Islam Rediscovered
7. Discovery of Islam
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THE OBSESSION WITH HISTORICAL GLORY
As mentioned above, one of the major reasons for
the original Islam becoming an alien religion among
the Muslims is that for latter day generations the
basis for the Islamic ethos became the later history
of Islam instead of the Qur’an and Sunnah. Muslims
found their glorious history far more attractive than
the Qur’an and Sunnah. For them they were just
sets of words. Their history, on the contrary, gave
them an immense sense of pride, as it was full of
imperial grandeur and conquests. Although they
continued to pay lip service to the Qur’an by
reciting it, they were, in fact, lost in the glories of
Islamic history. Gradually they came to associate
themselves and Islam with this grand history:
instead of the Qur’an and Sunnah, history became
their chief source of inspiration.
This change of the source of inspiration wrought
immense harm. When the Qur’an and Sunnah are
one’s intellectual sources it is modesty that is bred
in the mind, whereas if one takes history as one’s
intellectual source, pride is bound to be generated.
