Muslims urged to seek knowledge, eradicate poverty

From the pulpit came an admonition for Muslim scholars to deepen their knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah, in other to guide the followers aright and establish a righteous and wealthy community.

As part of its efforts to further equip the scholars, Lekki Muslim Umah (LEMU) recently organized a conference for Muslim Imams, ‘themed: “Imam as a custodian of the Quran”.

Speaking at the conference, the Chief Imam, Lekki Central Mosque, Shaykh Ridwan Jamiu, said seeking knowledge is one of the sure ways of eradicating poverty.

“One of the reasons why we have wide spread of poverty among us is because of mediocrity and ignorance. Ignorance in the sense that many people are not employable because of their level of education and mediocrity in the sense that most of us are backward in what we do.

We have to see excellence in everything we do. The prophet (S.A.W) use to say Allah love to see something in you and that is excellence in everything we do,” he said.

According to him, what Lekki Muslim Ummah is doing to help to promote knowledge among Muslims is the usage of Zakat.

“People bring their Zakat here and we also encourage people to pay their Zakat. And we encourage most especially the scholars to apply for Zakat, to further their Islamic education.

After interview those that are successful will be given Zakat proceeds to further their education. This year we have disbursed more than N13 million to beneficiaries, he said.

Jamiu berate the incessant killings in some part of the country saying that it a very big crime in Islam and Nigerians should know that whatever happens to one happens to all.

“We have to be our brother’s keeper, we should not narrow it to ethnicity or religion. We need to see ourselves as one in the same nation.

Patriotism requires us to be sympathetic to the entire victim and when we want to defend the right of anyone we should not base it on credibility, ethnicity or religion, it has to base on the fact that this people being killed are human being and if we allow it to continue like this it can happen to everyone.

He urged the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) not to put resentment on the protest going on. Their protest should not be base on the fact that those who are killed belong to a particular sect or religion.

“We have to help the government in curbing this menace, protest should be base on calling the attention of the government to the security situation of the country, that should have the interest of every Nigeria.

He urged the government to do more in curbing this carnage.

“Protest may not help the matter but if they want to protest, they have to do it in a polite way to sensitise the government and create awareness on security conscious”.

He urged religious leaders, to educate members on consequence of killing. “Because it is only in the Quran you can find a serious verse where Allah says ‘anyone who kill an innocent life, is as if he has killed the whole of mankind.

‘The Imams should help the government by educating the members further that in Islam killing is prohibited and also extra judicial killing is frown upon.

we must not put law into our hands, saying that because some people have kill members of our community we want to retaliate.

The best is to report the case to appropriate security authorities.

Jamiu advised Muslims to conduct themselves in peaceful manner and should never be incited to violence by the practice of other people who are protesting.

“ If Muslims want to protest it has to be in support and solidarity of the government. Just to encourage the government to lay more emphasis on security and also to sensitize the public. We should be more mature in our approach to whatever happens in the society.

Killing cannot solve any problem; it can only compound our problem making our society difficult for everyone to live”.

He urged Muslim leaders and Christian leaders to conduct themselves in polite and democratic manner. They should not incite violence or protest as if they are trying to indent a particular ethnicity or religion community.