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Introduction
(to Islam):
by Maulana
Muhammad Ali Sahib
Islam, not
Muhammadanism:
The first point to be noted in
a discussion on the religion1
of Islam is that the name of the system is not
Muhammadanism, as is generally supposed in the west, but
Islam. Muhammad was the name of the Holy Prophet through
whom this religion was revealed, and European writers call
it Muhammadanism after him, on the analogy of such names as
Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and the like, but the
name Muhammadanism was absolutely unknown to the followers
of Islam. It is neither to be found in the Qur’an nor
in the Sayings of the Prophet. The name of the system as
stated in the Qur’an is Islam,2
and he who follows it is called a Muslim.3
So far from the system being named after its founder,
Prophet Muhammad is himself called a
Muslim.4
In fact, every prophet of God is spoken of in the
Qur’an as being a Muslim5
thus showing that Islam is the true religion for the whole
of humanity, the various prophets being the preachers of
that religion among different nations in different times,
and Prophet Muhammad its last and most perfect
exponent.
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1
The
Arabic word for religion is din or
milla, the root-meaning of the former being
obedience and requital, and that of
the latter to dictate. Milla has special
reference to the prophet through whom the religion
is revealed, and din to the individual who
follows it (R). Another word for religion is
niadhhab which is not used in the
Qur’an. It is derived from the root dhahaba
meaning he went, and madhhab
signifies a way that one pursues in respect
of doctrines and practices in religion, or
an opinion respecting religion (L. L.).
According to some authorities, the distinction
between the three words is thus expressed: din
in relation to God Who reveals it, milla
in relation to the Prophet through whom it is
revealed and madhhab in relation to the
mujtahid who expounds it. The word
madhhab as used in Urdu or Persian carries,
however, the wider significance of
religion.
2
"This
day have I perfected for you your religion and
completed My favour on you, and chosen for you
Islam as a religion" (5 : 3). "Surely the true
religion with Allah is Islam" (3 :
18).
3
"He
named you Muslims before and in this" (22 : 78),
where before refers to the Prophecies, and
this to the Holy Qur’an.
4
"And
I am the first of the Muslims" (6 :
164).
5
"And
the same did Abraham enjoin on his sons and so did
Jacob: O my sons, Allah has chosen the religion for
you, so die not unless you are Muslims" (2 : 132);
"We revealed the Torah, in which was guidance and
light; with it the prophets who submitted
themselves (aslamu) judged matters for those
who were Jews" (5 : 44).
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Significance
of the Name Islam:
Among the great religions of
the world, Islam enjoys the distinction of bearing a
significant name, a name that points to its very essence.
The root-meaning of the word Islam is to enter
into peace,6
and a Muslim is one who makes his peace with God and
man. Peace with God implies complete submission to His
will, and peace with man is not only to refrain from evil or
injury to another but also to do good to him; and both these
ideas find expression in the Qur'an as the true essence of
the religion of Islam: "Nay: whoever submits (aslama)
himself entirely to Allah and he is the doer of good to
others, he has his reward from his Lord, and there is no
fear for such, nor shall they grieve" (2 : 112). Islam is
thus, in its very inception, the religion of peace,
and its two basic doctrines, the Unity of God and the
unity or brotherhood of the human race, afford positive
proof of its being true to its name. Not only is Islam
stated to be the true religion of all the prophets of God,
as pointed out above, but even the involuntary though
complete submission to Divine laws, which is witnessed in
nature, is indicated by the same word aslama. This
wider significance is also retained in the strictly legal
usage of the word, for, in law, Islam has a two-fold
significance: a simple profession of faith - a declaration
that "there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His
Messenger" (Kalimah) and a complete submission to the
Divine will which is only attainable through spiritual
perfection.7
Thus, he who simply accepts the religion of Islam, the mere
novice, is a Muslim, as well as he who completely submits
himself to the Divine will and practises all the Divine
commandments.
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6
Islam
means entering into salm, and silm
and salm both signify peace (R.). Both these
words are used in the sense of peace in the
Qur'an.
7
"Islam
in law is of two kinds; one is a simple confession
with the tongue ... whether accompanied with belief
(iman or real change) in the heart or
not... The other is about belief (iman), and
it means that along with confession, there is
belief (iman) or real change in the
heart and a fulfilment in practice, and resignation
to God in whatever He brings to pass or decrees"
(R.).
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Place of
Islam among the Religions of the World:
Islam is the last of the great
religions - those mighty movements which have revolutionised
the world and changed the destinies of nations. But it is
not only the last, it is an all-inclusive religion which
contains within itself all religions which came before it.
One of its most striking characteristics is that it requires
its followers to believe that all the great religions of the
world that preceded it have been revealed by God: "And who
believe in that which has been revealed to thee and that
which was revealed before thee" (2 : 4).
"Say: We believe in Allah and
(in) that which has been revealed to us, and (in) that
which was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and
Jacob and the tribes, and (in) that which was given to
Moses and Jesus, and (in) that which was given to the
prophets from their Lord; we do not make any distinction
between any of them" (2 : 136).
"The Messenger believes in what has
been revealed to him from his Lord, and so do the
believers; they all believe in Allah and His angels and
His books and His messengers. We make no distinction
between any of His messengers" (2 : 285).
Thus a Muslim believes not only in the
Prophet Muhammad but in all other prophets as well. And
prophets were, according to the teachings of the Qur'an,
sent to all the nations: "And there is not a people but a
warner has gone among them" (35 : 24). A Jew believes only
in the prophets of Israel; a Christian believes in Jesus
Christ and, in a lesser degree, in the prophets of Israel; a
Buddhist in Buddha; a Zoroastrian in Zoroaster; a Hindu in
the prophets who appeared in India; a Confucian in
Confucius; but a Muslim believes in all these and in
Muhammad also, the last of the prophets. Islam is,
therefore, an all-comprehensive religion within which are
included all the religions of the world; and similarly, its
sacred Book, the Holy Qur’an, is spoken of as a
combination of all the sacred scriptures of the world: "Pure
pages, wherein are all right books" (98 : 2, 3).
There is yet one more characteristic
of Islam which gives it a special place among religions. In
addition to being the last and an all-inclusive religion, it
is the perfect expression of the Divine will. Thus the
Qur’an says: "This day have I perfected for you your
religion and completed My favour to you, and chosen for you
Islam as a religion" (5 : 3). Like every other form of
consciousness, the religious consciousness of man has
developed slowly and gradually down the ages, and the
revelation of the great Truth from on High was thus brought
to perfection in Islam. It is to this great truth that the
words of Jesus Christ allude: "I have yet many things to say
unto you but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the
spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you unto all truth"
(Jn. 16 : 12, 13). Thus it is the great mission of Islam to
bring about peace in the world by establishing a brotherhood
of all the religions, to bring together all the
religious truths contained in previous religions, to
correct their errors and sift the true from the false, to
preach the eternal verities which had not been preached
before on account of the special circumstances of any race
or society in the early stages of its development and, last
of all, to meet all the moral and spiritual requirements of
an ever-advancing humanity.
New Meaning
Introduced into Religion:
With the advent of IsIam, the
concept of religion received a new significance. Firstly, it
is to be treated not as a dogma, which a man must accept if
he must escape everlasting damnation, but as a science based
on the universal experience of humanity. It is not a
particular nation that becomes the favourite of God and the
recipient of Divine revelation; on the contrary, revelation
is recognized as a necessary factor in the evolution of man;
hence, while in its crudest form it is the universal
experience of humanity, in its highest, that of prophetical
revelation, it has been a Divine gift bestowed upon all
nations of the world. And the idea of the scientific in
religion has been further strengthened by presenting its
doctrines as principles of human conduct and action. There
is not a single religious doctrine which is not made the
basis of action for the development of man to higher and yet
higher stages of life. Secondly, the sphere of religion is
not confined to the next world; its primary concern is
rather with this life, that man, through a righteous life
here on earth, may attain to the consciousness of a higher
existence. And so it is that the Qur’an deals with a
vast variety of subjects which affect man's life in this
world. It deals not only with the ways of devotion, the
forms of worship, and the means which make man attain
communion with God, but also, and in richer detail, with the
problems of the world around us, with questions pertaining
to relations between man and man, his social and political
life, institutions of marriage, divorce and inheritance,
division of wealth and relations of labour and capital,
administration of justice, military organisation, peace and
war, national finances, debts and contracts, rules for the
service of humanity and even treatment of animals, laws for
the help of the poor, the orphan and the widow, and hundreds
of other questions the proper understanding of which enables
man to lead a happy life. It lays down rules not only for
individual progress but also for the advancement of society
as a whole, of the nation and even of humanity. It throws
light on problems regarding relations not only between
individuals but also among different tribes and nations into
which humanity is divided. It prepares man for another life,
it is true, but only through making him capable of holding
his own in the present one.
Religion is
a Force in the Moral Development of Man:
The question which perturbs
every mind today is whether religion is, when all is said
and done, necessary to humanity. Now a cursory glance at the
history of human civilisation will show that religion has
been the supreme force in the development of mankind to its
present condition. That all that is good and noble in man
has been inspired by faith in God is a truth at which
perhaps even an atheist would not cavil. One Abraham, one
Moses, one Krishna, one Buddha, one Christ, one Muhammad
has, each in his turn and his degree, changed the whole
history of the human race and raised it from the depths of
degradation to moral heights undreamed of. It is through the
teachings of this or that prophet that man has been able to
conquer his lower nature and to set before himself the
noblest ideals of selflessness and the service of humanity.
A study of the noble sentiments that inspire man today will
show their origin in the teachings and examples of some
great sage who had deep faith in God and through whom was
sown the seed of faith in other human hearts. The moral and
ethical development of man to his present state, if due to
any one cause, is due to religion. Humanity has yet to find
out whether the lofty emotions which inspire man
today will survive after a generation or two of Godlessness,
and what sentiments materialism will bring in its train. To
all appearance, the reign of materialism must need entail
the rule of selfishness for a cut and dried scheme for the
equal division of wealth will not inspire the noble
sentiments which are today the pride of man and which
centuries of religion have instilled into his very being. If
the sanction of religion were withdrawn today, the ignorant
masses - and the masses will always remain ignorant though
they may be able to read and write - will sink back,
gradually of course, into a state of savagery, while even
those who reckon themselves above the common level will no
longer feel the inspiration to noble and high ideals which
only faith in God can give.
Islam as
the Basis of a Lasting Civilisation:
As a matter of fact, human
civilisation, as we have it today, is whether it likes the
idea or not, based on religion. Religion has made possible a
state of civilisation which has again and again saved human
society from disruption. If its history is traced back
anywhere, it will be seen that whenever it has begun to
totter, a new religious impulse has always been at hand to
save it from complete extinction. Not only that
civilisation, with any pretence to endurance, can rest
solely on a moral basis, and that true and lofty morals are
inspired only by faith in God, but even the unity and
cohesion of jarring human elements, without which it is
impossible for any civilisation to survive, is best brought
about by the unifying force of religion. It is often said
that religion is responsible for much of the hatred and
bloodshed in the world, but a glance at the history of
religion will show that this is a monstrous misconception.
Love, concord, sympathy, kindness to one's fellow-man, have
been the message of every religion, and every nation has
learnt these essential lessons in their true purity only
through the spirit of selflessness and service which a faith
in God has inspired. If there have been selfishness and
hatred and bloodshed, those have been there in spite of
religion, not as a consequence of the message of love which
religion has brought. They have been there because human
nature is too prone to these things; and their presence only
shows that a still greater religious awakening is required,
that a truer faith in God is yet the crying need of
humanity. That man sometimes turns to low and unworthy
things does not show that the nobler sentiments are
worthless, but only that their development has become a more
urgent necessity.
Islam as
the Greatest Unifying Force in the World:
If unification be the true
basis of human civilisation, by which phrase is meant the
civilisation not of one nation or of one country but of
humanity as a whole, then Islam is undoubtedly the greatest
civilising force the world has ever known or is likely to
know. Fourteen hundred years ago it was Islam that saved it
from crashing into an abyss of savagery, that came to the
help of a civilisation whose very foundations had collapsed,
and that set about laying a new foundation of rearing
an entirely new edifice of culture and ethics. A new idea of
the unity of human race as a whole, not of the unity of this
or that nation, was introduced into the world - an idea so
mighty that it welded together nations which had warred with
one another since the world began. It was not only in
Arabia, among the ever-bickering tribes of a single
peninsula, that this great "miracle", as an English writer
terms it, was wrought8
- a miracle before the magnitude of which everything
dwindles into insignificance. It not only cemented together
the warring tribes of one country but also established a
brotherhood of all nations of the world, even uniting those
which had nothing in common except their common humanity. It
obliterated differences of colour, race, language,
geographical boundaries and even of culture. It united man
with man as such, and the hearts of those in the far east
began to beat in unison with those in the farthest west.
Indeed, it proved to be not only the greatest but the only
force unifying man, because, whereas other religions
had succeeded merely in unifying the different elements of a
single race, Islam actually achieved the unification of many
races and harmonised the jarring and discordant elements of
humanity. How great a force it was in bringing back his lost
civilisation to man, is attested by a European
writer9:
"In the fifth and sixth
centuries, the civilised world stood on the verge of
chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made
civilisation possible, since they had given to men a
sense of unity and of reverence for their rulers, had
broken down, and nothing had been found adequate to take
their place...
"It seemed then that the great
civilisation which it had taken four thousand years to
construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that
mankind was likely to return to that condition of
barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next
and law and order were unknown... The old tribal
sanctions had lost their power... The new sanctions
created by Christianity were working division and
destruction instead of unity and order... Civilisation
like a gigantic tree whose foliage had over-reached the
world ... stood tottering ... rotted to the core... Was
there any emotional culture that could be brought in to
gather mankind once more into unity and to save
civilisation?"
And speaking of Arabia, the learned
author adds that "it was among these people that the man was
born who was to unite the whole known world of the east and
south".10
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8
"A more disunited people it would be hard to find
till suddenly the miracle took place. A man arose
who, by his personality and by his claim to direct
Divine guidance, actually brought about the
impossible - namely the union of all those warring
factions" (The Ins and Outs of Mesopotamia,
p.99).
9
J.H. Denison, Emotion as the Basis of
Civilisation, pp. 265-268.
10
J.H.
Denison, Emotion as the Basis of Civilisation,
p. 296.
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Islam as
the Greatest Spiritual Force of the World:
Thus Islam laid the basis of a
unification of humanity of which no other reformer or
religion has ever dreamed of; a brotherhood of man which
knows no bounds of colour, race, country, language or even
of rank; of a unity of the human race beyond which human
conception cannot go. It recognizes the equality not only of
the civil and political rights of men but also of their
spiritual rights. "All men are a single nation" (2 : 213) is
the fundamental doctrine of Islam, and for that reason every
nation is recognized as having received the spiritual gift
of revelation. But the establishment of a vast brotherhood
of all men is not the only achievement of Islam. Equally
great is the unparalleled transformation which it has
brought about in the world; for it has proved itself to be a
spiritual force the equal of which the human race has never
known. Its miraculous transformation of world conditions was
brought about in an incredibly short time. It swept away the
vile superstitions, the crass ignorance, the rank
immorality, the old evil habits of centuries, in about two
decades. That its spiritual conquests are without parallel
in history is an undeniable fact, and it is because of the
unparalleled spiritual transformation effected by him that
Prophet Muhammad is admitted to be the "most successful of
all prophets and religious personalities" (En. Br., art.
Koran).
Islam
Offers a Solution of the Great World-problems:
Islam has a claim upon the
attention of every thinker, not only because it is the most
civilising and the greatest spiritual force of the world but
also because it offers a solution of the most baffling
problems which confront mankind today. Materialism, which
has become humanity's ideal in modern times, can never bring
about peace and mutual trust among the nations of the world.
Christianity has failed to do away with race and colour
prejudices. Islam is the only force which has already
succeeded in blotting out these distinctions and it is
through Islam only that this great problem of the modern
world can be solved. Islam is, first and foremost, an
international religion, and it is only before its grand
international ideal - the ideal of the equality of all races
and of the unity of the human race - that the curse of
nationalism, which has been and is responsible for the
troubles of the ancient and the modern worlds, can be swept
away. But even within the boundaries of a nation or a
country there can be no peace as long as a just solution of
the two great problems of wealth and sex cannot be found.
Europe has gone to two extremes on the wealth question -
capitalism and Bolshevism. There is either the tendency to
concentrate wealth among the great capitalists, or by
community of wealth, to bring the indolent and the
industrious to one level. Islam offers the true solution by
ensuring to the worker the reward of his work, great or
small, in accordance with the
merit of the work, and also by allotting to the poor a share
in the wealth of the rich. Thus, while the rights of
property are maintained in their true sense, an arrangement
is made for equalising conditions by taking a part of the
wealth of the rich and distributing it among the poor
according to the principle of zakat (or poor-rate,
an obligatory charity) and also by a more or less equal
division of property among heirs on the death of an owner.
Thus, writing towards the close of his book, a European
orientalist remarks:
"Within the Western world
Islam still maintains the balance between exaggerated
opposites. Opposed equally to the anarchy of European
nationalism and the regimentation of Russian communism,
it has not yet succumbed to that obsession with the
economic side of life which is characteristic of
present-day Europe and present-day Russia alike. Its
social ethic has been admirably summed up by Professor
Massignon: 'Islam has the merit of standing for a very
equalitarian conception of the contribution of each
citizen by the tithe to the resources of the community;
it is hostile to unrestricted exchange, to banking
capital, to state loans, to indirect taxes on objects of
prime necessity, but it holds to the rights of the father
and the husband, to private property, and to commercial
capital. Here again it occupies intermediate position
between the doctrines of bourgeois capitalism and
Bolshevist communism."11
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11
H.A.R. Gibb, Whither Islam, pp.
378-379.
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Similarly Islam's solution of the sex
question is the only one that can ensure ultimate peace to
the family. There is neither the free-love which would
loosen all ties of social relations, nor the indissoluble
binding of man and woman which turns many a home into a
veritable hell. And, by solving these and a hundred other
problems, Islam - as its very name indicates - can bring
true happiness to the human race.
Misconceptions
Underlying Anti-religious Movement:
The anti-religious movement
which has taken root in Russia is based on a misconception
as to the nature of Islam. The three chief objections to
religion are:
- That religion helps in the
maintenance of the present social system, which has borne
the fruit of capitalism with the consequent crushing of
the aspirations of the poor.
- That it keeps the people subject
to superstition and thus hinders the advance of
sciences.
- That it teaches them to pray for
their needs instead of working for them and thus it makes
them indolent.12
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12
As
summed up in Emotion as the Basis of
Civilizations, p. 506.
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So far as Islam is concerned, the
facts are entirely contrary to these allegations. It
came as the friend of the poor and the destitute, and as a
matter of fact it has accomplished an upliftment of the poor
to which history affords no parallel. It raised men from the
lowest rung of the social ladder to the highest positions of
life, it made of slaves not only leaders in thought and
intellect but actual kings. Its social system is one of an
equality which is quite unthinkable in any other nation or
society. It lays down as one of the fundamental principles
of religion that the poor have a right in the wealth of the
rich, a right exercised through the state which
collects annually a fortieth of the wealth amassed by
the rich, to be distributed among the poor.
The second allegation that religion
discourages the advancement of science and learning is
equally devoid of truth. Islam gave an impetus to
learning in a country which had never been a seat of
learning and was sunk in the depths of superstition. Even as
far back as the caliphate of 'Umar (634-644 A.D.), the
Islamic state undertook the education of the masses, while
the Muslims carried the torch of learning to every country
where they gained political ascendancy; schools, colleges
and universities sprang up everywhere as a result of the
Muslim conquest. It is no exaggeration to say that it was
through Islam that the Renaissance came about in
Europe.
The third allegation that religion
makes people idle by teaching them to pray is also belied by
the history of Islam. Not only does the Qur’an
teach men to work hard for success in life, and lays down,
in plain words, that "man can have nothing but what he
strives for" (53 : 39), but it actually made the Arabs - the
then most backward nation in the world - a nation of great
leaders in all phases of life. And this great revolution was
brought about only by awakening in them a desire for work
and a zest for hard striving. Islam does teach man to pray,
but prayer, instead of making him idle, is intended to fit
him for a still harder struggle, and to carry on that
struggle in the face of failure and disappointment, by
turning to God who is the Source of all strength. Thus
prayer in Islam is only an incentive for work, and not a
hindrance.
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