my faith
...
ISLAM
266
From the very inception of its career on this planet,
Islam had been singled out for such fatal attacks
as no other religion would have been able to withstand.
There have been religions which had once conquered the
then known world but they could not survive under an offen-
sive much less serious than what Islam had to face. Unlike
others, Islam not only overcame all its adversaries but was
also successful in maintaining its original form and purity.
If, on the one hand, deviant sects posed a grave internal
danger for the faith and spirit of Islam, the onslaught of the
Crusaders and the invasion of the Mongols, on the other,
were sufficient to efface it completely. Had there been any
other religion placed in such an unenviable position as
Islam, it would certainly have lost its soul and today we
would have had to look for it in the pages of history. Islam,
however, not only survived in the face of all these internal
and external threats to its very existence, but was also able
to gain victories in entirely new fields.
Islam was continuously called upon to resist the onslaught
of innovations, deviations and misguided interpretations of
the
Qur’an
and the
Sunnah
, foreign traditions, heretical
rites of the worship of saints, relics and tombs, speculative
thought, materialism, epicureanism and godlessness, and,
indeed, it sometimes appeared as if Islam would not be
able to weather the storm, but the conscience of its follow-
ers always refused to strike a compromise with evil, and
Islam emerged triumphantly on each occasion. In every
age, it produced a man of Allah who attacked these inno-
vations and deviations with the full weight of unshakable
conviction and restored the true spirit of the faith; reaffirmed
the
Sunnah
of the Holy Prophet Muhammad [s] against the
heretical rites, customs and foreign influences; propounded
the teachings of Islam to contradict speculative thought and
materialistic precepts; raised the banner of revolt in the
face of despots and emperors; condemned opulence, luxu-
ry and indolence of the rich and enunciated the teachings
of Islam as the sole valid source of religious, moral and
political advancement.
They provided a new driving force, a new life to the
Muslims of their time. These luminaries of impeccable
worth and ability possessed the priceless gift of intellectual,
moral and religious capabilities and were beacons of light
for their contemporaries. Each one of these was capable
enough to expose the manifestations of the ignorance of
his age and to bring into light the correct and unalloyed
teachings of Islam .
This is a clear evidence of the fact that Allah Almighty has
decided to keep His religion alive so that it may ultimately
provide guidance to wayworn humanity. The fact of the
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