Suffice to say Mohammed pbuh refused to compromise
But there were a couple of issues which flew in the face of the Meccan authorities which they could not tolerate. One problem which they detested was the Islamic call that ‘there is no God but Allah’, for them this presented a huge issue, for if there were no God but Allah, who were all these other created deities which they prayed to, what were they supposed to do with them all and who would ever need to visit Mecca if all these various gods were gone? If they agreed to this religion they knew they would have to submit to the laws of this deen. They imagined the huge impact that these changes True Religion Jeans would have on their own lives, their towns importance and potential earning power.
The other major problem they had was that Mohammed pbuh was as honest as they came. He not only dealt and traded with people in a honest manor but he would openly warn of the Meccans dishonesty in trade with the visiting pilgrims. He showed Islam’s stance on honest money, honest trade and charitable works. Suffice to say Mohammed pbuh refused to compromise.
Islam without law is imperfect. Comparably the Western Civilization would not be where it is today void of law. Within Islam there are laws which protect general society, laws which are punishable. There are also laws which appeal to the individuals idea of self regulation, which tests the believers testimony of submitting his or her will to the will of Allah swt. When people talk of easily practicing their religion in a non Islamic country a distinction should be made. It is true that in some cases they may have more freedom of speech, movement and political expression than in some so called Islamic countries but to be content with that position is a huge mistake because it is based on compromises which our beloved Prophet would not make.
They should be honest and admit to the compromise that they need to adopt in order to make as it were, a square peg fit into a round hole. The law of self regulation is practiced only, by Muslims in these foreign lands and becomes separated from the Islamic State laws which cannot be imported into the new land. And so the believer is faced with a compromise, to adopt the existing law of the land which he finds himself in and then claim it to be so identically close to Islam that its does not matter that he abandons the idea of Islamic law, or to live under the foreign law but at the very least, try to establish the revival of the Islamic State in a suitably accommodating part of the earth. Both are compromises one better than the other.
Sound money is a medium of exchange and a store of value. Without these two basic principles anything else is a pale imitation, fake, counterfeit, fraudulent. Question: what would your action be if you sold an extremely valuable item to me and after the trade had been completed you realized that I had paid you with fake money. No need to answer, your reaction would be obvious. But hold onto the mindset of that reaction and use it on what comes next. If we go back to the philosophy of determining the best things in life, then it is easy to assume that gold and silver happen to be the best examples of money used throughout history, a store of value and a medium of exchange. Each metal is not valueless until someone prints an external value on it, the value is intrinsic to the metal. You cannot flood them into existence at little or no cost, it is extremely costly in both labor and finance to dig the metal out of the ground and then fabricate it.
The supply is finite and difficult to attain which is another characteristic of real money i.e. everyone wants it but can never get enough of it. If at any time, there is not enough gold and silver in the market then alternative goods are used to exchange in trade. This was acceptable to our beloved Prophet pbuh. Now to the controversial part. How is it that we now accept as money worthless paper one indistinguishable from another save for a small difference in size and print and each costing a few pennies at most to produce. Paper money came into existence as an alternative to carrying around the goods that the receipt represent. That’s what they were, a receipt, testimony that the original owner did in fact hold the amount of gold shown on the paper within the secure premises of the Goldsmiths. A lazy but convenient method of passing on the receipt to another to settle a trade developed True Religion UK but the new holder of the receipt would go and redeem the gold as payment and thus, the transaction would be complete. This worked for a while until the receipts became passed around so much so that very few were ever redeemed.
The Goldsmiths, later to be known as Banks became rich especially as they would then loan the unclaimed money out at interest. Now I hope you did not merely let out all that pent up reaction at the first occurrence of the word interest. We as Muslims have been brainwashed into thinking that so long as we refuse interest on our bank accounts we have completed our duty and avoided Riba or Usury but who told us this?. Consider the money in your purse or wallet, it is irredeemable, does not hold its value, its so called value is not intrinsic but printed on its exterior and without the brainwashing holds little real value other than that of a few pennies worth. Our currencies today are nothing more than I.O.U’s that are at present irredeemable so basically have little or no value. What s worse is that each bill tells you that it is an I.O.U and this is written on top of every note, it is a message from the Bank of England, a promise to pay you the bearer the sum of ￡5,10,20 or 50 on presentation of that note, but exactly what would be the purpose in presenting ￡5 to the bank in order to receive the same ￡5 back in return, that would be completely insane.
But you have carried this message around with you for most of your adult life and have you not reflected on its true meaning? Of course they are supposed to pay you back with REAL MONEY, gold or silver!!! I challenge anyone to try and prize what they are owed from a bankers hands, getting blood from a stone might be easier. But a question arises, can one pay ones Zakat with an I.O.U.? I think not but of course since we do not have an Islamic State, Zakat is not wajib or so I’ve been told. So what am I doing here, am I actually paying my Zakat or not? This is how mixed up and crazy things have become. When I once tried to pay my Zakat with real money in the form of precious metal at the mosque (the name of which [mosque] shall remain nameless to protect the innocent and confused) they tracked me down within the mosque and told me to take it back and pay with real money instead! My fault I guess for being so provocative.
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