Islam's Reformers .pdf

These appearances are not the imâm himself, although they arehis exact images. You cannot perform the namâz conducted byhim, even if you see his actions on the screen and hear hisvoice.62 - An article by an Egyptian named Muhammad Qutbappeared in a Turkish religious magazine. The article,headlined “The Line of Deviation” was translated from Arabic. Ifthe translation was done correctly, it immediately strikes the eyethat its writer has not a say in the religion. See the derision hisbalderdash provokes:“The victories which the Turks gained in battefieldshonoured Islam. Yet it is a reality as well that Islam lost much ofits meaning in the Turks’ hands. In the hands of the Turks,Islam was frozen insubstantially and its improvement wasstopped. The Ottomans froze and maltreated Islam in all thefields except in military. For example, they didn’t lay onknowledge as much stress as necessary. They stopped ijtihâdand the knowledge of fiqh became fixed.“Eventually, Islam won its independence getting rid of thedamning restriction of the Ottomans, and began to rush forward.This rushing is seen especially in Wahhabite movement inHedjaz and in the movement of Mahdism led by Mahdi inSudan. These two movements have been effective enough tomake Islam recover its own power and its tendency towardsimprovement. Seeing this happy improvement in Islam, theimperialistic crusaders came into play.”The service the Ottoman Turks rendered to Islam is amasterpiece, a monument. One has to be blind or a turkophobenot to see this gigantic monument that has been erected on thesquare of history. What was the source of this dynamism, thismorals, this patience, this heroism, which led the OttomanTurks from one victory to another, as this Egyptian writer has toacknowledge? Was it not Islam? One cannot honour Islam. Onecan be honoured with Islam. Hadrat ’Umar (radiy-Allâhu ’anh),the honourable Amir of Muslims, said, “We used to becontemptible, low people; Allâhu ta’âlâ honoured us by makingus Muslims.” The ignorant, who do not know that Islam is thesource of every kind of virtue and honour, suppose that Islam isto be honoured.The Islamic army advancing towards Vienna from Istanbulmade a halt near a source of water in the neighborhood of- 290 -