Why did they become Muslim? LADY ZAYNAB EVELYN COMBOLD (G.B.)

 

LADY ZAYNAB EVELYN COMBOLD (G.B.)



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 tranquillity.
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, Musa (Moses), Issa (Jesus),
and Muhammad Mustafa 'salawatullahi ta'ala 'alaihim ajmain' are
human beings like us. Allahu ta'ala 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 Allahu
ta'ala and the born slave. We can supplicate Allahu ta'ala on
our own any time, and we are responsible only for what we have
done.



The word 'Islam' means both 'to surrender oneself to Allahu ta'ala'
and 'to have belief in Muhammad a.s.. 'Muslim' means 'a person
who lives in peace and happiness with all beings.' Islam is based
on two fundamental facts:



1) That Allahu ta'ala is one, and that Muhammad a.s. 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)
Ihram and prostrate themselves with one accord before Allahu ta'ala?
It is a certain fact that Muslims' worshipping together at these
blessed places where the great Prophet s.a.s. 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 co-operate along the way shown by Allahu ta'ala. 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 Allahu ta'ala, 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.

Why did they become Muslim? Mrs. MAVISH B. JOLLY (G.B.)

 

Mrs. MAVISH B. JOLLY (G.B.)



I was born as a Christian in Britain. I was baptized, and I was
raised with an education based on learning what is written in
today's copies of the Bible. As I was a child, whenever I went
to the church I was deeply impressed by the various lights, the
candles burning on the pulpit, the music, the smells of incense,
and the monks in magnificent attirements. The prayers that I listened
to without understanding their meanings would make me shiver.
I think I was a devoted Christian. In the course of time, however,
as I reached higher levels of education, some questions began
to rise in my mind. I began to find some faults in Christianity,
in which I had held a full belief until that time. As days went
by, I noticed an increase in my doubts. I developed a gradual
apathy towards Christianity. Eventually I ended up in a state
of denial of all religions. That splendid sight of the church,
which had been at one time the center of my infantile admiration,
was now gone, like a phantom. By the time I graduated from the
school, I was an atheist in the full sense of the term. It did not take me long, however, to realize that believing nothing would
hollow the human soul, leaving perpetual mood of despair and weakness.
The human being definitely needed some power that would provide
him refuge. Consequently, I began to study other religions.



I began with Buddhism. I minutely examined the essentials which
they called 'Eight Paths'. These eight essentials contained deep
philosophy and beautiful pieces of advice. Yet there was not a
certain right way that they showed, nor did they provide the information
that would help you choose the right way.



This time I began to examine Magianism. While running away from
trinity, I encountered a religion of many deities. Furthermore,
that religion was too full with myths and superstitions to be
accepted as a religion.



Then I began to study Judaism. It was not an entirely new religion
for me, for the former section of the Bible, the Old Testament,
was at the same time a part of the Judaic book Torah. Judaism
could not satisfy me, either. Yes, Jews believed in one God, which
I approved entirely. But it was all that; they denied all the
other religious facts, and the Judaic religion, let alone being
a guide, had been turned into a cult of various complicated forms
of worship and rites.



One of my friends recommended that I practice spiritualism. "Taking
messages from the spirits of the dead will stand for a religion,"
he said. That would not satisfy me at all. For it took me only
a short while to realize that spiritualism consisted in a manner
of self-hypnotism and could therefore by no means be nutritive
to the human soul.



The Second World War had ended, and I was working in an office.
Yet my soul was still yearning for a religion. One day I saw an
ad in a newspaper. It announced a "Conference on the divinity
of Jesus (Issa a.s.)," and added that people from other religions
would be admitted. The conference revived my deeply-rooted interest.
For in that conference they were going to discuss Issa's a.s.
being the son of God. I attended the conference, and met a Muslim
there. The answers that that Muslim gave to my questions were
so beautiful and so logical that I decided to study Islam, which
had never occurred to me before. I began to read the Qur'an al-karim,
the Holy Book of Muslims. To my astonishment, the rules stated
in this book were by far superior to the statements made by most
of the well-known statesmen of the twentieth century, which aroused
strong feelings of admiration and adulation in me. These statements
were quite above the human linguistic capacity. So I would no
longer believe the lies that "the Islamic religion is a concoction.
The Qur'an al-karim is a fable," with which they had been
dosing us for years. The Qur'an al-karim could not be a concocted
book. Statements in that acme of perfection could be made only
by a being above the human race.



I was still hesitant, though. I spoke with some British women
who had embraced Islam. I asked them to help me. They recommended
some books to me. Among those books were 'Mohammad and Christ',
which compared Muhammad s.a.s. with Issa a.s., and 'The Religion
of Islam', which described the Islamic religion. Another book,
namely 'The Sources of Christianity, explained in an extremely
clear manner that most of the Christian acts of worship were the
continuation of the rites that had been performed by primitive
people, and that today's Christianity is in actual fact an idolatrous
religion.



I should avow that I felt bored when I read the Qur'an al-karim
for the first time. For it contained so many reiterations. It
should be known that the Qur'an al-karim is a book that impresses
and penetrates the human soul slowly. To understand the Qur'an
al-karim well and to attach yourself to it, you have to read it
a number of times. So, the more I read this holy book, the more
strongly did I become attached to it, so much so that I could
not go to sleep without reading it every night. What impressed
me most was the fact that the Qur'an al-karim was a perfect guide
for mankind. The Qur'an al-karim did not contain anything that
a person could not understand. Muslims looked on their Prophet
as a human being like themselves. According to Muslims, the only
aspect that made prophets different from other people was that
their intellectual and moral levels were very high, they were
sinless and faultless. They had by no means any proximity to divinity.
The Islamic religion declared that no prophet would come after
Muhammad a.s.. I objected to that. "Why should there be no
other prophet," I asked. My Muslim friend's explanation was
as follows: "The Qur'an al-karim, the Holy Book of Muslims,
teaches people all the elements of beautiful moral quality that
a person should need, all the religious essentials, the path that
will guide one to the approval of Allahu ta'ala, and all the necessaries
required for attaining peace and salvation in this world and the
next."



The veracity of these statements gets demonstrative evidence from
the fact that the essentials in the Qur'an al-karim, which are
still the same as they were fourteen centuries ago, are perfectly
consistent with today's life-styles and today's scientific levels.
Yet I was still demurring. For we were now in 1954; fourteen centuries
later, that is. I wondered if there was not an iota of obsolescence
in Islam that would make at least one of the principles communicated
by Muhammad a.s., who was born in 571, inconsistent with today's
conditions? I embarked on an assiduous quest for mistakes in Islam.
My efforts to find fault in Islam despite the fact that my soul
had already attained a complete belief in Islam, -so much so that
the verity of the Islamic religion was like a live picture in
front of my eyes-, should no doubt have been rooted in the vilifications
of Islam iterated by priests for the purpose of imposing into
our infant minds the idea that Islam was a very defective, inferior
and heretical religion.



The first file to rake around in was polygamy. Here, I had found
an important loophole. How come a man could marry four women (at
the same time)? When I asked about that, my Muslim friend, whom
I have mentioned earlier, explained the matter as follows: "The
Islamic religion appeared in a society where a man could cohabit
with as many women as he liked without any official responsibility
towards them. With a view to restoring the woman into her proper
place in society, the Islamic religion pared down the number of
women that a man could marry, and stipulated that he should support
the women, mete out justice among them, and pay them (the canonically
prescribed) alimony in the event of a divorce. Furthermore, if
a woman had no one to support her, she could join a family as
a member, not as a slave, of the family. Moreover, marrying four
women was not a religious commandment enjoined on men. It was
a permission with provisos. Marrying more than one women was forbidden
for men who would not be able to fulfil the stipulations. It was
for this reason that many a man had only one wife. Marrying up
to four women was a kind of tolerance." On the other hand,
the Mormons in America compelled every male member to marry several
women. My Muslim friend asked, "I wonder if the British men
cohabit with only one woman?" I confessed in embarrassment,
"Today all European men enter into relations with various
women both before marriage and even after they get married."
Then the words of my Muslim friend reminded me of the story of
a young woman who had lost her husband in the war and had been
looking for a man to entrust herself to. The Second World War
had ended, and a programme called 'Dear Sir' on a British radio
announced the following request of poor young woman: "I am
a young woman. I lost my husband in the war. I have no one to
care for me now. I need protection. I am ready to be the second
wife of a good natured man and to carry his first wife on my head.
All I want is to put an end to this loneliness."



This shows that the Islamic polygamy is intended to satisfy a
need. It is only a permission, not a commandment. And today, when
unemployment and poverty are making the rounds over the entire
world, there is next to no place left where it is practiced. These
thoughts completely eradicated the possibility that I would any
longer look on polygamy as a fault in Islam.



Then, with the presumption of having found another defect, I asked
my Muslim friend, "How can the five daily prayers be adjusted
to our life-styles today? Wouldn't so many prayers be too much?"
He smiled, and asked me, "Sometimes I hear you playing the
piano. Are you interested in music?" "Very much,"
was my answer. "All right. Do you practice daily?" "Of
course. As soon as I am back home from work, I play the piano
at least two hours every day." Upon this, my Muslim friend
said, "Why do you find it too much to pray five times daily,
which would take you only half an hour or forty-five minutes in
all? As you might lose your proficiency in playing the piano if
you did not have practice, likewise the less one thinks of Allahu
or thanks Him for His blessings by prostrating himself, the farther
away will the way leading to Him become. On the other hand, praying
daily means making progress step by step in the right way of Allahu
ta'ala." He was so right!



There was no obstacle to my accepting Islam now. I embraced the
Islamic religion with all my soul and conscience. As you see I
did not choose it at first sight and without thinking at all;
on the contrary, I became a Muslim after examining Islam minutely,
looking for the possible faults in it and finding their answers,
and reaching the conclusion that it is an immaculate religion.
Now I boast about being a Muslim.

Why did they become Muslim? Mrs. MESUDA STEINMANN (G.B.)

 

Mrs. MESUDA STEINMANN (G.B.)



There is not a single other religion to equal Islam in
its simple comprehensibility or in its reassuring smoothness.
Islam is the one and only one religion which infuses a sense of
peace and tranquillity into the human soul, blesses man with a
life of contentment, and guides him to eternal happiness and salvation
after death.



Man is one of the various creatures of Allahu ta'ala. Naturally,
there is some connection between him and the other creatures.
Allahu ta'ala created man in the most perfect form. What gives
him this singular virtue is the soul that he possesses. Man's
soul continuously endeavours to take him up to higher and higher
levels. And the only source to feed the soul is religion.



What kind of a connection is there between man and the Almighty
Being who creates him? No doubt, religion explains this. I studied
the statements made about religion by various scholars. The following
are a few examples:



(Paraphrased) from Carlyle's work 'On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and
the Heroic in History':



"A person's religion is his heart's belief, and it is, therefore,
his most prominent characteristic. Religion is such that it goes
directly into one's heart. It adjusts one's activities in the
world. It shows the way one should follow and determines one's
destination."



(Paraphrased) from Chesterton's book 'If One Should Think':



"Religion expresses the most sublime fact which a person
obtains concerning his and others' existence."



(Paraphrased) from Ambroce Bierce's work 'The Satan's Dictionary':



"Religion is a source that teach people what they do not
know and which infuses both fear and hope into them."



(Paraphrased) from Edmunde Burke's book 'The French Revolution':



"The common commandment of all true religions is to obey
the commandments of Allahu ta'ala, to be respectful of his canon,
and thereby to be closer to His love."



(Paraphrased) from Swedenborg's work 'Doctrine of Life':



"Religion means doing good. The essence of religion is goodness."



(Paraphrased) from James Harrington's book 'The Ocean':



"Everybody has more or less some connection with religion,
whether as a source of fear or as a means of consolation."



Everybody in the world encounters various situations which they
do not know, cannot understand, and cannot explain. It is only
religion that explains to them and which infuses into them a sense
of definite belief and trust.



Why do I believe that Islam is the most perfect of the world's
religions and that it is the true religion? Let me explain:



First of all, the Islamic religion states that there is no god
besides the one Allah, who is great, that He is not begotten and
does not beget, either, and that there is not another creator
like Him. There is not another religion to explain the existence,
the unity, and the grandeur of Allahu ta'ala in the magnificence
worthy of Him. The fourth ayat of Hud sura purports, "[O
my born slaves], your return shall be to Me, alone. Allah is Almighty."
The fifty-fifth ayat of Isra Sura purports, "Allahu ta'ala
has the best knowledge of the celestial and the terrestrial creatures."
Moreover, many chapters of Qur'an al-karim state that "He
is the only creator," that "He is everlasting,"
that "He is eternal," that "He is omniscient,"
that "He is the absolute judge who makes the truest decision,"
that "He is the greatest helper," that "He is the
Creator, who is the most compassionate," and that "He
is the most magnanimous forgiver." I could not explain how
strongly a person is attracted towards Allahu ta'ala, how he melts
before Him, and how he surrenders himself to His Grace, as he
reads these lines. Allahu ta'ala declares, as is purported in
the seventeenth ayat of Hadid Sura, "Know ye (all) that Allahu
ta'ala giveth life to the earth [with rains] after its death [with
drought]. [Likewise, He gives life to dead hearts with Dhikr and
Tilawat]. Already We have shown the signs plainly to you, that
ye may learn wisdom." The Nas Sura purports, "[O Muhammad
s.a.s.!] Say: I seek refuge with my Owner, the Cherisher of mankind,
the King (or Ruler) of mankind, the Judge of mankind, (who sends
them what they need and protects them against horrors), from the
mischief of the whisperer (of evil), who withdraws after his whisper),
-(the same) who whispers into the hearts of mankind,- among Jinns
and among Men."



When a person reads these exalted statements, how could it ever
be possible for him not to believe in that great Creator and not
to seek refuge in Him? Aren't all these enough for a person to
bask in the consciousness of a merciful creator who will protect
him as long as he lives, and thus to abide by the right way?



Islam plainly states that it is the most genuine religion and
that it has accumulated in itself all the correct aspects of those
religions previous to it. It says that all the rules written in
the Qur'an al-karim, Islam's Holy Book, are plain, clear, logical
principles intelligible to everyone. These are extremely true
facts. Indeed, if we really wish to establish a consistent relationship
between Allahu ta'ala and the born slave, to unite the corporeal
and spiritual components in harmony with each other, and to maintain
peace both in this world and in the Hereafter, it is indispensably
incumbent on us to accept the Islamic religion. Our spiritual
and physical progress depends only and only on Islam's support.



Christianity busies itself only with spirituality and conscience
and overloads every individual Christian with spiritual and conscientious
burdens far beyond the human capacity. Christianity prejudges
man as a sinful creature and demands from him preposterous expiations
he could never understand. The Islamic religion, on the other
hand, is based on mere love. A very deep research into Christianity
carried on by a group of highly competent scientists might finally
find a tiny particle of love of Allah among the plethora of heavy
burdens only after an arduous ransack in the people's various
moods. And then the group would sit and lament over the fact that
that tiny particle of love has been lost for good in today's Christianity,
which is awash in superstitions. Coleridge states in one of his
books, "It is a reality that a person who loves Christianity
very much becomes gradually alienated from Christianity and begins
to love the church more, and at the end he loves himself the best."
On the other hand, Islam commands us to respect and love Allahu
ta'ala, to obey His commandments only, and at the same time to
use our own reason and logic. Christianity still contains some
truth. In Islam, on the other hand, everything rests on truth.
In the Qur'an al-karim, Allahu ta'ala addresses to all His born
slaves, regardless of their races and colours, as is purported
in the hundred and eighth ayat of Yunus Sura, "Say, O mankind!
Truth hath come to you from your Rabb (Allah). He who hath taken
the right path hath done so only for his own good, and he who
hath lapsed into aberration hath inflicted a loss only on himself.
I am not your guardian." After reading all these facts and
fully comprehending the tenor of the Qur'an al-karim, I saw that
Islam contained the truest answers to my queries, and I willingly
became a Muslim. Islam showed me the right way and heartened me.
The only way of attaining peace and comfort in the world and salvation
in the Hereafter is to embrace Islam.

Why did they become Muslim? WILLIAM BASHYR PICKHARD (G.B.)

 

WILLIAM BASHYR PICKHARD (G.B.)



It is stated in a hadith ash-Sharif: "Every newly-born baby
is suitable for and agreeable with Islam. Afterwards they are
made Jews, Christians or Magians by their parents." Likewise,
I had been born as a Muslim. Yet it was only many years later
that I realized this fact. Since my childhood I had been deeply
interested in the past. When I graduated from the university,
I began to work as a writer. I was not a well-known writer yet.
Nor could one tell what I was going to be. As a Christian, I had
been given some teaching on the concept of Allah and on how to
worship Allah. Yet my adoration was not confined to their teachings;
I felt the same worship-like attachment towards all paragons of
chivalry and valour that I had read about in history. Eventually,
I was given an office in Uganda, which was under the British sway
in those days. When I went to Africa, I saw that life was entirely
different there. Lifestyles of people living there, the sentiments
that they displayed concerning various worldly events, their behaviours
towards one another amazingly defied the expectations and imaginations
that I had harboured about them when I had been in London. People
living in this place faced the very primitive and onerous life-styles
and all sorts of difficulty they encountered in a sense of absolute
trust, did not lose their jollity at times when one would normally
feel quite despondent, and no degree of poverty could inhibit
them from helping one another. A sacred glue composed of love
and compassion had attached them to one another, which was well
beyond the narrow mental grasp of people of our sort. In fact,
I had taken an interest in the orient during my school days. In
Cambridge, for instance, I had tasted the pleasure of reading
the stories of Arabian Nights. And now, being in Africa, and so
close to the Orient; I resumed reading the book. The difficult
and unaccommodating life I was now leading in Uganda was making
me feel closer and closer to the oriental people. As I was reading
the stories of Arabian Nights now, I was comparing them with the
people of Uganda and, as it were, I was living with them.



I was completely accustomed to life here, when the First World
War broke out. When I applied for military service, they would
not admit me into the military on account of my poor health. When
I felt better I applied again. This time they admitted me, and
sent me to the German front in France. In 1917 I joined the terrible
Somme battles. I was wounded in these battles, and I was captured
by the Germans. They took me to Germany, where I was put in a
hospital. I saw extremely horrendous events in the hospital. Because
of those battles, mankind suffered such horrible afflictions.
Many Russian prisoners of war were brought to the hospital. They
were suffering from dysentery, which had already exhausted them.
food provisions were extremely poor in Germany. They did not give
enough food to the prisoners of war or to the other patients.
I was writhing with hunger. The wound on my right arm never seemed
to be recovering, nor did the one on my right leg. I was already
crippled and paralyzed. I applied to the Germans and requested
them to repatriate me to my country through the Prisoners of War
Exchange Commission in Switzerland. My request was approved by
the Germans. I was sent to Switzerland, where they hospitalized
me again. My arm and leg were entirely out of service. What would
become of me now? How would I earn my living? These thoughts drove
me to infinite despair. As I was in this mood of utter hopelessness,
I somehow remembered the consolatory Koranic statements that I
had read in a book which I had bought in Uganda. In those days
I had read them again and again with deep interest and adoration;
I had even memorized them. I began to pass these statements through
my heart and to repeat them a number of times daily. It gave my
heart a sense of relief and opened the gates of hope. And my hopes
came true, too. The Swiss doctors operated on my leg once again,
and my leg began to feel better. I owed this to the Qur'an al-karim.
As soon as I began to walk, the first thing I did was to go to
a bookstore and buy a translation of Qur'an al-karim by Savary.
[This book is still my most cherished companion.] This time I
began to read the entire Qur'an al-karim. The more I read, the
more relief did my heart feel, the higher did my soul ascend,
the deeper into my essence did a tremendous mass of light penetrate.
My leg was completely well now. Yet my right arm was still motionless.
Upon this, I obeyed the command of the Qur'an al-karim, surrendered
myself to the Will of Allahu ta'ala, and drilled myself in writing
with my left hand. The first thing I did after learning to write
with my left hand was to embark on writing a copy of Qur'an al-karim
with my left hand. At one time, I had been deeply impressed by
an episode in an Islamic book that I had been reading. The episode
was about a young man who was reading the Qur'an al-karim quite
oblivious of his surroundings and without even knowing that he
was in a graveyard where he had come accidentally. I put myself
in his place, delivered my essence to the Grace of Allahu ta'ala,
and carried on my reading the Qur'an al-karim. In other words,
I was a Muslim now.



In 1918 I went back to London. In 1921 I began to attend Arabic
lessons in the University of London. One day my Arabic teacher,
Mr. Belshah of Iraq, told us about the Qur'an al-karim. He said,
"You are free to believe or not. Yet you will find that it
is a very interesting book and that it is worth studying."
When I said, "I know the Qur'an al-karim. I have read it,
and many times, too. I believe in it," he was bewildered.
A couple of days later he took me to the London mosque at Notting
Hill Gate. I joined the daily prayers in that mosque for about
a year. In 1922 I became a Muslim officially.



We are in 1950 now. So far, I have held fast to all the commandments
of Qur'an al-karim with both hands, and this has given me a great
pleasure. Allahu ta'ala's power, compassion and grace are boundless.
The only personal treasure that we can carry on this trek of life
and which we can take to the world to come is to offer hamd-u-thena
[gratitude and glorification] to Allahu ta'ala, to surrender ourselves
with love to that Almighty Being, and to worship Him.

Why did they become Muslim? Prof. Baron HARUN MUSTAFA LEON (G.B.)

 

Prof. Baron HARUN MUSTAFA LEON (G.B.)



(Prof. Baron Leon comes from a prominent British family and possesses
the title of Baron. He owns a Ph. D. and other scientific titles.
He became a Muslim in 1882. He had memberships in numerous scientific
societies in Europe and America. Prof. Leon, who was a great authority
especially in the linguistic and literary sciences, sprang into
the universal limelight with his publication that was called 'Ethimology
of the Human Lexion'. Upon this publication, the Potomac University
of America gave him the degree of M.S. Prof. Leon is at the same
time an expert geologist. He was invited by many famous institutions
and gave conferences of these areas. He was elected as the Secretary
General for the Société Internationale de Philologie=International
Society of Philology, Science and Fine Arts, which had been founded
in 1875. He began to publish a magazine titled (The Philomeths).
He was awarded with various medals by the Ottoman Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid
II, by the Shah of Iran, and by the Emperor of Austria.)



One of the most perfect essentials of the Islamic religion is
that it never demands of Muslims to act against reason. Islam
is a religion whose teachings are quite reasonable and perfectly
logical. The other religions, on the other hand, force people
to accept the tenets of creed that they can never understand,
believe or find logical. In Christianity the church is the only
authority in this respect. Contrariwise, Muslims are commanded
to believe in anything only after mentally examining it (and finding
it logical). Muhammad a.s. states, "Allahu ta'ala has not
created anything irrational or illogical." He states in another
hadith ash-Sharif, "I tell you with certainty that even if
a person performs (his daily prayers of) namaz (regularly), fasts,
pays (the prescribed alms called) zakat, goes on hajj (Muslim's
pilgrimage to Mecca), and carries out all the other commandments
of Islam, he shall be rewarded in proportion to the degree of
his using the mind and logic Allahu ta'ala has endowed on him."



The pure religion preached by Issa a.s. also contained similar
rules. For instance, 'First try everything! Accept only the good
one." Yet, these rules were forgotten in the course of time.
The fifth ayat al-karima of Sura-t-ul-Juma of Qur'an al-karim
purports, "Those people who have been enjoined to learn the
Torah and to adapt themselves to it, and yet who do not obey it,
are reminiscent of an ass with a load of books on its back."



Ali 'radi-Allahu 'anh' states, "The world is dark. Knowledge
is a nur (light)! However, knowledge which is not correct is obscurity."



Muslims hold the belief that "Islam is the very truth itself,"
and they state that Islam's light shines only with the energy
it gets from knowledge and logic, that this knowledge ensues only
from truth, and that truth, in its turn, is discovered by men
owing to the common sense, which is a blessing Allahu ta'ala has
conferred upon them.



The last Prophet of Allahu ta'ala, Muhammad a.s., who is the greatest
blessing Allahu ta'ala has sent to humanity, showed them the path
that they were to follow. It was during his final days (in this
world), when the following incident took place:



It was a couple of days before Muhammad's a.s. passing away, and
he was resting, half conscious, his head on the knees of Aisha
r.a.a. his beloved wife. All the people of Medina were desperately
sad about Rasulullah's illness, which enervated him day by day
and against which they were helpless. Men, women, children were
crying loudly. Among those who were crying were grey-haired, sallow-complexioned,
aged warriors. Muhammad Mustafa al-amin s.a.s. was their commander,
guide, leader, companion, shepherd, an intimate friend with whom
they exchanged confidences, and, the most important of all, their
great Prophet who had rescued them from darkness and guided them
to the light of truth owing to the Islamic religion which he preached.
This great Prophet s.a.s., who had brought them peace and security
by means of Islam, was now bidding 'Farewell' to them. The lamentable
thought that their Prophet was dying was gripping their hearts
like an iron clamp, bringing tears into their eyes, and causing
them to despair deeply.



At last, they risked losing everything, and entered into his presence
in that mood of hopelessness. In tears they asked, "O the
Messenger of Allah s.a.s.! You are gravely ill. Perhaps Allahu
ta'ala will invite you to His presence and you will no longer
be with us. Then, what can we do without you?"



Our Prophet Muhammad a.s. stated, "You have the Qur'an al-karim
to consult." Then they asked, "O the Messenger of Allah
s.a.s.! It is certain that the Qur'an al-karim will be our guide
in many respects. Yet if we cannot find what we are seeking by
looking up in it, and if you have already left us, who will be
our guide?" Upon this, our Prophet s.a.s. stated, "Act
in accordance with what I have told you." This time they
asked, "O the Messenger of Allah s.a.s.! Since you will no
longer be among us, what should we do if we encounter altogether
new matters and cannot find anything about those matters in your
hadiths?"



Our Prophet s.a.s. raised his blessed head slowly from the pillow,
and said, "Allahu ta'ala has given a personal guide to each
and every one of His born slaves. This guide is the common sense,
and his heart, which embodies a conscience. If you use this guide
well and properly, you will never deviate from the right path,
and in the end you will attain to Allahu ta'ala." "Istafti
qalbek, Fe-innaha teskunu bi-l-halal." Here is the Islamic
religion which I boast of having chosen. This religion is the
true religion of Allah, which is entirely based on reason and
logic.



Beware boasting of wealth, nor say, "Who's there like me!"



Harvest-like, a cruel wind winnows all that belongs to thee.

Why did they become Muslim? JALALEDDIN LAUDER BRUNTON (G.B.)

 

JALALEDDIN LAUDER BRUNTON (G.B.)



(Sir Brunton, who comes from an eminent family and who
possesses the title of Baronet, graduated from the Oxford University
and made fame with his publications.)



I am grateful to you for giving me the chance to explain why I
became a Muslim. I grew up under the influence of Christian parents.
Theology was one of the subjects that I was interested in when
I was young. I met some missionaries and closely concerned myself
with the activities they had been carrying on in foreign countries.
My heart felt like helping them. Without being officially appointed,
I joined them in their journeys. To say the truth, although I
had taken religious lessons, the Christian theory that "People
come to this world in a sinful state and they therefore must be
sure to expiate," sounded bizarre to me. For this reason,
I was gradually developing hatred against Christianity. I could
not tolerate the idea that Allahu ta'ala, with all His infinite
power to create anything He wished, would have to create only
sinful creatures, which would run counter to His almightiness
and compassion, and I therefore harboured doubts as to the genuineness
of a religion that described Allahu ta'ala as such. These doubts
developed into curiosity about the instructions that the other
religions gave in this respect, and consequently I decided to
examine the other religions as well. My heart was innerly craving
for a just, merciful and compassionate god, and I was looking
for such a creator, i.e. Allah. I was wondering whether that was
the real Nazarani religion that Issa a.s. had brought. Or had
the pure religion preached by him been polluted in the process
of time? The more I thought about these, the stronger did the
doubts in my heart become, so much so that more often than not
I would pick up today's current Holy Bible, delve into the book,
and at each time find more deficiencies and unintelligible discourses.
Eventually, I reached the conclusion that that book was not the
genuine Holy Book revealed to Issa a.s.. People had made a myriad
of wrong accessions into the Bible, thus turning the pure heavenly
book into an irreparable mixture of facts and fictions.



Having reached an absolute conviction as to this fact, I substituted
Bible-reading with other sorts of preaching to the people that
I met during the journeys I was making with the missionaries.
Instead of mentioning their fictitious theory of 'God, the Son
of God, and the Holy Ghost', for instance, I would inculcate the
facts such as that when man died his soul would not die, that
human beings were created by a great creator, that this great
creator would punish men both in this world and in the next on
account of their sins, and that this great creator, being extremely
compassionate, would forgive men their sins in case they repented
for their wrongdoings.



As days went by, my belief in the unity of Allah developed into
an absolute conviction. In order to penetrate into the inner nature
of truth, I tried to dive deeper and deeper into the subject.
It was sometime during these efforts that I began to study the
Islamic religion. This religion magnetized me so strongly that
I dedicated my entire day to studying it. I happened to domicile
myself in a forlorn Indian village, called Ichra, which was rather
far from the urban areas and whose name almost no one knew. The
inhabitants of this village belonged to a very poor and destitute
caste. Only for the sake of Allahu ta'ala, I was trying to teach
them the existence of a single and compassionate creator and the
right way they ought to follow in this worldly life. I was also
striving to inculcate into them such notions as religious brotherhood
and cleanliness. So strange to say, all these notions I was doing
my best to teach them existed in Islam, not in Christianity, and
I was preaching them not as a Christian missionary, but like a
Muslim religious man.



I am not going to enlarge on the details of the great efforts
I made, the degree of self-sacrifice I achieved, or the severe
difficulties I faced in that lonely and desolate village, among
those unenlightened people. My only concern was to guide them
to spiritual and physical cleanliness and to teach them the existence
of a great creator.



Whenever I was on my own, I would study the life of Muhammad a.s..
Very few books had been written in English to reflect the facts
about his life, yet no effort had been spared on the part of Christians
to criticize and vilify that great Prophet and to incriminate
him with lying. However, I was now able to study Islam fairly,
without being influenced by those books that had been written
under inimical motives. During the course of my studies, I came
to the full realization that it was a definite fact that Islam
was a true religion in which the concept of Allah and reality
became manifest in its clearest identity.



Once you had been informed on the services which the great Prophet
Muhammad s.a.s. had rendered for the good of humanity, it would
be impossible for you to deny his prophethood. Definitely, he
was the Messenger of Allahu ta'ala. As a blessing of Allahu ta'ala,
he, alone, and in a very short time, transformed the Arabs from
a mass of heathens who had been living in utter savagery and nascence,
worshipping many idols, believing in superstitions, leading a
bestial, semi-naked, and overwhelmingly polygamous life, into
a civilized, morally upright and clean nation whose members were
now believing in Allahu ta'ala, observing women's rights, and
always trying to be good-natured and genial. A person never could
have managed such a job without the blessing or help of Allahu
ta'ala. As I thought about the strenuous efforts I put forth in
that tiny village whose population was only one or two hundred,
and how I still could not bring those wretched people to the right
course, my admiration for the work accomplished by Muhammad s.a.s.
grew all the greater. No. Something as great as that could be
accomplished only by the Messenger of Allahu ta'ala. One ought
to believe in his prophethood with all one's heart.



I do not want to make mention of all the other so many even much
more beautiful facts about the Islamic religion. For, by acknowledging
the existence of Allahu ta'ala and the prophethood of Muhammad
a.s., a person has already become a Muslim. One of those days
an Indian Muslim visited me. That polite person's name was Mian
Amiruddin. We had a long conversation on the Islamic religion.
That conversation was the decisive encouragement, and I accepted
Islam.



I believe in the fact that Islam is the true religion of Allah,
in its simplicity, forgivingness, compassionateness and sincerity,
in that it establishes brotherhood among people, and in that one
day it will unite the entire world.



I have reached the last stage of my life, and from now on I have
dedicated myself to the service of Islam.

Why did they become Muslim? ABDULLAH ARCHIBALD HAMILTON (G.B.)

 

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.