A Sunnah

mosque and asking everyone who came there to hand over any written portion of the Qur’an which they had in their possession. Zaid Bin Thabit Ansari, who was placed in charge of this great operation on account of his talents and general ability, read all of the collected material and cross-checked it with his memory. This was the first time in history that a book had been subjected to such thorough double-checking. This was understandably a very difficult task for Zaid Bin Thabit, who said: “By God, if Abu Bakr had ordered me to move a mountain from its place, that would not have been more difficult than the task he has given me of compiling the Qur’an.” The tradition which I call the sunnah of spirit—that of creating better understanding—is one of the traditions of the Prophet. Like the other traditions of the Prophet, its continuance as a permanent feature of the Islamic life is highly desirable. It is a tradition of prime importance because it has an inspiring effect on the followers of Muhammad (may peace be upon him). It is a powerful tool to keep them alive and active. This can be illustrated by another example. The Qur’an says that God made His revelations therein in order to warn the people (25:1). As is well known, the Qur’an was originally written in Arabic, whereas thousands of languages are currently being used. How then is it possible to warn all the different communities through the Arabic of the Qur’an? If God had desired all communities to be directly instructed by means of the Qur’an, He would have revealed it in some international language. But this did not happen. This in itself indicates that God desired the faithful to undertake the work of translation so that other communities would be able to understand the Holy Scriptures. This is clearly one of the ‘traditions of spirit’ of the Prophet. Now, the need of the hour is to put this tradition into practice. One way of doing this would be to utilize the modern press and other media to disseminate translations of the message of the Qur’an in simple language. If our leaders had revived this tradition and inspired Muslims to become engaged in translating the Qur’an into different languages, the entire community could already have been fruitfully occupied in this venture. In this way, Muslims would have rediscovered Islam all over again, albeit in the light of modern circumstances. The Qur’an would have caused a religious revolution in their lives. On the contrary, however, in the absence of timely leadership, the whole community is