Almost the whole of the 20
th
century was a period of feverish
activity set in motion by this political interpretation of Islam.
It was precisely at this moment that the discoveries of science,
in the words of the Quran, had made major revelations of the
divine signs lying hidden in the universe. The need of the hour
was to give the call of truth at a very high level, supported by
the discoveries of science. But at that very time, our leaders,
under this tragic misapprehension, became embroiled in political
activities. As a result, the call of truth could not be given, in
spite of all the opportunities to do so having presented
themselves at a very high level.
The political extremism of Muslim leaders can be gauged by
this example: Syed Jamaluddin Afghani (d. 1897), the leader of
the radical political activities of his group in Paris, was asked in
1884 by his disciple, Mufti Mohd. Abduh(d. 1905), why they
should not leave this futile task (politics) and engage themselves
in peaceful
dawah
work and in the field of education, where there
would be many opportunities for such work. Jamaluddin Afghani
replied: “You talk of disheartenment.” (
Jamaluddin Afghani
, by
Mahmood Abu Riyya, Cairo, 1966, p. 50).
This was indeed a grave tragedy resulting from the political
interpretation of Islam. There were two negative results of this
interpretation: failure to utilize modern
dawah
opportunities
and the generation of the culture of hatred and violence in the
name of political revolution. The negative result of this political
interpretation of religion was that the task of calling people to
God was totally stopped.
With very few exceptions, people then became engaged in
bringing about “Complete Islamic Political Rule” on the basis
of their self-styled interpretation of Islam. This, however, was
just not possible according to the law of nature. In this way,
trying to achieve something impossible yielded a negative result
and that which was fully possible, i.e. peaceful
dawah
work, could
not be achieved either.
34
The alarm of Doomsday
