Let Your Conscience Be Your Moral Compass | Ro Waseem

If you identify as a Muslim, but haven’t read the Quran — then the best course of action to take would be to obviously read it. No one is born into a religion just as you can’t be born into a political ideology. I can’t call myself a Communist if I haven’t researched it for myself. Bear in mind, that when you decide to identify yourself as a Muslim to other people, you decide to become an ambassador of Islam. People who aren’t familiar with Islam will usually base their opinion on it according to your actions.

However, even if you can’t get yourself to read it for some reason or the other, the least you could do is follow your conscience. Now, by conscience, I mean the inner voice which never shies away from expressing itself –The Rooh (Spirit/Soul) of God that is within us all (Quran, 15:29). No one can be spiritually content if their actions are negative. As an example, don’t drink, gamble, fornicate, backbite, lie, spend lavishly to the expense of others, cheat people etc.

If only you happen to avoid such things, then congratulations: you have already adhered to central teachings of teachings of Islam as well as many other religions. See, every religion stresses the importance of behaving morally. That is essentially the core of them all. You don’t need religion to teach you morality. Sure, religion may help in inspiring and reminding you, but the soul already knows what’s right and wrong. Just listen to it!

Having said that, it is of paramount importance that you read the Quran sooner than later. Why? Because then you’ll not be as gullible as many religionists usually are. Since you have no foundation of the Quran, pseudo-scholars can basically feed you anything and attribute it to Islam and you won’t know what hit you. That’s why, some of them (if not most!) try to keep people away from reading the Quran for themselves. After all, their bread and butter depend on it!

They discourage people from forming their own opinions lest they interpret it ‘wrongly’. Or, the promises of rewards that one gets by reading the Quran in a language one doesn’t even understand! How utterly foolish! The Quran is a practical guide on life. The sole purpose of this book is to bring people out of darkness, towards light (14:2). It is a book that yearns to be understood, and most importantly implemented!

So if you don’t want to be fooled, read it. After having read the Quran, you will have developed a criterion from which you can judge whether a statement is Quranic or not. That’s where the “blasphemy law” comes in to silence those who speak truth, a law so contradictory to the message of the Quran! (You can read it about it here)