The Call of the Quran
5. The call of da‘wah in the modern age
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God means putting an end to atheism.
With the end of idolatry, a new phase was launched
in world history and, for a thousand years, human
thinking went on developing along rational lines to
the point where, in the sixteenth century, the
emergence of the western sciences came to mark the
beginning of yet another new era. In the present
century, science, having made such rapid and
tremendous strides, may be said to have reached its
zenith. It is ironic that when science can now
provide the means to re-affirm religious truths,
atheism should have come to dominate human
thinking and actions. Academically speaking,
religion has become an adjunct of atheism. It has no
independent status of its own.
The German statesman, E.F. Schumacher, sums up
contemporary attitudes to religion in the following
anecdote: “On a visit to Leningrad some years ago
(August 1968) I consulted a map to find out where I
was, but I could not make it out. I could see several
enormous churches, yet there was no trace of them
on my map. When finally an interpreter came to
help me, he said: ‘We don’t show churches on our
