Nation of Islam

“ This verse stresses the necessity of fighting against the People of the Scripture, but under what conditions?...The Islamic State is not permitted to attack non-Muslims who are not hostile to Islam, who do not oppress Muslims, or try to convert Muslims by force from their religion, or expel them from their lands, or wage war against them, or prepare for attacks against them. If any of these offenses occur, however, Muslims are permitted to defend themselves and protect their religion. ”

“ Membership into the Muslim nation is open equally and without any qualification or restriction. In this sense it embodies the universalism of Islam: the nation becomes a consciousness of belonging to a religious and political community that is independent of the Muslim state ( [41] , p. 49) . While the Covenants may be interpreted as requiring only Muslims themselves—and not the actually Islamic state—to protect Christians, one can also argue that Muhammad’s role as Caliph of the ummah and his commandments outlined in the Covenants were in fact a type of “law” alongside the Qur’an and hadiths. ”

“ I also know that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. ”

“ By Allah except Whom none has the right to be worshipped, you people know for certain, that I am Apostle of Allah and that I have come to you with the Truth, so embrace Islam." The Jews replied, "We do not know this." So they said this to the Prophet and he repeated it thrice. Then he said, "What sort of a man is 'Abdullah bin Salam amongst you?" They said, "He is our chief and the son of our chief and the most learned man, and the son of the most learned amongst us." He said, "What would you think if he should embrace Islam?" They said, "Allah forbid! He can not embrace Islam." ”

“ With the homage due to God, is the respect due to His revealed will. Moslems claim for the Koran what many Christians do not claim for the Bible—a literal and verbal inspiration. Every word is Divine.
And not only is the unity of God the cardinal truth, but it is vital to salvation. In this respect Islam is a Religion. It is not a mere philosophy, the acceptance or rejection of which is a matter of indifference. It is not merely a system of good morals—it is a Divine code for the government of mankind, whose acceptance is a matter of life and death—of salvation or damnation. ”

“ If we could close our eyes, our memories, our knowledge, and open them on the Mediterranean sea-board in those days—no more history written, no more history {114} made—looking out upon the elaborate administration of the empire and upon its splendid pomp, what a future we should have predicted! Islam had a fair field before it, if ever religion had. How in the slow march of the centuries strongly and progressively it could work out its faith! To what sublime heights could it not lead a civilized world in six centuries of time! ”

“ Mohammed himself was far more than a warrior, or even than a ruler—first and foremost, he had stood forth as the Prophet. And we shall never understand Islam if we regard it only as a battle-cry. The task which Islam set itself was more than the conquest of the nations. That might have left them Zoroastrian or Pagan, Jew or Christian still. Its task was not merely to defeat armies, but to proclaim a creed and win adherents to it. Therefore, as the Caliph's armies marched, conquering province after province, the inhabitants were summoned to declare their faith in Islam and to repeat the creed. ”

“ In spite of the rise of younger nations, the magnificence of medieval Europe, the growth of science and the arts of civilization and of war, in spite of many rival empires in the modern 'scramble for the world,' Islam still holds with its tenacious grip the thoughts and hearts of men. It dominates to-day one-seventh of mankind, moving still to fresh conquests of the Faith. We have traced that Faith in history and seen it settling like a deadly blight upon the nations, chilling and paralyzing the moral life of man. ”

“ The religion of Islam has more adherents than it had; its dominion is marked by three Moslem empires: Turkey, Persia, and Morocco; it is the religion of Arabia still; its followers predominate in Egypt, in Asia Minor, in Afghanistan, in the East Indies. It numbers many millions throughout Africa, India, China, Russia, and the Philippines; but nowhere, unless it be possibly in some of the most degraded districts of pagan Africa, do Moslems stand above their fellows in enlightenment, in morality, in progress. {115} Has Islam, then, failed to meet men? ”

“ Every sin, every falsehood, every injustice, every cruelty, every wrong, may challenge but they do not deny that Kingdom—Islam does.
Bringing its ideals down to the level of our nature, it denies the best in man, and denies the Christ of God—the One who alone has triumphed and in whose triumph lies man's only hope. Give the world to Islam, and man's highest vision is gone for ever. ”

“ It is to be noted that Muslims are ordered to sacrifice their lives not only to save their own mosques but the religious houses of other peoples as well. The civilized world, with Christian notions of intolerance lurking in its breast, is still far from holding the noble principle thus enunciated in the Holy Qur-án. And there is yet another lesson in Islam to be learned by Christian rulers of other nations. A Muslim king is enjoined by his religion to help in the maintenance of others temples and shrines. ”

“ He too observed the law of Muḥammad (peace be upon him!) in all the countries under his rule, and throughout his reign the followers of the faith of Islam enjoyed complete prosperity. Now that by the goodness and favour of God this Kingdom of K͟hurāsān, ʻIrāq, Mā-warāʼ-al-nahr, etc., has passed into my hands, the administration is carried on throughout the whole kingdom in accordance with the pure law of the Prophet; righteousness is enjoined and wrong forbidden, and the Yarg͟hū and the institutes of Chingīz K͟hān have been abolished. ”

“ Few of us realize that Islam is one of the most potent forces in the world today, that it counts its adherents by the hundred millions, that in the waste places of the earth it converts its hundreds where Christianity wins its tens, that its followers occupy a belt of the best territory on earth, extending from Morocco and the Sudan to China and the Philippines. ”

“ Islam is material, her ideals are powerful and simple, there is through all that unification of leader and led that all can appreciate. One God, one Prophet, one Book, each in its own rational relation to the other, a simple doctrine, powerful in its direct appeal to the unity, a leader, a prophet who lays down with the despotism understood of the ancient Semitic spirit, law and letter for all things; that is a creed that the Arab mind sees as tangible, if such an expression be permissible ”

“ Truly, they have committed an act at which Islam is revolted, as well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the earth, be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolators. As God lives, it is a shameful deed, the like of which has not been done by any people counting themselves as civilised. ”

“ On the grounds of a common humanity, on the grounds of a common sympathy, by a common birth and a common death they are equal. It is not for Christendom to hang back. Islam is quite ready to meet her more than half-way. From the superior vantage ground of her position, it is for her to hold out the right hand of fellowship. It is for her to recognize the real worth of Islam. It is for her to respect not to contemn her great coadjutor. For her to regard Islam, not as a foe or even a rival, so much as a great and worthy co-partner with her, in the work of civilization. ”

“ Unfortunately the great Arabian reformer of the seventh century was driven by the necessities of his position to do more than found a religion. He endeavoured to found a social system. The reasons why Islam as a social system has been a complete failure are manifold. ”

“ For barbarous nations, then, especially—nations which were more or less in the condition of Arabia itself at the time of Mahomet—nations in the condition of Africa at the present day, with little or no civilisation, and without a reasonable religion—Islam certainly comes as a blessing, as a turning from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God. ”

“ Islam may prosper apart from political ascendency.
The political ascendency of Islam is doomed. Every year witnesses a sensible degree of subsidence. In the close connection of the Moslem faith with the civil power, this cannot but in some measure affect the prestige of Islam itself. Nevertheless, the religion may long retain its hold upon the people, unimpaired by the decline of its sway in the State. ”

“ That agitation and unrest exist throughout the Moslem world would be nothing either new or unusual. In a human sense, Islam is identical with Christendom. She too has her social functions, her political parties, associations, confederations and societies. She has her religious sects and denominations. As with us, so with Islam, there are affinities, and antipathies, emulations and jealousies, competitions and rivalries, likes and dislikes, envy, malice, hatred and all uncharitableness. The interest of self predominates before all else. ”

“ The common-sense of the Muslim community, working through that expression of catholicity, has set aside in the past even the undoubted letter of the Qur’an, and in the future will still further break the grasp of that dead hand. It is the principle of unity in Islam. But there is a principle of variety as well. The four schools of law whose origin has been traced are all equally valid and their decisions equally sacred in Muslim eyes. The believer may belong to any one of these which he chooses; he must belong to one ”

“ And above all things, this Statesman Prophet was the essence and personification of centralization and concord. For unity alone rendered Islam feasible. Thus in the second Surah he insists that mankind was of one faith from the beginning. Thus too as a just, faithful and consistent man, he is opposed to violence and taking the offensive, even in the name and under the cloak of religion; he constantly advocates and authorizes (that is, has God’s authority for) the defensive. He even recommends, at the same time that he excuses, war and retaliation on the unbeliever and infidel. ”

“ Even up to the present day, the Muhammadan law has failed to establish itself absolutely, even where the authority of Islam is generally predominant, and there is still a constant struggle between the adherents of the old Malayan usages and the Ḥājīs, who having made the pilgrimage to Mecca, return enthusiastic for a strict observance of Muslim Law. ”

“ So, too, to denounce Islam, as Christian missionaries do in no unmeasured terms, in books, on platforms and in the pulpit, is surely unpardonable—surely a reflection on civilization. Christianity will never convert or supplant Islam. As long as the one lasts the other will endure. From the most catholic of standpoints, from a religious, a social, a political, and an economic sense, it would be sounder and more politic to leave Islam alone. ”

“ Those legists who held that the polytheists and idolaters may either be fought against or be submitted to the authority of Islam by being tributaries, took the word in its proper sense of submission. Those who held that "the people of the Book" ought only to be made tributaries, while all other idolaters and polytheists should be compelled either to perish or to embrace Islam, interpret the word technically to mean the religion of Islam. ”

“ When, however, Islam emerged from Arabia in the first decade of her existence, and embracing a foreign civilization found herself face to face with new conditions of life, mere custom ceased to be a sufficient guide ”

“ It is to the proselytising efforts of these Arab and Indian merchants that the native Muhammadan population, which we find already in the earliest historical notices of Islam in these parts, owes its existence. Settling in the centres of commerce, they intermarried with the people of the land, and these heathen wives and the slaves of their households thus formed the nucleus of a Muslim community which its members made every effort in their power to increase. ”

“ As regards the spiritual, social, and dogmatic aspect of Islam, there has been neither progress nor material change since the third century of the Hegira. Such as we found it to have been then, such is it also at the present day. The nations may advance in civilisation and morality, in philosophy, science, and the arts; but Islam stands still. ”

“ The Koran was the immediate consequence of his concentration and communion with Nature and Nature’s God: Islam the natural result. In other words, Islam is the devotion of Moslems to Mohammed and the Koran—his work, plus their patient resignation and entire submission to God, His will and His service! The man of fixed and unchanging purpose has a supreme contempt for obstacles. But when, as in Mohammed’s case, that purpose is the glorification of God, he has at hand a lever that can move the world. In this peculiar sense the great Prophet of Arabia was self-contained. ”