Internet Suicide

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? - from The Shadow (1930–54)

• A woman in the doctor’s waiting room natters on facebook over her QWERTY blackberry bold 9930 keyboard with liquid graphics.
• A man stands in line at starbucks, gapes at BMW E36 car race on his 3G wireless Motorla Xoom.
• A child on the swing in the playground wears Altec Lansing BackBeat 903, listening to Party Rock Anthem by GoonRock.
• A girl on the treadmill at the gym runs as fast as she can, as Steve from BBC interviews Imram Khan on the 24-inch Toshiba LCD Television.
• And you: maybe your ipad 2 is running out of battery as you scroll over this article while copying your homework assignment from portal.utoronto.ca
  
  

 Yes, technologically, we have come a long way. Doing research online, command + F beats digging through page after page of books in the library, for sure. Microsoft is better than pen and paper, it can auto spellcheck for you and you don't have to worry about writing your c's and e's clearly. No need for a rule or a protractor either (lol does anyone even remember what that is?) Excel can do your charts and graphs too. We can speak to our friends faster on facebook; read their statuses and laugh at their avatars. Youtube can yield virtually everything you yearn to watch. I don't deny the benefits of the internet but I cannot help but count the disasters. The internet has made us the most procrastinating, time-washing, lazy and lost generation.
The internet has taken over our lives. We are prisoners of the world-wide-web. Everyday we are caught in the scrim of endlessly updating facebook images, wiki articles, BBC news and youtube videos. Even when we come online to work - subconsciously, we end up opening twitter, Tripadvisor.com, and iTunes.  We are checking news, blogs, games, shopping catalogues, and our emails - ALL THE TIME - in class, on the bus, at the dinner table, while doing homework, right before going to bed, right after waking up. Look around you right now...there are things beeping, buzzing, clicking, ringing or flashing.

Whatever happened to doing homework and cleaning to house? Joining some animal welfare or environmental awareness group? Practicing martial arts? Cooking for your family, getting to know your neighbours, learning a new language?  Are we happy with this internet overdose or more comatose? Is the internet making us more creative and productive? Or are we coming online to kill time, to sit around and do nothing?

I wish I could punish myself more than with just words.

Look at the sahaba, awesome in their aqeeda, fierce in their ibadah and magnificent in their manners. They had grandeur in their spirit, strength in their body, vigour in their speech. In comparison, we have so few of these traits We have an abjection and contempt to learning,  especially learning the knowledge of Allah's Oneness. Talk about shaykh fulan and peer-baba so-and-so, we will be all ears but whenever Allah alone is praised and singled out for worship - how quickly we take offense, how abruptly we get bored. Our salat are delayed and performed in haste. When was the last time we prayed in congregation or recited something longer than qul hu Allahu ahad in the second rak'ah? Our spirits are easily seduced by the sales, our bodies are filled with bicarbonated coke and speech? Yes our speech is brilliant. We can aggressively make a point, no matter how ill-informed we are on the subject. There are forums after forums of volatile debate on the internet. Each user will offer an intense view, microwave his/dinner, eat and go to sleep. There is no action ... and I am guilty of of this too. 
 
Muslims in are enslaved in Somalia and India, servile in Libya and Syria, scattered without a leader in Pakistan, without an organization in Egypt, beaten in Palestine, despoiled in France, ripped apart in Cuba and Iraq, overrun in US and Canada; all in all, Muslims are prey to every sort of catastrophe, even natural disasters....and I am facebooking? I am checking my email? I SUCK! I should have never been born! :( What good have I ever done online? :( You know things are not going to get better if we just live on the internet. 
 
I had a chance to work with a wonderful group of brothers this past summer for the Journey of Faith conference. I see a glimmer of hopein these individuals. MashaAllah they are extraordinary, they study full time, have jobs, teach, manage their families .... know what is happening in the world and are working hard to make it better. From them, there were some who invited the scholars (from emailing them, going over their lecture topics and descriptions, picking them up at the airport to doing their hospitality and ushering them to the stage), some who trained the du'aat, others drove to churches, temples...you name it and they went there mashaAllah with invitation letters, set up the table talks room, fed the entire time and still others who gave invited non-Muslims to accept Islam for 8 hours at a stretch, without eating or drinking or even sleeping the night before. It was incredible subhanAllah, to just witness these industrious labour. I am so inspired, I do not have words to say....
I pray that through them Allah will redeem this Ummah. That they can heal the wounds of shirk, put an end to the politics in Masajid, and cure the sores which have been festering the youth in our community for so long. I pray that they can redeem us from our character cruelties and insolence...that they raise the banner of Da'wah for others to follow. May Allah favour them with illustrious abilities and fortune aameen. 
 
In the words of Machiavelli, “the sea has opened up, a cloud has shown you the path; the rock pours forth water; it has rained manna here; everything has converged for your greatness. The rest you must do yourself. God does not wish to do everything, in order not to take from us our free will and that part of the glory which is ours” p. 163. Allah has prepared this world for valuable work. Correct your ibadaah and deeds, behave benevolently with people and busy yourself with something beneficial. 

For this, you might have to give an obituary online; commit an internet suicide of sorts. No cartoons or car videos on youtube, no facebook, gmail or news. Then what? 
 

You know there aren't as many (or any) Muslim doctors and lawyers? Sure you hear this clique that parents force their kids into med-school or engineering but in the past 10 years, I can't honestly say I came across these professionals. Alhamdulillah, universities are full of Muslim students. Just come to any one of my political science classes, guaranteed you'll find 60% of the lecture hall fully engaged by Muslims. Then were do these Muslims go after they graduate? I have cousins who have degrees in biology, banking and business etc. So where are Muslims in the playing field? Are we just earning to buy a Kensington Palace or Pogani Zonda one day? Is it enough to marry a righteous spouse and send your kids to hifdh school? Khalas after-wards? Why are we satisfied with the bare minimum? Where are the Allama Iqbals, the visionaries for the 21^st century? Where are the Muhammad bin Qassims, the liberators of our times? Where are the Quaid-e-Azams, the builders and reformers of nations? Jago Jago Samlon Yaaro ye waqt ney shor machaya...