How is the Situation of the Muslims nowadays (Sep 2025) ?

 Generally from the 1900's we have been very weak and of little value and inflence in the world. This is also prophesized by the Prophet Muhamed peace be upon him where he described our situation saying we will be many but the other nations will be feasting on us while we are stooped in feebleness and love of the world and hating death. This is as opposed to loving to go to Heaven (the afterlife) and looking forward to and planning for death. This situaiton was described as Wahan (weakness). I think it emanates from not thinking about why we are here and what the whole purpose of our existence here is. We ended up just following the path of our tradition without quesitoning it. So we became like any other nation that just blindly copies its forefathers, and this is not how true Islam is. In true Islam the belivers think and verify what the right path in life is and then start following it and correnting themselves it as they learn more. But in blind following you assume you are on the right path and just follow without verifying or wanting to improve. Your focus becomes on other things eg worldy matters, and you are not so concerned about the next life, you may even not believe in it so much. Whereas in truth Islam you need to have concrete or near concrete faith so that you live your islamic life well.

Becuase of this lack of thinking and verification lots of superstitions also came in and Islam became a mixture of native culture, superstitions and a bit practices. The inner spirit i think became lost and we were content with this superficial weak and faulty understanding of it. And hence we declined and the enemies where able to defeat and divide us quite easily.

In the 1960's we realised that it was our being distanced from true Islam that has led to our bad situation and parties and groups started up to help fix the issues, but sadly they werent fully thought out and end up heading for taking power instead of changing the thought within people. It became more a grab for power rather than cultural reform. Only the Sufis i think worked on the cultural personality reform but it was a very very slow process as people are not used to thinking and more used to copying. True Islam requires thinkers, and creating a society of thinking Muslims isnt easy.

There were some notable thinkers that did come and try to reform but its still not enough. More work on that side is still needed i believe. On top of that the invaders, especially the UK, created a new sect called Wahabism that had a very deviant form of Islam and used them to divide muslims and attack those of them that tried to do proper reform eg the Sufis. They also funded them very well and thus they were able to gain a lot of influence across the Muslim world with their base in Saudi and using the oil money. The result is that Salafism spread and it has created a generation of very poor quality Muslims sadly. Those who focus more on form than the spirit of the deen. Appearance became more important than the state of the heart. Having a beard more important than being kind. This made the work of the Sufis even harder.

Now in 2025 the Saudis have thankfully renounced the Salafis and this has allowed the Sufis to return fast and rebuild their capablities and expand their networks leading to more awareness about its importance. There are some fake Sufis though so one should research well.

Many scholars have also realised the failings within Salafism and have changed course but there are still masses of Muslims that are still affected by it and have not managed to wake up yet. So there is plenty of reform work to do still.

The question then is how to do it? From my Sufi master/sheikh he teaches that we must focus on khidma (service to the Ummah) , ifiqaar (humbleness) and love. So its not about going out boasting that Sufism is great and Salafis are bad but instead finding a nice way to offer advice and move things in the right direction. Basically through being a servant of the Ummah instead of a dictator. If they dont respond then we just do our best and leave the matter in Allah's hands.

There are many converts that have come in, and those one can debate with very easily as they have a working brain already digesting spiritual material. But for rusty brains we need to be more gentle and patient. We also need to realise they have been under the influence of bad scholars and make an excuse for thier slowness to change and reform. InshaAllah after they come through they will serve Islam very well. But coming out of the darkness is hard. 

An example in point is the Friday khutbas that are being delivered. These can be very impactful if they used to awaken people with khutbas that are directly relevant to reformation. But sadly we find many that are just repititions of old topics and make one think that all is well, when clearly all isnt. How do we make changes here ? I think by encouraging organisers to focus on the reformation than to deliver traditional repetative talks. We need to inspire to think of reformation and be reformationists. But if they are stuck in the form and not the spirit then they will resist and keep their way. So we can develop blog articles that talk about such issues and pass them to them and see the outcome. We can speak to the organisers too. We can propose topics of khutbas that help in the reform and maybe even write some. And in this way we slowly help inshaAllah. Its not going to be fast but at least we are doing something, and we are doing in it in a good way. A wise way inshaAllah. Not attacking but helping and advising.