Islam Rediscovered
20. The Revolutionary Role of Islam
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20. THE REVOLUTIONARY ROLE OF
ISLAM
As a result of ignorance the evil known as the
worship of natural phenomena was born in human
society. Man attributed divinity to mere creatures.
He began to worship all the things in the world,
holding them to be gods. Owing to this intellectual
aberration, idolatry became a rooted feature of
human civilization. Not even the coming of
thousands of Prophets and reformers could bring
about any change in this state of affairs, in the
practical sense. The rejection of the Prophets
brought down on the deniers the chastisement of
God, but
shirk
(idolatry) could never be wiped out
from society. Then God took it upon Himself to
intervene. One major manifestation of this divine
intervention in human history was the emergence of
the
Prophet
Muhammad.
An
American
encyclopaedia has very appropriately described his
coming as having “changed the course of human
history.”
