CHAPTER SIX — Modern Possibilities

Muftí Mohd. Abduhu (Egypt) 1849-1 905 Rashid Raza (Egypt) 1865-1933 Shakib Asralaan (Syria-Lebanon) 1869-1946 Dr. Muhammed Iqbal (lndian Subcontinent) 1877-1938 Hasan Al Banna (Egypt) 1906-1 948 The writings and speeches of these thinkers ignited the whole world of Islam. The beginning of the 20th century saw such great movements as influenced whole nations and, at certain times, the whole of the Muslim world. The moving spirits behind these movements were, for instance, the Caliphate Committee, India (1914), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (1919), Al-Ikhwanul Muslimin, Egypt (1928), the Jammat Islami, India and Pakistan (1941) and the Majlis Shura Muslimi. Indonesia (1948), and so on. The common target of these movements was the establishment of an Islamic state. Each of them gained extraordinary popularity, but not even one of them achieved its goal. The single, decisive cause of this failure lay in their having chosen politics as their field of activity. It was not only that it was theoretically divergent from the straight Islamic path and, as such undeserving of divine succour, but it was also, rationally, a wrong course to adopt, for it challenged its opponents in a field in which the latter were in possession of the latest range of military equipment, while the former had only traditional and outmoded weapons to fall back on. From both the theoretical and rational standpoints, first priority should have been given to Dawah as the chosen field of activity. It was in this field that they were clearly superior to their opponents. But, they failed to rise above their immediate circumstances. Such factors as western colonization on the one hand, and the change in political thinking throughout the world caused by democratic and socialist movements on the other, had the effect of converting Islamic movements into political movements. The reformers of the time saw fit to bolster up Islam with contemporary stimulants, (immediate temptations) instead of being content to travel with it along the straight and eternal path. A century ago, Syed Jamaluddin Afghani had realised that there