Page 139 - The Vision of Islam

The Vision of Isla m

Muftí Mohd. Abduhu (Egypt) 1849-1 905
Rashid Raza (Egypt) 1865-1933
Shakib Asralaan (Syria-Lebanon) 1869-1946
Dr. Muhammed Iqbal (lndian Subcontinent) 1877-1938
Hasan Al Banna (Egypt) 1906-1 948
The writings and speeches of these thinkers ignited the whole
world of Islam. The beginning of the 20th century saw such great
movements as influenced whole nations and, at certain times,
the whole of the Muslim world. The moving spirits behind these
movements were, for instance, the Caliphate Committee, India
(1914), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (1919), Al-Ikhwanul Muslimin,
Egypt (1928), the Jammat Islami, India and Pakistan (1941) and the
Majlis Shura Muslimi. Indonesia (1948), and so on.
The common target of these movements was the establishment
of an Islamic state. Each of them gained extraordinary popularity,
but not even one of them achieved its goal. The single, decisive
cause of this failure lay in their having chosen politics as their field
of activity. It was not only that it was theoretically divergent from
the straight Islamic path and, as such undeserving of divine succour,
but it was also, rationally, a wrong course to adopt, for it challenged
its opponents in a field in which the latter were in possession of
the latest range of military equipment, while the former had only
traditional and outmoded weapons to fall back on.
From both the theoretical and rational standpoints, first priority
should have been given to Dawah as the chosen field of activity. It
was in this field that they were clearly superior to their opponents.
But, they failed to rise above their immediate circumstances. Such
factors as western colonization on the one hand, and the change
in political thinking throughout the world caused by democratic
and socialist movements on the other, had the effect of converting
Islamic movements into political movements. The reformers of
the time saw fit to bolster up Islam with contemporary stimulants,
(immediate temptations) instead of being content to travel with it
along the straight and eternal path.
A century ago, Syed Jamaluddin Afghani had realised that there
138