Islam's Reformers .pdf

where immodestly dressed women work and alcoholic drinksare sold. The earnings that come through harâm means arewicked and without Allâhu ta’âlâ’s blessing. Their consequencewill be harmful both in this world and in the next.It is harâm and a grave sin for women and girls to exhibitthemselves undressed to nâ-mahram men and for men to lookat them. It does not become a Muslim to earn worldly propertyby means of harâm. Goods earned in such a way are uselessand without Allâhu ta’âlâ’s blessing. He who slights the harâmbecomes a kâfir.If a person claims to be a Muslim, his actions have to be inconformity with the Sharî’at. If he does not know how he shouldbehave, he has to learn by asking a scholar in the Madh-hab ofAhl as-sunna, or by reading books written by scholars belongingto this Madh-hab. If what he has done runs counter to theSharî’at’s prescription, he is by no means free from the state ofsinfulness or denial (of Islam). In this case, he has to do truepenance daily. Any sin or any act of denial is definitelypardonable, depending on the (trueness of the) penance onehas done. If the person concerned does not do true penance,he will be tormented, i.e. punished, both in this world and inHell. Kinds of these punishments are written at various places inour book.Parts of the body that men and women have to cover, bothduring namâz and elsewhere, are called “Awrat Parts.” If aperson says that Islam does not contain any concept in thename of awrat parts, he becomes a disbeliever. If a persondoes not attach importance to the fact that one has to coverthose parts of one’s body that are awrat according to the(agreements of the scholars called) ijmâ’, i.e. in all the fourMadh-habs, or that one should not look at those parts of otherpeople’s bodies; in other words, if he does not feel any fear asto the torment he would be subjected to (in case he failed toobserve this important rule), he becomes a disbeliever. Partsbetween a man’s knees and loins are not awrat parts accordingto the Hanbalî Madh-hab. A person who says, “I am a Muslim,”has to learn and respect the credal tenets of Islam and thecommandments and prohibitions that are communicated inijmâ’, i.e. in agreement by all the four Madh-habs. Not to knowthem does not grant an exemption. It is equal to knowing anddisbelieving. A woman’s entire body, with the exception of her- 113 -