I am frequently asked why I
became a Muslim. I am the daughter of a renowned family, and my husband also is
well-known and rich. To those who ask me why I became a Muslim, I reply that I
do not know for certain when the light of Islam rose in my soul. It seems to me
as if I have been a Muslim forever. This is not something strange at all. For
Islam is a natural and true religion. Every child is born as a Muslim. If it is
left to itself, it will choose Islam, none else. As a European writer observes,
“Islam is the religion of people with common sense.”
If you made a comparative study of all
religions, you would immediately see that Islam is the most perfect, the most
natural, and the most logical. Owing to Islam, many complicated problems of the
world are solved easily and mankind attains peace and tranquility. Islam always
rejects the dogma that human beings are born sinful and that they have to
expiate for it in the world. Muslims believe in Allah, who is one. In their
eyes, Műsâ (Moses), Îsâ (Jesus), and Muhammad Mustafâ ‘salawâtullâhi ta’âlâ
’alaihim ajma’în’ are human beings like us. Allâhu
ta’âlâ has chosen them as Prophets to guide people to the right way. For
doing penance, for asking for forgiveness, or for praying, there is no one
between Allâhu ta’âlâ and the born slave. We can
supplicate Allâhu ta’âlâ on our own any time,
and we are responsible only for what we have done.
The word ‘Islam’ means both ‘to
surrender oneself to Allâhu ta’âlâ’ and ‘to have belief in Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’. ‘Muslim’ means
‘a person who lives in peace and happiness with all beings.’ Islam is based on
two fundamental facts:
1) That Allâhu ta’âlâ is one, and that Muhammad
‘alaihis-salâm’ is the final Prophet He has sent.
2) That humanity should be
entirely freed from superstitions and unfounded dogmas. The Hajj, one of the
(five) tenets of Islam, has a great impact on people. What other religion
contains a form of worship as sublime as Islam’s pilgrimage, which brings
together hundreds of thousands of Muslims from all four corners of the world
regardless of their classes, races, countries, colours and rank positions, and
makes them put on the (uniformal garb
called) Ihrâm and prostrate themselves with one accord before Allâhu ta’âlâ? It is a certain fact that
Muslims’ worshipping together at these blessed places where the great Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa
sallam’ announced Islam, struggled against Islam’s enemies, exerted himself
with great determination and firmness, will attach them to one another with
stronger affections, whereby they will try to find solutions for one another’s
problems, and they will once again take an oath to cooperate along the way
shown by Allâhu ta’âlâ. Another
use of the Hajj is that thereby Muslims all over the world meet one another,
know one another’s problems, and teach their personal experiences to one
another. All Muslims assemble at the place whereto they turn their faces during
their worships at home, and, all in one mass, one body in the presence of Allâhu ta’âlâ, they surrender themselves to
Him.
Seeing the Hajj once would
suffice as an evidence to prove the greatness of Islam. Here is Islam, and I
have been enjoying the pleasure and satisfaction of having entered this great
religion.
The philomel of soul is ever-desirous of the rose;
Don’t you ever presume fighting others is its real cause!
Ceaselessly it hovers round it, like a moth,
Looking for a shelter where they could enjoy some repose.
I now know that the lovely rose has told none of its secret,
It always yearns for the philomel, like a budding rose.
From strangers that nymph has hidden her cheeks;
Unrequited love puts up with the thorn, never gets the rose.
Infatuated, the poor lover paces the road to his beloved;
Craving for the sweetheart, the lover himself dissolves.
I was
raised with sheer Christian education in London. In 1930, being a young
student, I encountered some events like other youngsters, and tried to understand
them. One of them was to establish some relation between the religion and the
world, or, in other words, to think over how I could utilize the religion for
the
accomplishment of a more peaceful
and more comfortable life. Then, for the first time in my life, I came to the
realization that my religion, Christianity, was too insufficient and too short
for that purpose. For Christianity defined the world as a place of torture
whose mere contents are evils and vices, and men as creatures sinful from
birth. Let alone showing people how to lead a peaceful life in the world, it
imposed on them a concept of life like an area mined with sins, left them on
the horns of dilemma by saying that there was nothing they could do on their
own to get out of this state of sinfulness, and then degenerated them by saying
that on behalf of them priests could invoke Allâhu
ta’âlâ. Christianity left people entirely to themselves, and confined
their worships to unsatisfactory Sunday masses, which they perform in the perfunctory
air of the church service. In those years Britain was in a great economic
depression and poverty. People were very unhappy and therefore totally
displeased with the government. Christianity gave them no help in those days of
destitution, nor did they find any sort of heartening quality in it to help
them endure. This shortcoming had a considerably ruinous impact on me.
Indulging in the rationalizing relaxation of my emotions instead of judging
things with the impersonal justice of reason, I reached the conclusion that
religion was something meaningless. Rejecting Christianity, I, like many other
young people, took to atheism and communism.
From a certain distance,
Communism appealed to the young people. Depressed under economic straits and
totally hopeless of their future life, the younger generation looked on
Communism as a savior because it was being propagated with the promise that it
would extirpate differences of wealth and rank. It did not take me long to
realize, however, that the communist claims consisted of sheer propaganda and
hollow words. Communism was the very abode of segregation, both of rank and of
wealth. Everything was the same in every country. Upon this I gave up Communism
and dived into philosophy. Thus I began to specialize as a pantheist in the
creed of Wahdat-i wujűd.
It is very difficult to get in touch with
Muslims in Western countries. For in those countries there is a deep-seated
rancour against Islam, which dates back to the crusading expeditions. Europeans
reject Islam with hatred, though they know nothing of it. They raise their
children with an education dressed with a strong feeling of animus towards
Islam. So much so that talking about Islam means a violation of the established
rules of decorum
in
their society. If someone should bring up this subject in a social gathering,
the others will protest with a mute frown. In the meantime, I was sent on an
official mission to Australia. Despite the ‘hatred towards Islam’ which had
been engraved on my subconscious in the name of education, one day I somehow
succumbed to my curiosity and got a translation of the Qur’ân
al-kerîm. Yet, I had hardly finished the introduction of the book, when
I immediately closed the book. For the translator of the book used such an
abusive and defamatory language about the Qur’ân
al-kerîm right in the introduction that it meant there was no sense in
reading a book of that sort. Afterwards, I pondered on the matter. Since
Christians hated Muslims and the translator was a Christian, it was very well
possible that he could have misunderstood some of its parts under the influence
of his predisposition and made that blasphemous translation. And there was my
curiosity. I took the matter more seriously, and when I went to the city of
Perth in western Australia a couple of weeks later, I visited the grand library
of the city and queried whether there was a translation of the Qur’ân al-kerîm rendered by Muslims. They found a
translation of that sort and gave it to me. No words could define the emotions
that began to stir in the depths of my soul when I opened it and read the first
chapter in it, the chapter (sűra) called Fâtiha-i-sherîfa, which began with the
phrase, “Hamd
(thanks and praise) be to the Rabb (Lord,
Creator, Allah) of âlams (classes of beings).”
The first chapter ended with the invocations that purported, “Guide us to the right
path.” How beautiful it was! I read the Fâtiha-i-sherîfa a number of
times. The creator mentioned here was “Rahmân and Rahîm,”
which meant “Very Merciful and Compassionate.” Contrary to the Christian dogma,
He had not created men sinful. I began to read the Qur’ân
al-kerîm, and the more I read the more ecstatic did I become. Whatsoever
I had desired and imagined I found in this holy book. Hours elapsed, and I was
completely oblivious of where I was, of the time, and of everything. In
addition to that translation of the Qur’ân al-kerîm,
they had brought me some books about the life of Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’. I was reading
them in utter rapture, when at last the librarian came to me and said, “It’s
time we closed the library, sir.” I came back to myself, and left the library.
On my way home I was soliloquizing and repeating: “I have now attained my goal.
I am a Muslim now.” With the guidance of Allâhu ta’âlâ,
I had eventually attained the hidâya (the right way).
On my way back home, I looked
for a convenient place to have some coffee. As I walked down the street I had
only the Qur’ân al-kerîm, Islam, and
Allâhu ta’âlâ in my mind.
I was quite unaware of where I was going. All of a sudden my legs stopped on
their own. When I raised my head I found myself in front of an entrance built
with red bricks. My legs had brought me here on their own. I read the sign
hanging on the wall. It was a mosque in Australia.
I said to myself: “Allâhu ta’âlâ has blessed you with the right
way and taught you what you should do. You know Islam now. Allâhu ta’âlâ has brought you up to the
entrance of the mosque. Go inside right away and embrace this religion.” I walked
in, and became a Muslim.
Until that time I had not known
one single Muslim. I found Islam by myself and accepted it by myself. No one
guided me in this respect. My only guide was my common sense.
Approximately twenty-five years
ago, during my stay in Burma[1], I took boat trips along the river on a Chinese boat daily for
recreation. The oarsman who rowed my boat was a Muslim named Shaikh Alî from
East Pakistan. He would spare no effort in carrying out all the religious practices
commanded by Islam. His fastidiously diligent punctuality in his religious
practices made me admire that man, while in the meantime I began to develop
some curiosity about Islam. I decided to find out what was in Islam that kept
such a simpleton continuously under the effect of a firm belief and staunch
feelings of obedience. Most of the people around us were Burmese Buddhists.
They, too, were extremely devoted to their religion. I think the Burmese people
are the most pious people of the world. However, the Buddhist system of
worships had some conspicuous shortcomings. The Buddists would assemble in
their temples called pagoda and repeat the following prayer:
“Buddha-karana-Ghachkami-Dama-karana-Ghachkami-sanga-karana-Ghachkami.”
---------------------------------
[1] Myanmar since 1989.
Its meaning was, as some people
told me, “O Buddha, be our guide! Be our canon! Exalt our souls!” That prayer
was simple enough, yet it consisted of a few unsatisfactory words which had no
effect on the human soul. And there was no mention of the great Creator.
On the other hand, the acts of
worship practised by my Muslim boatman were only exquisite! This time, I began
to discuss Islam with my boatman. During the hours I spent with him, I asked
him numerous questions. The extremely elegant histicated man gave me urged me
into reading books written about Islam. When I read those books, I learned with
amazement and admiration all the accomplishments that Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu
ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ realized in a short time in Arabia. I found myself
some Muslim friends. I entered into Islamic deliberations and chats with them.
It was in those days when the First World War broke out. I was commanded to
immediately join the war on the Arabian front. I did so. There were no
Buddhists here. There were Muslims all around me. The Arabs were the earliest
Muslims. The Qur’ân al-kerîm, the Holy Book of Allâhu ta’âlâ, had been revealed in the Arabic language. My contacts with the
Arabs increased my interest in Islam. When the war was over, I began to study
Arabic. In the meanwhile I continued to read books about Islam. The greatest
attraction I found in Islam was Muslims’ belief in one Allah. On the other
hand, as a Christian, I had to believe in three gods, which was quite illogical
to me. As I deliberated over it, I gradually realized that Islam was a much
more genuine religion. I began to accept the fact that a religion that
contained belief in one creator should be a true religion. Eventually, after
doing ten years’ service in Palestine, i.e. between 1932 and 1942, I decided to
become a Muslim. So I officially became a Muslim in 1942. I have been a
thorough Muslim ever since.
I officially professed Islam in Jerusalem,
which the Arabs called ‘Sacred City’. At that time I was a staff major in the
British army. When I professed Islam, I had to undergo some unpleasant
situations. My government would not approve of my becoming a Muslim. I had to
leave the army. Upon this, I went to Egypt first, and then to Pakistan, and
began to live among my Muslim brothers there. I wrote some articles about
Islam. There are more than five hundred million Muslims living on the earth
today, and they are one another’s brothers. To become a Muslim means to
have
belief in Allâhu ta’âlâ, the very being who is
worthy of being worshipped, and to attach oneself to Him. And attaching oneself
to Him, in its turn, requires adapting oneself to the norms described by His
great Prophet, Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’. Now,
whenever I remember that modest boatman, who showed me Islam’s lightsome way
and the true forms of worship and guided me to my Allah, though in the
beginning I had thought he was a mere simpleton, I feel deep respect for him. I
am trying to lead a life of a true Muslim, like him. And I see that doing so
protects a person from harmful things.
Now, among Muslims, I am,
alhamdu-li-l-llah’ (thanks and praise be to Allah), another Muslim. And after
performing each prayer, I never forget to invoke a blessing on my Murshid,
Shaikh Alî Efendi the boatman, to recite the Fâtiha Sűra and send the blessings
to his already blessed soul, for by now he might have attained the eternal
compassion of Allâhu ta’âlâ.
When a person decides to abandon
a religion that has been infused into him since his childhood and choose
another religion, there should be some reasons, which are either emotional or
philosophical or social. The zealous aspirations I had been feeling were
impelling me towards a belief that would satisfy at least two of the
above-mentioned needs. Consequently, as soon as the educational period of my
life was over, I embarked on a comparative study of all the world’s existing
religions with a view to determining the one that deserved a true belief in it.
Both of my parents were
devotedly religious, one of them a Catholic and the other a Jew formerly.
Later, they both abandoned their religions and became Protestants and began to
attend the Anglican Church. When I was in school I regularly attended the rites
performed in the Anglican Church and listened to the lessons given by the priests.
Yet the Christian credal tenets that they were trying to teach me contained a
number of elements that I did not understand and which seemed quite irrational
to me. First of all, the tripartite godhead which consisted of Father, Son and
the Holy Ghost sounded so silly to me that it was impossible to accept it. My
conscience rejected it vehemently.
Moreover, the ecclesiastical credo that attaining God would
require expiation was altogether meaningless too. In my idealization, the great
being who was (and always is) the only being worthy of being worshipped would
not demand compulsory expiation from His born slaves.
Upon this, I began to examine the Judaic
religion. I saw that their approach to the unity and grandeur of Allâhu ta’âlâ was much more reasonable and that they
did not attribute a partner to Him. Perhaps Judaism was not so badly
interpolated as today’s Christianity. However, that religion also contained
some grotesque tenets which I could not understand and would never accept.
There were so many rites, prayers and compulsory religious practices in the
Judaic religion that a pious Jew would have no time left for worldly
occupations if he were to observe all those religious obligations. I knew that
most of those rites were stupid parodies that had been inserted into the
religion later by people. Thereby the Judaic religion had been thoroughly
stripped of its social character and become the religion of a small minority.
Concluding that there was nothing in Judaism for the world to benefit from, I
left it aside, and focused my quest into other religions. In the meantime I
attended both the church and the synagogue. Yet those visits were done for
quasi-religious purposes. In fact, I was neither a Christian nor a Jew.
Alongside the Anglican Church, I examined the Roman Catholic Church, too. I saw
that the Catholic credo contained more superstitions than did the credo of
those Protestants who were adherent to the Anglican Church. Especially, the
Catholics’ excessive adherence to the Pope and their semi-deification of him
made me hate them all the more.
Now I turned my face to the east
and began to examine the oriental religions. I did not like Magians’ religion
at all. For they gave too much prerogative to the priestly caste. A pariah, on
the other hand, would deserve what remained from their scorn for beasts. It
never occured to them that they should have compassion for the poor. According
to them, a person’s poverty was his own fault. If he put up with it silently
and without any complaints, there might be some improvement in his situation
owing to the priests’ intermediary invocations. The priestly order purposely
spread this belief in order to strike a fear of themselves into the people’s
hearts and to make the people feel dependent on them. Therefore I hated the
Magian religion. And my hatred even doubled when I knew that the Magians
worshipped animals. A
cult of that sort could not be a true religion.
As for Buddhism; the Buddhists adhered to
philosophical thoughts and beliefs. They told me that, if I should exert
myself, try very hard and practice the required abstinences, I would obtain
great powers and play with the world like doing chemical experiments. However,
I did not find any ethical rules in Buddhism. In this system also, the priestly
order were different from the ordinary people and occupied a higher status.
Indeed, they taught me many wonderful feats of skill. Yet those things had
nothing to do with Allah and religion.
Those feats of skill were, like
sports or illusionistic artifices, were pastime activities and served only to
amaze people who did not know them. They were far from purifying the human
heart or bringing man closer to the approval and love of Allâhu ta’âlâ. They had nothing to do with Allâhu ta’âlâ or with the beings He created.
The only benefit they gave was that they drilled a full self-discipline into
the practicer.
There is no doubt as to the fact
that Buddha was a well-educated, intelligent man. He enjoined a full-scale
self-sacrifice on them. He gave commandments such as, “Do not retaliate evil!”
“Forego all your desires and ambitions!” “Do not think of tomorrow!” Didn’t Îsâ
‘alaihis-salâm’ say the same things? But commandments of this sort had been
observed during the earlydays of Christianity, when the religion of Îsâ
‘alaihis-salâm’ had been in its pure form; people had already given up obeying
them. I diagnosed the same laxity in the Budhhist societies. If people were as
pure-hearted as Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ or as benevolent as Buddha, they would in
all probability follow their guidance and attain the state approved by Allâhu ta’âlâ. But how many people in the
present world could be so pure-hearted and noble-natured as to cease from all
vices? It came to mean that the ethical principles laid by Buddha were not practicable
in the modern man’s system of thoughts.
How strange it was that I was living in the
Islamic world and yet I was examining the other religions without thinking a
bit about Islam! The reason was clear: We had already been brainwashed with the
information of Islam given to us and with the books written about it in Europe,
which asserted that that religion was entirely wrong, meaningless, and false,
and that it infused torpor. Reading Rodwell’s translation of the Qurân al-kerîm
had specially fixed these preconceptions into my
subconscious.
Rodwell had purposely mistranslated some parts of the Qur’ân
al-kerîm and distorted its meanings, thus turning the holy book into a
mass of unintelligible words altogether different from the original version. It
was not till after having contacted the ‘Islamic Society’ in London and having
read a true translation of the Qur’ân al-kerîm
did I know the truth. One thing I would regret to say at this point is that
Muslims are doing very little to advertise this lovely religion of theirs to
the world. If they try to spread the true essence of Islam over the entire
world with due attention and knowledge, I am sure that they will achieve very
positive results. In the near east people are still reserved towards foreigners.
Instead of coming into contact with them and illuminating them, they prefer to
keep as far away as possible from them. This is an exceedingly wrong attitude.
I am the most concrete example. For I was somehow hindered from being
interested in the Islamic religion. Fortunately, one day I met a very
respectable and highly cultured Muslim. He was very friendly with me. He
listened to me with attention. He presented me an English version of the Qur’ân al-kerîm translated by a Muslim. He gave
beautiful and logical answers to all my questions. In 1945 he took me to a
mosque. With intent attention and deep respect, I watched the Muslims praying
there, which was a sight I was watching for the first time in my life. O my
Allah, what a gorgeous and sublime sight it was! People from all races, all
nations and all classes were worshipping. All those people had come together
without any sort of segregation in the presence of Allâhu
ta’âlâ, and they had entirely devoted themselves to Allâhu ta’âlâ. Next to a rich Turk, for instance,
stood a very poor Indian clad in beggar-like clothes, next was an Arab who I
would say was a merchant, and besides him prayed a negro. All these people were
performing a prayer in profound reverence. No one was different from any other.
Entirely oblivious to their nationalities and economical, social and official
statuses, they had focused all their existence to the worship of Allâhu ta’âlâ. No one assumed superiority to another.
The rich did not despise the poor, nor did persons of rank have an iota of
scorn for their juniors.
Seeing all these marvels, I
realized that Islam was the religion that I had been seeking for. None of the
other religions that I had examined up to that time had had an effect like that
on me. In fact, after seeing Islam closely and learning the essence of Islam, I
accepted that true religion without any hesitation.
Now I am proud of being a Muslim. I attended
lectures on
“The Islamic Culture” at a university in
Britain, whereupon I saw that as Europe had suffered the gloom of the Middle
Ages, Islam had shone through the darkness and illuminated everywhere. Many
great explorations had been accomplished by Muslims, Europeans had been taught
knowledge, science, medicine and humanities in the Islamic universities, and
numerous world conquerers had embraced Islam and established great empires.
Muslims were not only the founders of a universal civilization, but also the
recoverers of many an ancient civilization devastated by Christians. When the
news of my conversion to Islam got about, my friends began to remonstrate with
me and to accuse me of retrogression. Each time they did so I answered them
with a smile: “Quite the other way round. Islam is not retrogression. It is the
most advanced civilization.” Sad to say, today’s Muslims have fallen behind.
For Muslims have been gradually getting less and less appreciative of their
possession of so sublime a religion as Islam, and more and more negligent in
carrying out its commandments.
The Islamic countries still
boast the intact remnants of a warm hospitality. When you go to a Muslim’s
house, he will welcome you in a balmy air of readiness to help you. For helping
others is one of Islam’s commandments. It is one of the basic Islamic tenets
for the rich to help the poor by giving them a certain percentage of their
wealth. This property does not exist in any other religion. This comes to mean
that Islam is the most, and the only, suitable religion for the present social
life-styles. It is for this reason that there is no place for Communism in
Muslim countries. For Islam has by far forestalled that social problem by
prearranging the most essential solutions.
I am a naval officer. I spent a
major part of my life on the sea. I served the British navy in the First World
War in 1914 and in the Second World War in 1939.
Even the most perfect tools and machines of
the twentieth century are far below the capacity to resist the terrific forces
of nature. Let me give you a small example: we have no means as yet to defend
ourselves against fog or storms. A warlike situation
adds
a lot more to these dangers. A naval officer has to be always very careful. The
British navy holds a book that contains the Queen’s Directions and the
Directions put by the Admiralty. The book embodies not only records such as the
duties of a naval officer and the procedures to be followed at times of danger,
but also a list of awards, citations and rewards that are to be bestowed in
recognition of good behaviour and distinguished services, salaries and pays,
and even when an officer will retire. In addition, it contains the penalties
imposed for offences and acts of disobedience. If this book is observed with
due diligence, life on the sea will be easy and orderly, danger will be minimized,
and naval officers will lead a peaceful and happy life.
May Allâhu ta’âlâ forgive me my fault and sin!
Never oblivious to the great difference and always observant of the due
respect, I have compared the Qur’ân al-kerîm to that book. Allâhu ta’âlâ is the authority who has laid down these principles in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. He teaches in
extremely explicit and exquisite expressions and in a language intelligible to
everybody how all men, women and children over the world should act, from what
directions danger will be coming and what should be done against it, and how
the good and bad behaviours will be rewarded. For the recent eleven years,
since I retired, that is, I have been growing flowers in my garden. It is in
this period when I have seen once again the greatness of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Plants and flowers grow only
with the command of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Nothing you plant will grow without His command. However hard
you may try, and whatsoever you may do, your endeavour will yield results only
with His support. Without this support all your effort will come to naught. It
is in no one else’s capacity to predetermine the weather conditions required
for the growing of plants. With one command of Allâhu
ta’âlâ, bad weather will set in and ruin everything you have
planted. Men have devised various systems in order to pre-estimate the weather
conditions. Weather conditions are forecast today. It makes me smile to myself.
For only one per cent of these forecasts turn out to be correct. The only
determinant in this matter is the decree of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Beautiful flowers do not grow in the gardens belonging to those
who do not obey the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ. This is only a retribution which Allâhu
ta’âlâ visits on them.
I believe with all my heart that
the Qur’ân al-kerîm is the Word
of Allâhu ta’âlâ and that Allâhu ta’âlâ chose Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu
ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ as His Messenger to
communicate that sacred
book to the entire world. The Qur’ân al-kerîm is in full concordance with man’s worldly life, and it contains
rules unsullied with the insertion of exaggerations and superstitions and which
are perfectly logical, so that people with common sense will find them entirely
true and right. Rather than bringing pressure to bear on the sense of fear
inherent in man’s nature, the tenets of worship in the Qur’ân al-kerîm appeal to love and
respect.
Having lived for long years in a
Christian society and under Christian influence, a Christian needs convincing
preliminary persuation to abandon his religion and become a Muslim. However,
after examining Islam, I did not need any external persuation. For I had
spontaneously believed in the fact that this religion is a true one. No one
compelled me to become a Muslim. Nor was I under anyone’s influence. Muslims
answered most of my doubts whose solutions I had not found in Christianity, and
they satisfied all my mental expectations. I therefore became a Muslim by
myself and willingly.
I have realized that the pure
religion brought by Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and Islam are essentially the same. Yet
the pure Nazarene religion was completely defiled with the superstitions, rites
and credal tenets borrowed from idolatrous cults afterwards and turned into
what has now been called Christianity. It was so repulsively fraught with the
polytheistic accessions that Martin Luther, for the purpose of purifying his
religion, had to reform it and to establish the Protestant sect, whereby he,
let alone repairing the religion, impaired it all the more badly. As the Queen
of England, Elizabeth I, struggled against the Catholic Spaniards who posed a
threat against her country, the Ottoman Turks carried on their holy war against
the Catholics in Europe. As Protestants and Muslims, these two empires fought
against the idolatrous Catholics. The one thing that escaped Martin Luther’s
attention was that nine hundred years before him Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ had
cleansed and purified the defiled Christianity and all the other religions.
Today’s Christianity is infested with
idolatrous elements and superstitions. For a long period of time Christianity
has remained as a religion where injustice, cruelty and savagery are all but
legalized, and it still maintains this horrendous identity in its exactitude. I
would like you to recollect the unjust verdicts that the Spanish Christians
gave at the tribunals called the Inquisition
and
the savageries that they perpetrated in the name of inquisition. The Sephardis
who escaped from their cruelties were provided sanctuary only by the Muslim Turks,
who treated them as human beings.
Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ asked his
umma to obey the Ten Commandments which Allâhu ta’âlâ had given to Műsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ on Mount Sinai. The first of
these commandments is this: “I am the Lord thy God, ...” “Thou shalt have no
other gods before me.”[1] On the other hand, Christians have disobeyed this commandment by
increasing the number of gods to three. I did not believe in three gods before
converting to a Muslim, either. I always accepted Allâhu ta’âlâ as only one compassionate,
forgiving and guiding being. That was the only reason which led me to Islam.
For Muslims’ belief in Allâhu ta’âlâ was identical with my thoughts.
The manner of life you are to
lead is totally in your own hands. If you are, say, an accountant and embezzle
money from the employer’s safe, one day you will be caught and wind up in
prison. If you drive carelessly on a slippery road, your car will topple over
and you will end up in a hospital with one or two broken bones. If you drive
too fast and have an accident for this reason, you, again, will be responsible
for it. It would be a grave act of immorality to lay the blame for all these
faults on someone else. I do not believe in the hypothesis that people are bad
tempered by birth. It is a definite fact that human beings are born with a good
moral quality. A group of theorists assume that some people are evil-spirited
by creation, which I reject. In my opinion, what makes a person’s soul evil is,
first of all, his parents, next his environment, next the subversive
publications, and next evil company. Another factor that should be added is
harmful tutorship. Children are inclined to idealize the behaviours and
thoughts of their parents, school teachers and writers and try to follow their
examples. Sometimes, without any apparent reason, children exhibit rebellious
and mischievous behaviour. At such times they must be toned down with gentle,
but at the same time serious, exhortation. But if we ourselves exhibit
inconsiderate behaviour and thereby set a bad example for them, we cannot
convince them of their wrong behaviour. How could we dissuade our children from
doing the vices that have become our daily practices? That means to say that
first of all we have to exhibit a perfect example for our
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[1] Old Testament, Exodus: 20-2,3.
children. We should be able to chastise them when necessary. You
know that Britons are fond of sports. Sports is something that is almost sacred
to us. If a person does something disingenuous or acts in a crooked way in a
sports activity, he will be punished immediately and lose most of his honour.
The Islamic religion has laid exquisite and very beautiful behavioral maxims
and ideal life-styles, which could be, as it were, compared to our sports
rules. During my research in the Islamic religion, these rules won my
admiration. It was this logic and order that led me to the true religion of
Islam.
Here is the second one of the
Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any
likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth:” (Old Testament, Exodus: 20-4) On the
other hand, today’s Christian churches are full of images and icons, and
Christians prostrate themselves before them!
One thing I had always mused with consternation
about wasthat all those tremendous events, such as the miracles of Îsâ
‘alaihis-salâm’, his crucifixion, [which is a Christian belief], his
resurrection and ascension to heaven after having been intered, had had very
little impact on that time’s Jewish, Roman and other Palestinian community, and
their life-styles had not changed at all. The Jews had been quite indifferent
towards Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, so that it was only centuries later that
Christianity began to spread. Contrariwise, the Islamic religion communicated
by Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ spread far and near in a very short time,
immediately changed the life-styles there, and civilized the semi-barbarous
people. I think the onlyreason was that the original Îsawî religion deterioted
in a short time and changed into a perplexing, semi-idolatrous new Christian
religion, while Islam, on the other hand, was a logical religion intelligible
to everybody. Between 1919 and 1923 I was appointed to a naval duty on the
Turkish waters. That mellifluous voice that called daily from the minarets and
said, “There is only one Allâhu ta’âlâ. Muhammad
‘alaihis-salâm’ is His Messenger.” How lovely it sounded to my ears! Most of
the books about the Islamic religion that I had been reading contained
contumelies against Islam. Their discourse followed the rules of a certain
textual stratagem wherein the first step was to cast aspersions on the last
three hundred years’ Turkish Sultans, who were Khalîfas at the same time, the
second step was to associate the acts of atrocity and injustice already
ascribed to them and reinforced with the
slanders that Turks were mendacious, deceitful and venal people and that they
had been oppressing the minorities, with the Islamic culture, which was their
source of education, and the final step was to conclude that a Muslim could
never be as honest as a Christian. Did the Islamic religion really deserve the
blame? I could never believe it. Eventually, I decided to resort to a Muslim
man of religion to acquire true information. In the meantime, I looked for
Islamic books written by Muslims. Some Muslim religious men living in Britain
found the books I needed and sent them to me. When I read these books, I saw
what a pure religion Islam was, how brilliantly it shone throughout the Middle
Ages, how brightly it illuminated the dark Christian world, how, unfortunately,
in the wake of a general inattention to religious principles growing in the
process of time, the Islamic world gradually lost its vigour, and the recent
efforts to restore it to its former state. Today’s scientific improvements
could find no place in the Christian religion. Conversely, they are in perfect
concordance with Islam. Consequently, the blame for the decline that the
Islamic world has been suffering falls not on the Islamic religion, but on
today’s Muslims, who have fallen short of fulfilling the requirements of this
pulchritudinous religion with due strictness. I no longer had any doubts as to
the merits of the Islamic religion now. So I embraced Islam willingly.
Today, some European
philosophers and writers argue that religions are unnecessary. You must be sure that arguments of this sort
ensue from the preposterous tenets of Christianity and from its superstitions
which would never receive a welcome in the twentieth century. The Islamic
religion, on the other hand, does not contain any of such toxins.
Christians can never understand
why Islam should meet with such universal acceptance, and they call Muslims
‘eccentric people’. This is an entirely wrong accusation.
My final remarks are these: I chose Islam
because it is a religion which is both theoretical and practical, easy to
understand and logical, perfect in every respect, and an exemplary guide for
humanity. The Islamic religion is, and eternally will be, the best way that
will lead man to the love of Allâhu ta’âlâ and
to happiness in this world and the next.