Aqamat-e-Deen

Islam assigns two types of duties to people; firstly on individual level and secondly on collective level.In fact Every duty assigned in islam has two phases (individual and collective). For instance,zakat (taking wealth from the rich and giving t...o the poor) as an individual duty is fulfilled, when individual pays it; but when it comes to collective level, only payment of zakat by individual is not suffice; at collective level, there has to be a system of zakat to take wealth from the rich and give away to the poor. An individual's duty to pay zakat is one phase of the duty; the other phase of this duty is to have or to strive for the establishment of system of zakat at the collective or state level. A person can't defray his duty of zakat completely, without establishment of zakat system; he has to go through both individual and collective phases of his duty, in order to defray his duty completely.

Similarly, all duties assigned in islam have two phases (i'.e. individual and collective) e.g. duties aiming at personal purification and collective purgation , relating to all moral, social, political and economic spheres. Fulfillment of these two phases of every assigned duty, is called Aqamat-e-Deen. Islam has not left adoption(at individual level) and establishment (at collective level) of Deen to human instincts; if God had left it to human instincts, there would be no need to sending revelation and the messenger(SAW).

There is no denying fact that collective life of people is always regulated by establishing institutions, and it is not a work of accident to establish a system; it always requires some planning, effort and devotion of capable selected/ chosen people of society to establish these institutions. Muslims can't go through collective phase of their duties without establishing islamic institutions .

Aqamat-e-deen, at the individual level, is the matter of "adoption of deen", but at the collective level, it is the matter of "establishment of Deen". Aqamat-e-deen is just like adoption and establishment of any other system. For instance, if we want people to adopt a democratic system, we first establish institutions of democratic political system , and then ask people to act accordingly; similarly if we want people to adopt capitalist system, we first establish institutions of capitalist system and then ask people to act accordingly. It is strange to preach adoption of Deen without establishing islamic systems at collective level. No islamic duty may be defrayed completely without fulfilling collective part of that duty. In other words,adoption of Deen at individual level is not enough until Deen is established at the collective level.

The viewpoint that we should first reform individual characters of Muslims and then establish our Deen/ islamic systems, is also not tenable due to very simple fact that we would require 18 crore years to mould 18 crore Pakistanis; you would appreciate that such a viewpoint would lead us to forget about establishment of our Deen. On the other hand, establishing Deen first would make the task much easier, because due to force of system/Deen, the people , not willing to mould themselves, would also be compelled to go along the system. So our focus should not be conversion of whole masses, rather our focus should be selected, skillful, capable, devoted people (NOT narrow-minded like some Talibans) which could install Islamic political, social, moral and economic systems first and then ask common people to abide by those systems/Deen to embrace obedience to Allah in their collective life. Look at the life of holy Messenger (SAW); in 13 years of 'Makki' period, only a few hundred people got converted, because there was no establishment of institutions in Makka. But in 11 years of "Madni" life, lacs of people were converted, because institutions were established in Madina. Make your task easier, achieveable and practicable by establishing islamic institutions first and then asking people to abide by such institutions.