Islam at The Crossroads

Muhammad Asad Is a convert to Islam. In 1922 he travelled from his native

country of Austria, to travel to Africa and Asia as a special correspondent to
some of the leading continental newspapers. From that year onward he spent
nearly the rest of his life in the Islamic East. He was just there as an observer but
became fascinated by their more human conception of life, compared to the
mechanised living way of life in Europe. He studied these differences and began
to investigate Islam. As he studied it he began to see how people did not
properly follow the teachings of Islam and tried to incorporate them and change
them to fit in with western ideals. He also discovered the reason for the collapse
of the Muslim world was because they stopped following the teachings of Islam.
The more he understood how practical the teachings of Islam were the more
eager he became in questioning other Muslims as to why they had abandoned
their full application if Islam in their lives. He questioned many people an
eventually he a non-Muslim, began defending Islam from their negligence and
insolence. One day in Autumn 1925in the mountains of Afghanistan a governor
said to him you are a Muslim, only you dont know it yourself. When he
returned to Europe in 1926 he saw the only logical consequence of his attitude to
be to accept Islam.
When he is questioned to the particular aspect of Islam that made him embrace
Islam he said that it wasnt one particular but rather the whole religion and the
inexplicably incoherent moral teaching and practical programme.
In the Quran it says Surely we create man in the best structure-but in the same
breath the verse continues: and afterwards we reduce him to the lowest of
the low: with the exception of those who have faith and do good works (surah
95:4,5)
This shows how in Islam man is made good, only by his actions is he reduce(d)
to the lowest of the low. This makes logical sense as how can one be held
accountable for the actions of those who came before him? But in Christianity
man is still paying for the sins committed by Adam and Eve, man is made and he
is already sinful. He must try hard to try and pay for the sins of those he had no
connection to. This is the dogma theory in Christianity and even if it is not
followed in practice by many its existence still creates permanent feeling of bad
consciousness in the religiously incline man.
Comparisons are often made between the Roman empire and the Islamic empire.
But apart from the fact they covered large areas of land they hold nothing else in
common. The Roman empire took nearly 1000 years to grow to its full
geographic extent while the Islamic empire sprung up and grew to its fullness in
a short period of 80 years. The collapse of the Roman empire was sealed by the
migration of the Huns and Goths and in one century nothing was left except
literature and architecture. Whereas the Islamic empire went through different
phases and changes but essentially was the same, it survived more brutal
attacks than the Huns and Goths. Even that of the Mongols- which was far more
violent than the Huns and Goths- was not able to shake the social organisation of
the empire. The empire needed a millennium of slow decay until its political
breakdown. The Islamic empire stretched across three continents and had a
spiritual element to it that helped it grow. The Roman empire had no such thing,
even their religion was an imitation of Greek mythology. And this was the soil out
of which much of the west at the time grew from, because of the lack of religious
influence and other factors much of the west ceased to develop, that is until the
renaissance. This was the rebirth of Europe when science and art excelled and
essentially changed the western world. At the time religion was taken more
seriously, given it was Christianity but it still helped boost the people in all
aspects of their lives. Also many of the western people took influence from
places such as the Moors in Spain who had helped to develop the country, with
exceptional architecture and advances in science and math. Without religion and
Islam, the west we know today would not be in existence.