November 12, 2007
Continuity and Change in Islam
Section: WRITINGS | 688 reads
Protestant Reformation: A Partial Islamization of Christianity
If those who, either on their own or for mercenary reasons, call for a Christian-type Islamic Reformation had any true sense of history, they would know that Protestant
Reformation was in reality an attempt at the Islamization of Christianity that had crystallized under the impact and inspiration of Islam.
While Christianity resisted a full and wholehearted embrace of Islam, it could not withstand the pressure to mimic and emulate Islamic teachings at least in part. That is partly how, after the Reformation, the total control of the Pope over the lives of the Christians, as we see it today among Catholics, was replaced with the primacy of the Bible as the putative word of God.
Thus came about the Reformation of the Christian religion under the impetus and in the direction of Islamic teachings.
Another Miracle: Islam Is Dynamic and Resilient
As I said earlier, Islam, paradoxically, both resists and fosters change because, unlike man-made ideologies and philosophies, Islam is perfectly equipped, and very uniquely suited, to meet the challenge of changing human needs and situations everywhere and forever.
In fact, this was, and continues to be, one of the living miracles of Islam. It was, and remains, standing proof that Islam is a gift from God Almighty and not a human brainchild.
For, no human system of any kind can possibly withstand or deal effectively with changing times and circumstances indefinitely, as Islam has been able to do for the past 14 centuries.
It is a contradiction in terms to utter the words permanence and change in the same breath with regard to any single aspect of human life on earth, except Islam, which personifies that very contradiction in every phase and aspect of its teachings and makes it a reality.
Only a divine system can do that. No human system can either accommodate or anticipate all change without fundamentally changing itself and losing its soul and character in the process.
That is what real miracles are made of.
A World Made in the Image of Islam
Let me go a step further and clearly state what many people seem to be either incapable of seeing or saying: Today’s world is in many ways a world made in the image of Islam.
Let me say that again, but somewhat differently. If you live in this world, chances are Islam played a role in your make-up and in what you do, and in the make-up of your parents and grandparents.
That is because as time went by, and as all kinds of man-made rules, doctrines and teachings failed to satisfy rapidly changing and growing human needs, the world began incrementally embracing the teachings, models and methods of Islam.
But it did so without actually acknowledging this fact and without giving any credit to Islam or Muslims.
Islam was perfectly placed to provide this kind of leadership to the world, because Islamic teachings, being totally divine in their origin and nature, contained the natural scope and flexibility to meet the strains and demands of changing times.
This allowed Islam to do what other religious systems – or other human systems of any other kind – were neither equipped nor capable of doing.
As a result, in spite of all the variations and deviations that attacked it along the way, Islam remained basically intact, authentic, uniform, unadultrated and perfectly recognizable and predictable through the ages.
Islam thus provided the world an inevitable and often the only point of reference by which to manage and organize its life on earth
What is more, as time went on, the world gradually changed to fit the teachings, contours and specifications of Islam and not the other way around.
Islam’s Constancy in the Face of Change
Islam, thus, remained constant in its core teachings in the face of all the winds of change that were sweeping the world. And Islam continued to provide direction and impetus to that change wherever and however it could.
Islam of course could do it because of the exhaustive first-hand documentation that was – and is to this day – available to it in the form of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Qur’an, of course, being the book of summary divine teachings directly from God, and Hadith being the record of the detailed implementation of the Qur’an in the life of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and thousands of his noble Companions.
And both of these primary sources of Islam thereafter remained at the disposal of the Muslims – and at the disposal of the world – in the form of the unbroken and continuous day-to-day practice of Islam, on a global scale, by generation after generation of Muslims, since the time of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam to the present day.
Thus, Islam remained a living, vibrant and visible presence for all these 1400 years for the entire world to see and emulate.
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