Why Did They Become Muslims

MUSLIMS ARE NOT IGNORANT
One point of agreement conspicuous in the Western
publications concerning Islam and in the books which travellers
wrote about Islam is that Muslims are extremely ignorant, that
most of the Muslim people they contacted in Asia and Africa did
not know how to read and write, and that there is not a Muslim
name among the scientists who made a reputation in science or
culture throughout the years covering the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Some of those Western sources make a
narrow-minded diagnosis, alleging that the Islamic religion is an
impediment to progress, while others reach the ungrounded
conclusion that it is this ignorance that blindfolds Muslims from
the greatness of Christianity and hampers them from accepting
Christianty despite all the efforts of missionaries.
A retrospective look into history will reveal that the truth is
quite counter to the Christian allegations. For Islam always
commends knowledge and encourages Muslims to learn. The ninth
âyat-i-kerîma of Zumar Sûra purports, “... Say: Are those equal,
those who know and those who do not know? It is those who are
endued with understanding that receive admonition.” (39-9) The
following commandments of our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa
sallam’ are universally known: “Even if knowledge is in China, go
and learn it.” “There is Islam wherever there is knowledge.” “It is
farz (Islam’s commandment) for Muslim men and Muslim women
to look for knowledge and learn it!” Islam holds knowledge equal
with worshipping, and the ink used by scholars equal with the
blood of Muslims. Muslims reject Christianity because the Islamic
religion is much more logical and much more true than
Christianity.
Islam is not a regressive religion, but on the contrary it
commands to follow all the renovations, to explore new facts daily,
and to always make progress. It is for this reason that from the
earliest days of Islam great value was attached to men of
knowledge, the Muslim Arabs reached the highest summits in
medicine, in chemistry, in astronomy, in geography, in history, in
literature, in mathematics, in engineering, in architecture, and in
ethical and social sciences, which are the bases for all those
sciences, educated valuable scholars, judges, experts and masters,
who are still being remembered with deep reverence today, and
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