I’m in Paris again. The time is 8:40 PM and I fulfil a promise I made earlier to an Arab kebab house owner to return and have my dinner later. He probably hears promises like that often, hence the large smile on his face when he saw me return. He knew very little English and I knew very little Arabic and French, but nevertheless my limited vocabulary in Arabic got me through my order.
I asked for a receipt so I can claim back the dinner from my employer. The Arabic word for receipt I am told is pronounced “Fatoora”. He looked up at me and asked me what I would like to have written on my receipt, and I nodded my head believing he was just double checking if I wanted a receipt. He then asked again, and I realised that he was asking if I wanted to tell him a price to put on the receipt so I could claim more money than I had actually spent. I’ll be honest. This annoyed me a little as our conversation until that point revolved around my endeavours of learning Arabic and the use of the term “Insha Allah”, which means “God willing”. However, this didn’t seem to deter this shop owner in offering me a chance to cheat. I firmly asked how much the dinner was and then asked him to write that down on the receipt. With a polite gesture I made it known that it wasn’t good to cheat and he was a little embarrassed. I shook his hand and bid him farewell, diverting the subject of the conversation back to learning Arabic and hence making him feel ok.
Islam is vehemently against cheating, lying, forgery or unfairness in dealings between parties, business or personal. So when a Muslim asks me with no shame to cheat, then it made me wander how as Muslims we can ask why there is such humiliation in the Muslim world, where corruption is rife. With the exception of Singapore, there are not many Muslim countries featuring in the top 30 of the least corrupted countries list, but the most corrupt countries list of 2010-2011 feature 6 Muslim countries in the top 10 most corrupt list.
The teachings of Islam and the practices of many of its claimants, myself included are far removed from its ideals. That is why, one should remember not to use Muslims as yardsticks to measure or assess the religion of Islam, but rather remember that one should “Never judge a religion by its followers, but by its scriptures”. I can’t remember the source of this quote, but it is often sound advice to first look at the facts, make an assessment and then act accordingly.
