Preach

So what was it all about? I used to ask myself.

Did they preach one thing and practise another, these men of God?

And if someone had told me at the time that this flogging clergyman was one day to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, I would never have believed it.

It was all this, I think, that made me begin to have doubts about religion and even about God. If this person, I kept telling myself, was one of God's chosen salesmen on earth, then there must be something very wrong about the whole business.  

-Roald Dahl, Boy

I was having breakfast while reading Boy by Roald Dahl and a verse came to mind when I was reading this part.

O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? {61:2}

You know, I've always heard people say, to look at Islam, you must not look at the Muslims. Of course, in some way it is true since not all of us are Muslim scholars and so, to really know how Islam looked like, we would have to tell them to refer to the Qur'an itself but when I come to think about it, are we going to continue to use that as an excuse to not try to change this?

Allah says again, after that,

Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do. {61:3}

Allah uses a very strong word there, which is GREAT HATE. Why is that the case? Maybe it is because so many are claiming to be pious people while getting away with doing just the opposite. This may make a bad impression of the people that they are preaching to and so the da'wah just died off the minute their preaching stops. 

Preaching is not merely talking about Islam, but it is also about 'doing'. 

But I also think it is unfair to point at these pious men for the misconceptions of the non-practising Muslims and not yet Muslims. Sometimes, even when the pious people really adhere to Islam, they still get trashed. Either way, it's a lose-lose situation if you look at it in the sense of seeing Islam in the eyes of human. 

But as always, we must try not to forget that "actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended". InshaAllah, I think as long as we try our best to portray the best of Islam in ourselves, no matter what people say, or no matter how people react to it, what matters is what we do, not what the others don't.