A NOTE FROM A MUSLIM FRIEND OF MINE

What is happening to us is exactly what happened to the Children of Israel, the

Muslims of the earlier times, in their history of two thousand years before the arrival
of Prophet Muhammad, Allah’s mercy be on him. The Qur’an describes their suffering
in these words:

“And we forewarned the Children of Israel in their Holy Book that ‘you will do
mischief in the land twice through and you will become arrogant transgressors (and
each time you will be punished).‘

When the promise for the first of the two fore warnings came to be fulfilled, WE
SENT AGAINST YOU OUR SERVANTS WITH MILITARY MIGHT: THEY RAMPAGED
THROUGH YOUR HOMES TO CARRY OUT THE PUNISHMENT OF WHICH YOU WERE
FOREWARNED. Then after this, we afforded you an opportunity to overpower them
and helped you with wealth and sons and granted you more manpower. If you
perform well you do so for your own benefit; but if you do evil, it would cause harm
to your own selves.

Then, when the promise for your second forewarning came to be fulfilled, (WE SENT
ANOTHER ARMY) TO DISFIGURE YOUR FACES AND TO ENTER YOUR TEMPLE AS THE
FORMER HAD ENTERED IT BEFORE AND THEY UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THAT THEY
LAID THEIR HANDS ON.

Now your Lord may again be merciful to you; but if you repeat the same behavior,
we will repeat the punishment, and in the hereafter, we have made hell a prison for
such unbelievers.

Surely this Qur’an guides to the way that is perfectly straight and gives the good
news to the believers who do good deeds that they shall have a magnificent reward,
and at the same time it gives warnings to those who do not believe in the hereafter,
that we have prepared for them a painful punishment.” (Qur’an; 17:4-10)

The fact that God is punishing us through non-Muslims is undeniable. The reason this
has happened is not because we are not undertaking proper war against our enemies
but because of our “mischief” and “arrogance”. In my opinion the following are some
of the prominent misdeeds that have invited God’s punishment to be inflicted on
Muslims:

i) As a nation Muslims are corrupt. Cheating, disregard of merit, and breaking of

commitments are some of the crimes we are consistently committing. Exceptions
apart, hypocrisy is the hallmark of the present-day Muslims.
ii) The present-day Muslims are extremely arrogant. Despite being morally corrupt,
Muslims are dead sure that they will eventually succeed in the hereafter while all
non-Muslims shall be doomed.
iii) The greatest evil in the present-day Muslims is that although they were expected
to bring non-Muslims closer to Islam by their good acts and words, they have caused
them to hate the religion of God by presenting a picture of it which cannot incline a
decent human being to accept it as the religion of God. The Islam Muslims are
presenting appears to be against every beautiful blessing God has created for
humans in this life; it seems to suggest that the creator of this world is, God forbid,
extremely unfair in that He will look at the religion of humans and not their
intentions and deeds while deciding about their eternal fate; they have also caused
great harm to the message of God by creating the impression that hating fellow
humans to the extent of even killing them was a part of the expectation of God from
his His devoted servants.