A hadith reports that the Prophet of Islam e said: “Do not be hard upon yourselves, lest the matter be made severe upon you. Verily, if people are hard upon themselves, God will be hard upon them. Their remnants are in the monasteries and abbeys.” (Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith No. 4904) That is, do not make religion unnecessarily hard for yourselves, or hardship will be imposed on you. When a community makes things hard for itself, by the law of nature, everything becomes hard for it.
In this hadith, harshness does not refer only to religious extremism or excessive monasticism in a limited sense. Rather, it applies to all matters of human life. Any matter in which the path of balance is abandoned, and the path of excess is adopted falls under the warning of this hadith.
Religious extremism means declaring others disbelievers or sinners over minor differences. Ritual extremism means building separate mosques on the basis of secondary jurisprudential differences and taking this division to the level of disunity within the community. Practical extremism means treating concessions as inferior and turning every matter into a question of strict obligation.
An extremist lives only within himself. He recognizes only his own impulses. As a result, his condition becomes like that of a person who assumes the road is empty and drives his vehicle recklessly. Such a person can never reach the destination. In this world, the secret of success lies in moderation, not extremism. Extremism is, in reality, an attempt to live against God’s creative plan, while moderation is to build one’s life in harmony with God’s creative plan. Extremism, in relation to oneself, is contrary to humility, as it makes a person intentionally arrogant; and in relation to others, it is contrary to kindness and respect for human dignity. Both of these are undoubtedly not desired in Islam.
Extremism is not favoured by God. Those who adopt an extremist approach eventually turn that rigid method into part of their tradition and make it a component of their religion. As a result, later generations feel compelled to follow it because abandoning it makes them feel they are practicing a lower standard of religiosity.
This extremism is not limited to monasticism; rather, it applies to every religious sphere. For example, there are two possible methods for struggling for national or political rights: peaceful struggle and violent struggle. The correct method is to pursue one’s goals through peaceful, non-extreme means. If, instead, an extreme, violent approach is adopted, it leads to two harms at the same time. First, the community has to endure unnecessary suffering. Second, once an extremist method becomes established as a tradition, it begins to be seen as the highest standard of struggle. Even when it proves ineffective, people continue with it because abandoning it makes them feel they have given up the religiously required standard. They feel they have chosen concession over resolve and retreat over action.
One form of this extremism is what is called extremism itself. Extremism means planning one’s actions while ignoring realities and possibilities. It means allowing emotions to guide one’s path instead of reason, choosing haste over foresight, and preferring sudden leaps over gradual progress.
Such a person puts enthusiasm ahead of foresight and leaves wisdom behind. He forgets that everything has its limits, whether an individual or a group. Ignoring limits is like someone testing the heat of burning embers by holding them in his hand, or trying to break a stone by using his head as a hammer. Every such act is a crossing of limits, and those who cross limits can never succeed in this world. (Al-Risala, February 2003)
