Islam’s Weakest Point
Imam, The Woking Mosque, England.
THE one criticism against Islam which a Muslim Missionary finds it difficult to meet is the stamp of universal stupor that one finds imprinted on the Muslim mind. From Morocco to Indonesia a uniform pattern of intellectual inertia seems to have marked the world of Islam for its own. Whereas the Western nations have been marching from progress to progress, making newer and newer discoveries, inventions, conquests, the Muslims as a people have been in the grip of stagnation, intellectual barrenness, lack of a spirit of inquiry and adventure, hugging their ignorance, want and disease as the “Will of God”.
This is by no means an overdrawn picture. True, there were times, when Islam produced great thinkers, scholars, and explorers – men who faced nature and life with a spirit of conquerors and investigators. But that brilliant interlude was followed by a general decadence which has been weighing on the Muslim mind for quite a few centuries past. True, also of late there have been new stirrings in this dead intellectual sea, with ripples of new urges for change, self-analysis, and awareness to the demands of the new age. But this too, in the last analysis, is considered to be traceable to the growing impact with the West and the dynamic life-currents which that impact brings with it. The so-called ”orthodox” sections in all Muslim countries are opposed to this spirit of change as an innovation, and Westernization – something which they feel poses positive threat to Islamic values.
If a tree is known by the fruit it bears, it is argued, Islam has a very poor case to commend it to the Western mind. Obviously, this is a very superficial view of things, and sober-minded people who want to judge religious truths on their own merits find the charm of Islamic teachings irresistible. That explains why, despite this big handicap, Western thinkers, to counter the dangerous drift of their own civilization, are looking up to Islam to inject new lifeblood into its veins.
Nevertheless, Muslims owe it to themselves as well as to their great Faith to look this grim paradox in the face – Islam as a religion, a thing of most ravishing beauty, but the social pattern that goes by that name most un-progressive, unconstructive – inferior even in qualities of moral integrity and cleanliness which were once the hallmark of Islam.
Two factors may be mentioned an as specially militating against a revival of true life-urges which is the sum and substance of Islam.
First, a sense of self-complacency – not only thinking that all is well with us but the illusion that we are the best people in the world. Nothing could be more dangerous for a people than to fall a victim to that self-deception. The whole trend of Quranic teachings is a condemnation of that frame of mind. The “chosen people” idea of Judaism has been repeatedly denounced as absolutely false. The false sense of superiority which people come to develop is the greatest hindrance to progress. Islam, among other things, is a message of change – never-ending change. Life is a constant struggle, and the secret of efficient living lies in mental, alertness to readjust in the ever-changing calls and demands of life. God does not change a people’s condition unless the people learn to change their mental attitudes is an emphatic Quranic warning. Muslims, during the past few centuries, flouted this law of life, and find themselves left in the lurch by the onward flow of life. The Prophetﷺ, with all his deep insight into the mysteries of life, was always alive to the fact that the secrets of life were unbounded ocean, and he always prayed for more and more light.
The second great factor working against progress is the Muslim’s past-mindedness. He always in doing so, gloats over Islam’s great past, and thinks he is doing something very religious. Nothing could be a greater travesty of a religion which time and again warned against ancestor worship. They were a generation which is no more says the Quran. They got the recompense of what they did, you will get the recompense of what you do. The emphasis always is on personal responsibility. But somehow or other, the Muslim, has come to revel in the reflected their glory of early Muslims. This is a direct negation of the teachings of Islam. This kind of “religiosity” singing, praises of the past, is no more than storytelling, setting the course of life on quite a wrong track, which, according to the Quran, must concern itself with the living present.
Paradoxically, much damage is done to Islam in the name of Islam. Day in and day out, Muslims indulge in tall talk about how good and noble and great Muslims once upon a time were and think they have done a very meritorious religious act. According to the Qur’an it is a waste of breath, and the only measure of religious life is the measure of solid, good, noble, wholesome, constructive, progressive activity in daily life here and now.
M. Y. Khan
(The Light – January 16, 1960)
