Islam's Reformers .pdf

will put them to the sword. Hadrat al-Imâm ar-Rabbânî wrote inthe 255th letter in the first volume of Maktûbât that al-Mahdî willkill the heretics occupying religious posts in Medina. Mawdûdîthinks that al-Mahdî will be “not a man of supernatural works orkarâmât, inspirations and spiritual accomplishments, but a manof struggle like other revolutionists.” He says, “Al-Mahdî willfound a new school of thought. As this world has witnessedsinful leaders such as Lenin and Hitler, so there will come avirtuous leader.”Mawdûdî, who disagrees with the Ahl as-Sunna in manymatters, takes Hadrat al-Mahdî as an ordinary leader. Greatscholar Ahmad Ibn Hajar al-Makkî cited some two hundredcharacteristics derived from the hadîths about him in his bookAl-qawl al-mukhtasar fî ’alâmat al-Mahdî. A person whoreads this book can easily see the difference between the realal-Mahdî whom Rasûlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) described and theimaginary one whom Mawdûdî tries to visualize.That the first mujaddid in Islam was ’Umar ibn ’Abd al-’Azîzis another product of Mawdûdî’s short sight. ’Umar ibn ’Abd al-’Azîz was one of the mujaddidîn of the first century of theHegira, but he was not the first mujaddid. According to theunanimity of Islamic scholars and historians, the first mujaddidwas Abû Bakr as-Siddîq (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) who, afterRasûlullah’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) death, subdued the renegadesand prevented the mischief and instigation that arose amongthe new Muslims on the Arabian Peninsula.He says on the fifty-fourth page:“After the death of ’Umar the Second, the administration wasobtained by irreligious hands, which became an obstacleagainst Islam’s way. Fortunately, the Umayyads and ’Abbâsidscould not prevent Islam’s progress. Since the hadîth and fiqhscholars were unfamiliar with rational knowledge, they remaineddevoid of interpreting and explaining the Islamic system underthe light of contemporary inclinations of thought. They could donothing but resort to vicious influences. Imâm Abu ’l-Hasan al-Ash’arî and his successors were not successful, either,because, though they possessed scholastic knowledge, theyhad not been educated in rational knowledge. They went so farin opposing the Mu’tazila that they introduced into the religionthings which did not have place in the religion. Scholars, rulersand masses of people altogether turned their backs to Allah’s- 163 -