My Advice to the Ulama

efforts of the Ulama did not result in the establishment of purely Shariah-based rule in any Muslim country. However, what did result was that everywhere the Muslims became divided into, broadly, two mutually opposed camps that were at war with each other. If the non-Muslim forces killed the Muslims in the colonial period, now the Muslims began killing their co-religionists. Had the Ulama of the Muslim-majority countries stayed aloof from politics, and focused, instead, on the reform of the Muslims, awakening the true spirit of Islam among them, producing Islamic literature according to modern standards that would promote an urge to discover Islam among people, and works of a similar kind, they would have been better enabled to play a role in establishing governance more truly in line with the teachings of Islam. They would then have played the role of transforming Muslim societies into Islamic societies. The true secret behind the dominance of the Western powers was that they had transformed the human mindset. To successfully meet the challenge of the Western nations, it was now necessary to counter them in the realm of ideas. My advice to the Ulama of both Muslim-majority and minority countries is