A Reckoning
by Shahid Aziz
The Light (UK), September 2016 Issue (p. 8)
The first chapter of the Holy Quran called the Fatihah, or the Opening, is regarded as a summary of its teachings. It consists of seven short verses. It starts by giving the qualities of the Divine Being — one being
مٰلِکِ یَوۡمِ الدِّیۡنِ ؕ﴿۳﴾
“Master of the Day of Reckoning”.
This means that Allah shall hold us accountable for our actions on what is called the Day of Judgment.
However, He has not left it to that Day to make clear to us the consequence of our actions. The reckoning starts here on this earth and continues into the Hereafter. That is why Allah says that He revealed the Holy Quran so that people may be judged by a Divine Law rather than man-made laws.
We see this in everyday life. Students attend school and the consequence of their actions is made clear by the results they achieve in their examinations. If they have followed the course and their teacher’s instructions and worked hard, then they will achieve a good result; otherwise not.
Another example is our health. Those who smoke may not suffer its consequences on the first day or year but eventually they fall prey to many illnesses, some of which are life threatening.
Environment is another example. London used to drown in darkness in the middle of the last century because the smoke pumped into the atmosphere by coal-burning factories and homes would settle upon it in winter. Old people were advised to stay at home otherwise they may ‘suffocate’ to death. The British government did not wait for the Day of Judgement to deal with the consequences of this behaviour. It passed a clean air act which banned burning of coal and gradually London recovered and there is no longer thick fog enveloping it every winter.
The important lesson is that human actions had evil consequences but that human reaction to these evil consequences corrected them. Without the government’s action, matters would have worsened. We have another evil consequence of a human action which is that the Mr Tony Blair, a previous Prime Minister of the UK, misinformed the House of Commons to get it to vote in favour of attacking Iraq. He said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which could be launched within 45 minutes to destroy London.
This was proven to be untrue and there is now a motion of contempt of Parliament before the UK Parliament. We strongly urge the British public to write to their M.P. to support this motion and hold Mr Blair accountable for what he did. Better still, a movement to amend the charter of International Criminal Court should be launched so that it can put such people on trial for genocide. We implore our Muslim brothers and sisters to take action to prevent future murder of innocent people by powers who think they own the world.