Surah al-Kafirun, Declaration of Independence and Reality of Covering Truth

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

Surah al-Kafirun is a very brief chapter of the Qur'an with only 6 Ayah or Signs. Its literal translation according to the standard translation of Yusuf Ali and Pickthall are as follows:

Say: O you who reject faith,
I worship not what you worship!
Nor will you worship what I worship.
And I shall not worship what you worship.
Nor will you worship what I worship.
To you be your way, and to me mine.

THEN

There is a particular context within which this Surah was revealed during time of the Messenger and that context was that during the earlier days of the Messenger's mission, when opposition to him and his message was very high and yet the elitist of that society, the Quraish didn't gave up hope to win over this deeply charismatic and upright personality of Prophet Muhammad. Therefore, from time to time they would visit him with different proposals of compromise so that he accepted one of them and the dispute between them was brought to an end.

Once those who opposed the Messenger proposed: "We shall give you so much of wealth that you will become the richest man of Makkah. We shall give you whichever woman you like in marriage. We are prepared to follow and obey you as our leader, only on the condition that you will not speak ill of our gods. If you do not agree to this, we present another proposal which is to your as well as to our advantage."

When the Holy Prophet asked what it was, they said that if he would worship their gods, Lat and Uzza, for a year, they would worship his God for the same space of time. The Holy Prophet said: "Wait awhile; let me see what my Lord commands in this regard."

Thereupon the revelation came down: Qul ya-ayyuhal- kafirun... (al-Kafirun:1) and: Qul afa-ghair Allahi... (az-Zumar: 64): "Say to them: ignorant people, do you bid me to worship others than Allah?". According to another report the Quraish said to the Holy Prophet: "O Muhammad, if you kiss our gods, the idols, we shall worship your God.Thereupon, this Surah was sent down.

So this above was the historical context in which the Surah was revealed. But thats not all. The Sign of any authentic revelation and any authentic religion is that it will continue to reveal its message and it should be able to explain the reality of any age. When Surah al-Kafirun is put into that test, one may come to appreciate how the Quranic revelation continue to unfold multidimensional meanings for every age and how they explain the present day reality and situation of the world.

LINK

In order to link between the THEN (age of when revelation came down), the Revelation (itself) and NOW (present age), first it may be useful to have a broader understanding of the terms used in the very precise and brief choice of words in the Revelation, in this case, Surah al-Kafirun. There are words which inherently preserve one set of meanings but in modern time situations may have changed so much so that we might well be witnessing the same phenomena (or meaning) captured in those words but because of our heart's incapacity to see through the apparent, we dont recognize the truth. In that case we may read the Qur'an but we dont have the capacity to see how it holds true and in what way in present time.

The word Kafir ~ which used to describe those who rejected the message of the Messenger of God, those who were disbeliever but in broader sense kafir is a state in which one cover up truth, any truth that is as well as the Ultimate Truth, God Himself. Kafir is anyone who covers any aspect of truth. So for example whenever we see the present day controlled media cover up an aspect of the reality and something else is portrayed through distortion, we may recognize that the same tendency of covering up of truth is going on. In present world, it is these Kafirs who are addressed and we, the reader is asked to declare and convey a certain message to those who are constantly engaged in covering up of truth.

'Abudu ~ which generally means worshiping and in the past and even now, in religious context worship generally has to do with deity, God, gods etc. But in broader sense, anything which we value the most, keep ourself preoccupied the thought of which, pursue with most of our time in life - that thing or objective becomes our object of worship. This is what human being worship today. And in today's reality, its not a Deity, Creator God or anything, it is often the money, the possessing of money, the accumulation of wealth, lust, desire of power, desire of the self is what we worship the most. This worship of material thing has become so commonplace that we dont even realize that we are led to worship those material things.

Deen ~ which generally means Way of Life, Religion, Religious-Spiritual Way of Life. And if we look at present world situation, Lakum Deenukum ~ To you is Your Religion - at present time, this "you" are no longer the idol worshiper of Arabic, it is the perpetrator or the mastermind of the Religion of Deception, the agents of Anti-Christ who are already in work to bring destruction and corruption in every aspect of humanity. Be it relationship, in monetary space through their deception in financial system and manipulation of banking system, through fraudulent paper money, through destruction of environment, corruption of governments, you name it. This is the current day's Deceptive Religion of Money and Power.

NOW

In present day, in order to grasp the reality of covering up I recommend the readers to watch and listen and absorb some of the aspect of truth as spoken by a contemporary Islamic scholar Sheikh Imran Hosein. He is an expert not only in Islam, Quran and Islamic Eschatology but also in International Economics and International Relations. Thus he provides a 360 view of the present systems that dominates situations all over the world. He also has the genius to explain the present world situation with direct reference to the Revelation of Quran and that of the prophecies of the Messenger of Allah. Sheikh Imran with his analysis based on Quran and spiritual wisdom predicted quite accurately the US dollar collapse and hence economic recession as well as Arab Spring quite sometime ago, much before any signs of them were visible in the horizon of time and space.

Below are some links to some of your talks that are highly recommended and necessary to understand how truth is distorted and manipulated and presented to us in such a deceptive manner.

+ Islamic Eschatology and the Reality of the World Today

+ Signs Of The Last Day

+ An Islamic Response To Dajjal's Sexual Revolution

+ Islam & the International Monetary System

Just as the Surah al-Kafirun, Prophet was offered to bow down to the false deities and it was an invitation to bow down before illusion and for sure it was also a plot of deception, same history repeats itself except that someone did form the bond with the Satan and made a deal sometime in the past which gave away to the worship of material power, corruption of economic and political system and worldwide escalation of oppression. One hint is that such a deal happened in the Saudi Wahabi nation state among other things.

Towards understanding that the book which is recommended to read is called: The Caliphate, The Hijaz and the Saudi Wahabi Nation State (click here to download the PDF)

In the above mentioned book we read:

One of the essential characteristics of the religion of Islam is its insistence that when a people recognize Allah Most High as 'sovereign' (al-Malik) then they must ensure that the State and all its institutions submit to Allah's supreme authority and supreme law. If the State, rather than Allah, is recognized as sovereign, and that is the essence of the secularism, Islam declares such to be Shirk (blasphemy) and that is the greatest sin possible.

Around the world today the modern secular State is universally recognized as sovereign. Its authority is recognized as supreme, and so too its law. And so, around the world today mankind is now embraced by a universal political Shirk (blasphemy). This is, in fact, one of the major signs that we now live in the age of Dajjal, the false Messiah or Anti-Christ, who deceived mankind into worshiping other than Allah Most High. He, Dajjal, is the mastermind behind today's world order about which the Hadith declares that 999 out of every 1000 will enter into the hellfire. But even Muslims seem to be unaware of this.

Surah al-Kafirun is speaking in today's world against the blasphemous situation in which a faithful person find himself herself because of the worldwide domination of the Anti-Christic (Dajjal) power. The situation is so worse that we are knowing or unknowing are manipulated to accept country as exerciser of Sovereignty, a fraudulent monetary system as our lord of mankind, man made laws as supreme authority over the authority of God. God is no longer the Sovereign (al-Malik), His Laws the no longer the highest, God is no longer the Judge (al-Hakim).

Surah al-Kafirun, if properly understood in its penetrating reality that is not situated in the past, but very much alive in present and will continue to be in future, is a call for Declaration of Independence from such deception, from such false system, from such world-order that seeks nothing less but to enslave all of humanity. We do not bow down or worship a godless system that makes man made law a substitute for Divinely sanctioned law, that makes prohibited what God made permissible and makes permissible what God made prohibited. And we acknowledge that the Satanic system will never accept and worship God, as said in the surah al-Kafirun (Wala antum AAabidoona maaAAbud). The chasm between those who deny God and are all for promoting godless secular satan worshiping world-order and that of those who are faithful to One God is never to be bridged. Every Sign, every verse of Surah al-Kafirun remains true towards that reality which cover up truth.

Whereas the Revelation offers the freedom of being no slave of anything in the world, except to be a servant of God Alone. The Revelation's declaration of independence is true independence from the materialism, from worshiping all those false illusions that has become false-idols for the godless secularized world.

We say to those, let your fake, deceptive Religion of Money, Power, Self-Worship be yours; we have nothing to do with it, ours is the Deen of Allah. For us Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone, Allah alone is al-Malik, Allah alone is al-Hakim and Allah alone is our Lord.

May Allah guide us towards al-Haqq, the Truth, may Allah help and protect us against those who cover up truth, against those who oppress and save us from the trials of the Anti-Christ and it's agents.

# Recommended Resource:
* Video Discourses by Sheikh Imran Hosein
* Books by Sheikh Imran Hosein