Islam Rediscovered
7. Discovery of Islam
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of character, whose goodness or badness depends
upon the good or bad conduct of others.
If, in the early period of Islam, a position of trust
was identified with responsibility, in the later
period it becomes associated with honour and
prestige. In the early phase, the ideology of Islam
was highlighted, while in the later phase the history
of Islam replaced the ideology. In the first phase,
Islam was an issue of duty; in the second phase, it
became an issue of pride. In the first phase, the
Quran was a book of
tadabbur,
(deep
contemplation), whereas in the second phase, it
became simply a book for recitation. In the first
phase, following in the footsteps of the Prophet was
given the utmost importance but in later times, the
Prophet was glorified as a national hero, so that
Muslims might assert their own superiority over
other nations. While the thinking of the first
generation was that they could earn paradise only
on the basis of their personal deeds, the people of
the later period came to hold that mere association
with the
Ummah
(community) was enough to secure
them paradise. People of the first generation turned
to the original texts as preserved in the Qur’an and
