Islam As It Is

brought to an end forever and replaced by the age of religious freedom. This divine plan was brought to completion through the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. This is the command given in the Quran: Fight them until there be no persecution and religion be wholly God’s (8:39). Therefore, Prophet Muhammad received special divine succour in the form of a powerful team consisting of one hundred thousand individuals. Equipped with this team the Prophet waged war to end this coercive system of religious persecution, and it was in Arabia that it was first of all overthrown. Then within a very short span of time, they advanced to abolish the coercive system established by the Sassanid and Byzantine empires. In the wake of this Islamic action, the coercive system was abolished forever in the major part of the inhabited world of the time. This war waged by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions was not a war as is commonly understood, but rather a divine operation, which was carried out by a people who possessed a high standard of moral character. However, this operation was certainly only temporary in nature. Its goal was to put an end to the age of religious persecution and usher in the age of religious freedom. This end was fully achieved during the early period of Islam, the age of the pious Caliphs. Afterwards the time came to keep the sword in its sheath and engage in dawah work, that is, the call to God, which was the real and permanent goal of Islam. According to the explicit command of the Quran, the call to God is the true and eternal mission of