Spying

References

يٰۤـاَيُّهَا الَّذِيۡنَ اٰمَنُوۡا لَا تَدۡخُلُوۡا بُيُوۡتًا غَيۡرَ بُيُوۡتِكُمۡ حَتّٰى تَسۡتَاۡنِسُوۡا وَتُسَلِّمُوۡا عَلٰٓى اَهۡلِهَا ؕ ذٰ لِكُمۡخَيۡرٌ لَّـكُمۡ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَذَكَّرُوۡنَ‏ 
Quran (24:27)

Believers! Enter not houses other than your own houses until you have obtained the permission of the inmates of those houses and have greeted them with peace. This is better for you. It is expected that you will observe this.
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فَاِنۡ لَّمۡ تَجِدُوۡا فِيۡهَاۤ اَحَدًا فَلَا تَدۡخُلُوۡهَا حَتّٰى يُؤۡذَنَ لَـكُمۡ ۚ وَاِنۡ قِيۡلَ لَـكُمُ ارۡجِعُوۡا فَارۡجِعُوۡا ۚ هُوَ اَزۡكٰىلَـكُمۡ ؕ وَاللّٰهُ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُوۡنَ عَلِيۡمٌ‏  
Quran (24:28) 

Then if you find no one in them, do not enter until you have been given permission (to enter). And if you are told to go back, then do go back. This is a purer way for you. Allah knows all what you do.

Sa'd ibn 'Ubada (RA) said. "A man stood facing the door of the Prophet (RA) while asking permission to enter. The Prophet (SWAS) said, "Turn this way,"turning him away and ordering him to move further from the door, saying, "Asking permission is prescribed to prevent intrusion."

Abu Huraira (RA): "When one looks inside of the home of people without their permission, it becomes permissible for them to gouge out his eye." (Muslim)

"Were a man to look into your home/private property wiithout your permission, and were you to pelt him with pebbles and knock out his eye, there would be no sin upon you." (Bukhari & Muslim)

Imam Bukhari (RA) narrated that:
Ammar ibn Sa'id al-Tujibi reported that Umar Ibn al-Khattab said, "Whoever fills his eyes with the sight of the interior of a house before being permitted is a wrongdoer".

Bukhari, Muslim and others narrated that: Sahl ibn Sa'd (RA) said that a man peeked through a hole into the room of the Prophet (SWAS) while he was scratching his head with a small pitchfork. When the Prophet  (SWAS)  saw the intruder he told him, "Had I known you were looking I would have poked your eye! Asking permission was prescribed to prevent intrusion."

Anas Ibn Maalik (RA) reported that a man looked through a hole into one of the Prophet (RA) apartments, and so the Prophet (RA) stood up to go to him with an arrowhead(s). It was as if I saw the Messenger of Allah (SWAS) try to take him by surprise in order to stab him."

A Message to Our Respected Islamic Organizations 

This blog post is specific for Muslim organizations and I although I do not usually name, I would particularly want to name Yaqeen Institute, Al Maghrib, DiscoverU, and others . By God’s favour upon on us we have excellent scholars among them who are doing great work and we benefit from their understanding of Islamic principles as we apply them in what we work on. So we are humble and keep working on our personal deficiencies and understanding of our work by addressing them using the divine knowledge while working on our goals. Nevertheless, purchasing and using course materials from such wonderful resources does not mean that we want them to manage or take over our work. Perhaps there has ben a misunderstanding, but never asked them for such help which they themselves saw fit.

I would like to state for the record, that since Lucid Eloquence’s mission was made public, I have a very strong feeling my devices have been hacked/controlled and whatever work I have done or the real-time audio/video of what I do in my house has been broadcast globally without my permission. There has been a very deliberate campaign to hinder, change, and ultimately stop me forcibly by controlling my devices remotely. I would like the authorities to take note and stop whoever is doing this and demand full privacy that is my right under the law. I might be wrong and if so I apologize making such a big accusation.

Yesterday, I could not continue my work, at a key juncture in my workflow, my devices were remotely blocked, after which Yaqeen Institute immediately sent an email out titled “Build the world we all want to live in” asking for public participation based on the ideas I was developing which they and others were observing and influencing without my permission as what I am doing is being broadcasted globally. I have privately stated to them in writing that I do not wish to work under them, nor Al Maghrib or anyone else. I have got no replies from them.

It is not anyone’s concern how quickly or slowly Lucid Eloquence works, when it chooses to take a break from what it does,  if it chooses to refine or modify its approach, who it chooses to partner with, who I personally decide to marry or if I marry at all. Let us not consider the legal implications of this intrusion of privacy and attempt to "control" my work and me, just from an Islamic ethics point of view, even though Lucid Eloquence is working not for its own ego but the pleasure of God, no Islamic organization or individuals have the right to spy on, use and propagate its ideas as their own with Lucid Eloquence's explicit written permission. KINDLY KEEP OUT.

It does not matter if someone is not seen as being as presentable as you would like them to be. Dr. Zakir Naik and Shaykh Ahmed Deedat had heavy ancestral “Indian” accents.  Shaykh Hussein Yi’s Chinese ancestry is obvious in the way he comes across. We do not need to modify those aspects of our personal presentation which come naturally, if we are comfortable with who we are and what we want to give to the world, especially when the world's interaction with us is through our written word. We do not have to fit the ideal appearance of modernity which someone else feels is right, in order to feel complete if we are sure what it is we want to give to the world.

To summarize, I would like the Islamic organizations to stop, reflect and adopt a wiser strategy with Lucid Eloquence.  We do not want any interference/control/influence from Muslim nor any non-Muslim organization and individuals, but like Prophet Muhammad (SWAS), we will seek to cooperate with everyone who wants to improve the world irrespective of religious belief, based on common interests, on the terms we feel fit.
 
I apologize if anyone found these words to be harsh, but this message needed to be conveyed directly and publicly.

May Allah guide us all.

PS: Lucid Eloquence devices are still hacked and this should stop immediately.

And now the blog post....

Why Can’t We Muslims Think?

We are often criticized for not contributing intellectually to the modern world. Rather we are avid consumers of ideas (and even stealers of them, in some cases), products and services provided by others. We fail to contribute despite the sheer weight of our numbers. What are the factors that make it difficult for us to innovate holistically for the greater good of humanity while staying true to our own paradigm of reality?

To consider this issue, we need to understand the legacy of a series of Muslim capitulations since the failure of the Siege of Vienna, which eventually relegated us and thus our worldview as the non dominant global paradigm. 

Colonialism and the New World Order consolidated this position. It was not the deficiency in the Islamic worldview which led to our defeat but rather its lack of understanding and hence the laxity in its implementation among Muslims, which weakened them. This fact is evident when we consider that subsequent Islamic revival movements, in different parts of the world, were successful when they adhered to this pristine worldview, even if they were short-lived. The truth is that Muslim groups practicing Islam properly from the sources continue to exist in one part of the world or another till today.

Thus, it is no wonder that today we seem so backwards in terms of education and its practice. Generally, our current education system is based on rote memorization. Our current education system does not teach us how to think rather it develops students to only pass exams. Studying is seldom equated with enlightenment and development of the thought process. Rather it is meant to provide jobs, socio-economic uplift and gender equality. The most prevalent concept we espouse is how to “look” better than others in order to “subjugate/control/manage” others for which we cite the Prophetic model to essentially to follow the global masses into the lizard's hole. I request you to consciously ask yourself now, as you read this, if this is the real reason of loving and adopting the Prophet (SWAS).

Does the Lamborghini we own makes us better than others, or our citizenship, or our clothes, or the neighborhood we live in, or our accents, or our appearances? The truth is that we are still living out our colonial legacy when we use the sayings such as that "the favors of God should be visible on us" to justify the material race which the global masses are unfortunately engaged in blindly without thought. Unfortunately, our approach to deal with others who are not in our "tribe" has not, for the most part, developed essentially any more than that of the marauding hordes of ancient Arabia, it may seem acceptable, If someone like my 17 year old behaves like this out of immaturity, but unfortunately this sickness is a prevalent thought pattern among a majority of very practicing Muslims. Are we not witnesses to mankind calling them to a better life? Then how are we using something as precious as the Prophetic example for something so crass like chasing the world by following them?

Since the Islamic worldview permeates all aspects of our life, the average Muslim is confused. On the one hand they attempt to stay faithful to Islamic values, but on the other hand they realize that the modern world is based on a secular worldview which is in many ways is diametrically opposed to Islamic (natural) way of thinking. Thus the average contemporary Muslim suffers from conflicting juxtaposed personal worldview which makes it impossible to develop any original thoughts as they do not have any sound personal system of intellectual reference to base it on. 

Thus, Muslims, in general, relegate thinking to other civilizations and just focus on personal socio-economic improvement, while trying to “look better” in the eyes of others trying to "subjugate/control/manage" those outside their own "group". Wearing fancy clothes and driving expensive cars does not make us better or worse than anyone if we are sure of ourselves. While they continue this useless struggle "to control each other" thinking that they are following the Prophetic way, the global policies and decisions are made by a part of humanity who are hungry for natural solutions which can only come from the a natural paradigm of reality, i.e. ad deen al fitra.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that we have the hallmark of an enslaved mentality which can only instinctively do what it is habituated in doing and incapable of intellectual breakthroughs. Even when such people become professors or other intellectuals professionally, often they may only do it as a means to earn a paycheck, seeking to be engaged in the apparent process of innovation based on established theories in their fields - never actually making an intellectual breakthrough themselves, writing one useless research paper after another just fulfilling their job obligation.

Many of us just use our professional prestige, social status, and accumulated/grown wealth to want to "subjugate/control/manage" others and they believe that this is the essentially what it means to "follow Prophet Muhammad (SWAS)". Thus, the owner of many gas stations, for example,  who might have "made it" in terms of being successful in the worldly sense feels they have the right to set policies for the development of the Muslim community because they are "seen" to be a leader following Muhammad (SWAS)'s legacy. Of course there are many exceptions to this generalization.  

On one end of the spectrum of Muslim society are people who are only entrenched in the traditional worldview. Among them, there are some whose sources and methodologies are not Islamic but perhaps cultural.  Also among them are many who do not understand how the modern world functions. This leaves a very few practicing Muslim intellectuals who have a pure and monolithic mental frame of thought to impact global thought. On the other end of the spectrum of Muslim society are the secularist who have all but completely discarded the Islamic worldview. They have freed themselves of the mental confusion and can make progress in intellectual endeavors completely immersed in secular values and not shackled by contradicting the  Islamic paradigm. Thus, to innovate, such individuals from Muslims societies are forced to leave the realm of Islam.

In order for Muslims to really think and contribute to solve global issues using their own paradigm of thought, they need to simultaneously and continuously seek Islamic and worldly education with the right intentions. These include holistic learning, deep contemplation, self-reform, doing legacy building projects and teaching others. Those who are trying to do this sincerely should mutually support each other or at least try not to deliberately break / pull each other down unethically for what might appear as selfish reasons, because they think that this is part of Prophetic practice . It we are driven to do good, we can try to exert our knowledge and skills to solve global problems which we are best capable of without maligning/preying on the weaknesses of those who are trying to do this, just because they are not within our "group". To me, it seems that this can be a better way to follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad (SWAS).

And Allah knows better.