Ayo-Adeyemi, Founder and Missioner, Islamic Mission Organisation, in his lecture series, Abundance of Good, said the primary goal of man is to succeed even as inevitable hindrances make this an herculean task, but man must exert extra effort to thrive rather than relying on Allah for miraculous success.
He said: "Every religion preaches a belief in one deity or another, as the principal basis of religion. Worshippers are encouraged to pray to God for their needs and protection. It is also taught that God can do anything, and we must pray to access our needs from him. This precept which has now dominated the preaching's of the two most popular and populous religions in the world, Christianity and Islam, appears to be contrary to the true teachings of their religions.
The truth is that God has the ability and capacity to do anything He wants to do effortlessly, but He has assigned certain responsibilities to man. Man has been endowed with knowledge, ability and the will to exercise that knowledge and assert his ability. His success or failure hinges on the way he utilizes this divine gift.
"It is also true that God possesses limitless power and ability, whereas human power and ability are limited, hence he resorts naturally to prayer, whenever there is an impediment or obstacle. In his time of need man could submit to anything he considered greater than himself, pray to Allah and worship Him.
The holy books tell us that the only God worthy of worship is the one that created the universe, who controls and manages it. We are also taught that God possesses absolute knowledge of everything, that his ability is limitless, that He controls, supervises and manages the universe without aid or assistance from any one. Such a feat is exceedingly marvelous, it means that God must be very knowledgeable, competent, intelligent, hardworking, enterprising, honest, and faithful. But God in his wisdom, divided his assignment into two and allocated a portion to man while he takes the overall care and control of the universe, He assigns the responsibility of taking care of the earth where we sorjourn to us.
Having endowed us with knowledge, ability and will, we are expected to utilize them to make success of our assignment. God creates; we are expected to create our needs from his creations. He nourishes, maintains controls, and regulates. He does all of these with strong will and discipline for success. No less is expected from us if we must succeed. He also graciously sent user-manual in form of scriptures which indicates all do's and don'ts as our guide. In addition, we are encouraged to consult Him regularly through prayer and meditation. So, with all of the above, there should be no room for failure, but we fail. Man fails."
He raised concerns about the growing unemployment in Nigeria and poor leadership skills of the leaders.
Ayo-Adeyemi said: "Man has divided the world into artificial compartments. The Europeans community and Asians countries are described as the First and Second world, while the entire Africa, substantial part of Asia and the Middle East are described as the Third World.
Let us cite the case of Nigeria as a typical example. Nigeria exhibited woeful lack of ability to rule themselves shortly after the departure of the Europeans who enslaved and ruled them for centuries. There is no record that indicated that the white man was first created and groomed for progress and leadership before the advent of the black –skinned man. While the white man was bold and adventurous, the black was timid and lazy. It was through their adventurous attitude that they discovered the black man and having found him timid and lazy, captured and enslaved him with their superior power.
Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, with immense natural and human resources, She also harbors a large population of Muslims. As Muslims, the first injunction of the Quran is on acquisition of knowledge." Read in the name of thy Lord who creates". Who creates man from a clot of blood. Read and thy Lord is most generous, Who taught by the pen, Who taught man what he knew not."Q.96.
In terms of education, we are a failure in terms of skill and ability, we are a failure. In terms of discipline, we are a failure and because we have failed in all the above, we lack the will to move our ship to the harbor of progress.
Most of our leaders, past and present are not worthy to be leaders. Majority of them who studied abroad and at home were very timid, lacking in courage and the right knowledge to emancipate their fellow citizens from the shackle of ignorance.
We lack trained, efficient, electrical, plumbers, fitters, carpenters, bricklayers, repairers of shoes and other numerous gadgets. All these should provide lucrative employment to our youths but they lack the skills, hence they are unemployed.
"Consequently, you find many of our youths engaging in crimes of all sorts, roaming the streets aimlessly while some troop to the latest craze in town called Niger Bet or Lotto," he said.
He therefore enjoined religious leaders to preach fear of God rather than material things.
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