Mosque upon mosque, religious school upon religious school, is opening. Yet, in these institutions, all is taught but the pristine and glorious Message of the Quran. The magnetic Quran, which contains the Message of global success, has been relegated to mere recitation without understanding. The Quran is being memorized, being sung in competition and being “finished” in so many hours. Muslim scholars and Ulema in great numbers are busy propagating the No.2, counterfeit, ritualistic, cultural, fatalistic, tradition-based Islam. The bearers of the Last Word of God have confined their faith to individual salvation by means of empty, ritualistic worship. Their resulting non-Quranic practices can hardly induce sympathetic or acceptable responses from scientific and rational minds. “The Quran is the only book that can keep up with changing times. Who would like to travel in a bullock cart in the age of horse-less carriage?”(Kahlil Gibran) Moreover, there is a great scarcity of books that would simply yet effectively introduce a non-Muslim (or even a young Muslim) to the extraordinary and dynamic practical teachings of Islam. If a non-Muslim is interested in learning about Islam, we either hand-over to him a copy of the Quran (which is not understandable because of wrong translations based upon a thousand year old conjecture-based narratives), or we provide him with a book on Islamic jurisprudence (FIQH). These books of Fiqh talk about menial issues and petty problems such as ways of ablution, size of the beard, type of the head-cover, rituals of worship, etc. These man-made books, unlike the Quran, cannot guide us to establish a workable system in the human society.
Unfortunately, the ignorant opponents and foolish friends of Islam wish to maintain the status quo. Since this kind of Islam proposes no system or way of collective life, it poses no threat to the ruling or dominant class, or to the priesthood. Rather it invigorates both! We have respect for our Christian brothers and sisters. , Muslims have failed miserably in conveying the highly rational Message of the Last Word of God to humanity. They have done even worse in defining the blissful objective of the Quran i.e. building Paradise in this life and thus achieving it in the Hereafter. Therefore, even after the western scholars have seen a glimmer of the shining guidance in the Quran, all the above reasons contribute to bar them from looking any further. And noticing the abject political and socio-economic status of Muslims. How would they know that Muslims today are not lagging behind due to Islam but only because of a counterfeit, man-made set of dogmas, beliefs, rituals, customs and traditions, i.e. The Number Two Islam! Who is to blame?
Unlike the Muslims, the Christians are performing far better at the political, social, economic, and scientific levels. Their planning and action in these areas is much more organized and rationally based. Why is this? Ponder that when God commanded the angel to prostrate before Adam, they did. This means that God made the forces of nature subservient to mankind. In other words, man has been endowed with the capacity to understand and master the physical laws operative in Nature. This is called the “status of Adam” or “the potential of humanity.” The West has attained this coveted status. Muslims, not yet attaining it, are scrambling through life at subhuman levels. However, let us not ignore the glaring fact that the western civilization is not only imperfect, but according to top western minds, it is heading toward disaster. There is a catastrophic decline of morality. Crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, publicly advertised homosexuality, single parenthood, child abuse, domestic violence, decline of family values, rampant divorce rate, and hard pornography are just a few examples of the evils infesting the materially advanced West. Modernity without spirituality is taking its toll on the western psyche. It appears that, for the Western civilization, the party is over!
It is interesting to note that the Renaissance of the Christian Europe coincided with and heavily depended on the revolutionary thoughts of Martin Luther and John Calvin. When the Europeans moved away from the church they set their course toward becoming scientific and industrial giants. Conversely, Muslims who kindled the European Renaissance slumped into darkness as they departed from the Quran. The status of the true believers(MU’MINEEN),however, is most glorious i.e.they harness the forces of Nature by mastering physical laws and then use these forces for the benefit of not one nation, race or color, but of all mankind as God commands.
13:17
The real existence on earth is of the one who benefits mankind.
Thus, the West has attained the status of Adam. The Muslims have lost both statures. “Risen you have not to the human level, how can you find God (and the purpose of life)?”- Sir Iqbal Islam is not to Blame
As opposed to other dogmas, Islam offers a workable and logical system of life. The Glorious Quran, which embodies the last Word of God, guarantees its followers signal victory, success and achievement in this world and in the Hereafter.
Then what explains the Muslims’ downfall? Is the Message of Islam outdated? Muslims, and not Islam, are to be blamed for their dismal condition in the last many centuries .More than one billion people who call themselves Muslims are so only by name. They have fallen from the high platform of DEEN (The Divinely Prescribed Way of Life) into the swamp of MAZHAB (rituals of worship to achieve individual salvation plus blind following of human ‘authorities’ and senseless non-Quranic dogmas). Thus, it is their non-Islamic practices that cause their decline and invite condemnation from rest of the world.
2:8
And of mankind are those who claim, “We believe in God and the Last Day”, when they have indeed not attained belief.
Let us hear this truth in the words of the great Sir Syed Ahmed Khan of Aligarh, India: “The prevalent form of Islam is not the Deen that was revealed to thee xalted Messenger and that which is preserved in the Quran .Muslims have chosen for themselves their ancestors’ traditions and
beliefs, their customs and practices, as gods besides God. They have acknowledged and invented countless prophets (jurists, mystics, sufis, imams, historians) after Mohammad death. They have taken books, written by men as equivalent of the Quran. We do not accept these false gods, fictitious prophets and fake Qurans. We are the destroyers of these false gods, fictitious prophets and fake Qurans just as our father Abraham, the exalted, was the destroyer of his father Azar’s idols.” (Hayat-e-Javaid, Afkar-e-Sir Syed).