We village based SURTI SUNNI VOHRAS as well as other Muslim brothers and sisters have many needs. Our foremost need is to know about our religion and practice what our religion expects of us. We also have a need to earn an income through HALAL means to support ourselves, our relatives, help our less well-off brothers and sisters and support our masajid, madaris and dar-ul-ulooms. We also have a need to remain close to our families, our relatives and all other Muslims. We also have a need to remain in close contact with those who are not Muslims through our work, our business or farming activities as well as our neighbours, fellow residents of our villages, towns and of our country. 
There is nothing out-dated or old fashioned about our religion and the practices expected of us. If we say our religious practices are no longer to be adhered to or only partially adhered to then we need to admit that we have or we are trying to distance ourselves from our religion, distance ourselves from our CREATOR and from our fellow Muslims. Our religion spells out for us in detail how to live our lives as Muslims throughout our lives. Things around us will change as these have changed over the years but our religious beliefs are not to change, and the expectations of our religion are not to change.  
Our religion as we know is not only about having IMAAN, offering our Namaaz, fasting during the month of Ramzaan, giving Zakaat and performing Hajj, if we have the means. Our religion is about everything we are expected to do, and it is about everything we are to avoid throughout our lives. Unfortunately, we many a times fail to follow and do what our religion expects of us but become victims of those practices we are repeatedly told to avoid.
We feel as Muslims living in this century we need to learn about our weaknesses, accept our weaknesses and try our best to move towards what our religion expects from us by using the intellect given to us by the ALMIGHTY ALLAH and the guidance given to us by the HOLY QUR'AN and the AHADITH. Our religion, we all need to admit expects of us to learn about our religion. Learning about our religion should not be confined to learning to read the HOLY QUR'AN only. Whilst learning to read the HOLY QUR'AN is good and necessary, we should also learn to pay attention to what the HOLY QUR'AN says about fulfilling the needs of our surroundings and the needs and expectations of people in our surroundings.
Our religion does not expect us to remain ignorant of the people we live with and liaise with and the surroundings we live in. The ALMIGHTY ALLAH has given us the capacity to learn and use our learning to live as practising Muslims and as respectable human beings. What we are not good at is in investing our time and making the effort to learn and use the learning we gain to live as Muslims. Our lack of interest in learning and improving our understanding of our surroundings and the issues we come to face are many and our readers will be aware of most of these. Unfortunately, most of us are not good listeners and most of us are not good at learning. Most of us seem to think that what we know is good enough and many a times more than enough. Such persons do not think it necessary to learn, add on to what they know and bring improvements to their understanding. Learning, we feel has no end to it. No one can say 'I know everything' as there is no end to learning and no one can put a stop to it. Learning is to be and must be part of our life from the 'cradle to the grave'.
Like us you too must have come across the weaknesses in our peoples' behaviour, understanding and the use of words to describe someone or something. For example, some years ago, we came across a village elder who at that time was quite a well-educated person in his village. As a village elder, he had many opportunities to liaise with middle and low- ranking Government officials. The opportunities he had to learn about the titles of the officers he came in to contact with almost on a day to day basis did not help him. He kept on referring to one of these as ORESEER SAHIB when what he was trying to say was OVERSEER SABIB. Recently we came across quite a few of our men and women who said CANCEL when what they meant was cancer. When there are so many of our people suffering from all sorts of cancer how come our people do not learn to say CANCER? Recently we came across a young man whose son was starting a degree course which would lead him to become an accountant. The father only knew the word ACCOUNT and said his son was doing ACCOUNT. Our people, we feel are also not willing to accept the fact that medicines on their own cannot cure them from their illnesses. With medicines we also need to ask the ALMIGHTY ALLAH for HIS help and besides this for most illnesses to allow the medication to have the desired effect we also need to exclude certain foods or food additives from our diets. For example, doctors tell all diabetics to avoid sugary foods. This advice simply does not seem to reach our people. We have come across our men and women who simply refuse to accept the doctor's advice. For them tea without sugar is undrinkable! We were also told by an Alim in charge of a boys' dar-ul-uloom that he wanted to build a CONVENT to help provide both religious and secular education to his students. This learned person we feel failed to understand the word 'convent' and what it stood for.
Let us not decide for ourselves about the extent of our knowledge, awareness and understanding and conclude that we know everything, and we need not listen to anybody or follow anyone's advice. Let us try to look at ourselves with other people's eyes who have better education and have better understanding than us. Such 'EYES' will be able to see what we do with an objective view and help us correct our behaviours, actions and help us learn and improve our thinking and our actions.
We feel with so many learning facilities in the form of madressas, dar-ul-ulooms, primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities and the media at our disposal how come we SURTI SUNNI VOHRAS are not learning. Our religion does not stop us from acquiring both religious and secular education. How come we are not investing our time and making effort to learn and improve ourselves. We feel we must use the capacities given to us by the ALMIGHTY ALLAH to improve ourselves. If we fail to improve ourselves, we will be failing to use the learning capacities given to us by the ALMIGHT ALLAH and we will be failing to demonstrate to others that we are able to learn and use our learning and present ourselves as MUSLIMS in a fast changing social, economic and political environment.

ISMAIL AHMED LAMBAT [ MANCHESTER ]