still available.) In the course of this speech, I mentioned an incident relating to the Prophet of Islam in which an Arab Bedouin once came to the Prophet’s mosque and defiled it by urinating inside it.

to clean the spot with water (Sahih AlBukhari, Hadith No. 5679). This behaviour of the Prophet of Islam so impressed the Bedouin that he went to his tribesmen and narrated the whole story. The people were

were so impressed with this that shortly thereafter the whole tribe entered the fold of Islam. After narrating this incident to them, I pointed out that this was the method of the Prophet and that where

Interpretation of ReligionIn the age of the printing press, age, books that give a political interpretation of Islam have been printed and published on a large scale. For a variety of reasons, these books have become

the influence of this literature has become political revolution. This political interpretation of Islam is based on a dangerous fallacy, i.e., that religion is another name for a “complete system” and that

different from one another. Ma‘arifah or the realization of God is a noble Islamic quality, whereas ecstasy is not related to Islam. Anyone may have this experience of ecstasy. But the truth is that, ecstasy

character, is required to form a good government. In the absence of such a team, establishing an Islamic government is impossible if there is a political vacuum in the country and there are two prophets

apparent that the agitations that swept all across the Muslim world, driven by the slogan “Establish Islamic Government!” were simply naive. Their logical result

too, it was the task of the Ulama in these countries to shoulder the very same responsibility that Islam had given them—that is to say, to leave politics to the politicians and to focus their energies, instead

struggle for independence’. Now their politics was conducted in the name of ‘the enforcement of Islamic Law’. These

TAZKIYAH A SOURCE OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENTFaith initially brings us into the fold of Islam, then tazkiyah helps in the development of this faith. If initially, one’s faith is in the form of a seed

seed, it will keep growing and assume the form of a fully-grown tree–tazkiyah is the Islamic name for this intellectual process. Tazkiyah literally means purification. In the extended sense it means growth

based on freedom. This goal could not have been achieved in its first stage. But by divine succour Islam succeeded in breaking the historical continuity of this ancient coercive system in the 7th century

independent of it. This great change in the pattern of human life was exactly in accordance with Islam. It thus became possible for believers, whether they possessed political power or not to attain constructive

an opinion based on the actions of certain Muslims. Muslims should be judged in the light of Islamic teachings and not vice versa. The eternal jihad is the jihad of dawah; to convey the message of God

Notes 1. Islam and the Modern Age, Urdu Edition (New Delhi), January, 1973. 2. Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani, Hijab alMar’ah al-Muslimah fil Kitab was-Sunnah (1914), p. 31. 3. Ibid., p. 7 4. Ibid., p.