even finishing the Qur’an multiple times with little or no understanding of its meaning.

Now this is not to say that there is no reward for doing these things even when we feel don’t know them enough. But it is not enough. We need to take the extra step.

As Allah says in His Book as regards His Words:

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We need to understand that even though Allah will reward ibadah for the sincerity of your purpose, we are encouraged to understand what it is we do.

The first commandment of Allah to his Messenger (SAW) was to “Read!”

Ibadah without understanding could sometimes be like a cooked meal with no spice. It’s bland, even though it is filling when you eat it.

Rasulillah (SAW) said, “The superiority of the learned man over the devout worshipper is like that of the full moon to the rest of the stars (i.e., in brightness)” [Abu Dawud]

When we practise our deen with no understanding, it becomes a bunch of rituals which we feel we are obliged to do, mostly with zombie precision.

Unfortunately, when we become ‘zombies’, we might end up with wicked ‘sorcerers’ who end up using us to achieve their selfish and evil goals.

We need to kill ignorance with knowledge and set ourselves free.

In the end, (39:9)

Treat knowledge of the deen like it is your right, because it is.

The mistakes are mine and Allah knows best.