ABDULLAH ARCHIBALD HAMILTON (G.B.)
(Sir Archibald Hamilton, a well-known British diplomat, served
as a naval officer during the First World War. Coming from a widely
known family, he possesses the title of baronet, (which means
a candidate baron). He was honoured with becoming a Muslim in
1923.)
Since reaching the age of puberty, I had been allured by Islam's
simplicity and crystalline limpidity. I had been born as a Christian
and I had been given a Christian education. Yet I had never believed
in wrong credal tenets, and I had always preferred truth, right
and reason to blind beliefs. I had been aspiring to worship one
Allah sincerely and with a peaceful heart. Yet, both the Roman
Catholic Church and the English Protestant Church had been short
of serving this pure intention of mine. It was for these reasons
that I answered the call of my conscience and accepted Islam,
which satisfied me fully, and only after that did I begin to feel
myself as a true and better born slave of Allahu ta'ala.
Sad to say, various Christians and ignorant people have misrepresented
Islam as a religion of falsities and concoctions that are intended
to induce torpor into the humanity. But the fact is that it is
the only true religion in the sight of Allahu ta'ala. Islam is
a perfect religion which brings about unity between the powerful
and the weak as well as between the rich and the poor. Economically,
there are two main classes of people. The first class contains
people whom Allahu ta'ala has blessed with worldly riches. The
second class is made up of those who have to work for a living.
There is yet another class. People in this class live in utter
destitution because they cannot earn enough, because they have
lost their jobs, or because they can no longer work, none of which
cases is their fault. Islam enables all these three classes to
come together in a harmonized society. It commands the rich to
help the poor. It provides a social setting where humiliations
and afflictions are extirpated.
The Islamic religion lays emphasis also on personal abilities,
efforts and skills. According to the Islamic jurisprudence, if
a poor peasant, for instance, cultivates an ownerless piece of
land on his own for a certain length of time, the land becomes
his personal property. The Islamic religion is not destructive,
but it is restorative.
The Islamic religion prohibits gambling and all the other vicious
and deleterious games. The Islamic religion prohibits also all
sorts of intoxicants. Indeed, the majority of afflictions people
suffer in the world are caused by gambling or alcohol.
We Muslims are not people who hold the belief that everything
is a slave in the hands of destiny. Destiny in the Islamic sense
does not mean to sit idly with your mouth opened in the celestial
direction and to expect that Allahu ta'ala will give you everything.
On the contrary, Allahu ta'ala enjoins work in the Qur'an al-karim.
Man should do his best and hold fast to all the apparent causes;
only after that will he put his trust in Allahu ta'ala. Not without
working, but while working, should he beg Allahu ta'ala to help
him for success and earning. The Islamic credal tenet which says
that "good and evil come from Allahu ta'ala" means,
"Allahu ta'ala is the Creator of all." Islam does not
contain a tenet encouraging people to idle away their time. Destiny
means Allahu ta'ala's knowing in the eternal past all the events
that will take place and His creating everything when the time
in His knowledge comes.
Islam never accepts a credo based on the belief that human beings
are originally sinful, that they are born with sins, or that they
have to expiate their sins throughout their lives. Islam states
that human beings are the born slaves of Allahu ta'ala, men and
women alike, and that with respect to mental and moral qualities
the two sexes are not very different from each other. Only, because
men are more powerful and stronger by creation, onerous and tiresome
duties such as supporting the family have been given to them,
while women have been blessed with a more comfortable, more cheerful
and happier life.
I do not want to say much on how Islam establishes brotherhood
among all Muslims. For the entire world knows how Muslims love
and help one another. In Islam all people, the rich, the poor,
the nobles, villagers, civil servants, workers, merchants, are
equal in the presence of Allahu ta'ala, and they are brothers.
Throughout my travels in the Muslim countries, I felt as if I
had been in my own home and among my brothers, wherever I went.
A final remark I would like to add is this: Islam invites people
both to work honestly all the day long and to carry on his acts
of worship, his duties as a born slave to Allahu ta'ala. Today's
Christianity, on the other hand, induces into people a life style
consisting in Masses in the name of worship only on Sundays and
a complete oblivion of Allahu ta'ala covered with worldly occupations
and sins throughout the rest of the week.
It was for these reasons that I became a Muslim, and I am proud
of having become a Muslim.
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