Islam Rediscovered
23. Conversion: An Intellectual Transformation
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dipping someone in pure clean water purifies him,
and he is thus converted to a new religion. But
pouring water outwardly does not purify a person,
for the attainment of purity necessitates a
transformation of the total human personality. The
convert is suffused with the hue of God and he
adopts God’s ways in thought, word and deed.
As the Qur’an puts it:
We take on God’s own dye—and who has a
better dye than God’s? And we are His
worshippers. (2:138).
The Qur’an refuses to give its seal of approval to
conversions which are mere formalities. In ancient
Madinah there was the case of about three hundred
people having become Muslims by reciting the
Islamic creed. To all intents and purposes they even
said their prayers, and fasted, but they did all this in
a hypocritical manner, paying only lip service: their
inner state did not correspond to their outward
pronouncements. They claimed allegiance to Islam
by word of mouth but, as regards the state of their
hearts, the Islamic spirit was lacking. The Qur’an
branded the ‘Islam’ of such people as a falsity:
