Al-Risala (English), December 1987
Al-Risala (English), December 1987, p. 2
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Islamic revolutions are brought about by Islamic people
1987 12 December 2 Islamic revolutions are brought about by Islamic people (66) In the Battle of Badr, a brave idolator asked the Prophet’s permission to join the Muslim army. His request was not granted. “Do you believe in God and His Prophet?” the Prophet asked him. No, “the man replied. I cannot accept help from an idolator,” the Prophet told him. Afterwards, the man proclaimed the testimony of faith, and entered the field of battle as a Muslim.
RECOGNITION
1997 12 December 2 RECOGNITION (293) Wilfred Blunt (1840-1922) travelled extensively in several Muslim countries and, greatly impressed by Islamic civilization, wrote a book called The Future of Islam, which was published in 1882. More recently, an article of his was reproduced in a special number – ‘The World of Islam’ – brought out by the Times in connection with the Festival of Islam celebrated in London in 1976.
The following are excerpts from his article:
“Islam is one of the great religions of the world – numerically second only to Christianity. Iran is no more than a small corner of that vast territory, stretching from the Atlantic to the South China Sea, where the Muezzin’s voice is still to be heard, though today often recorded, calling the faithful to prayer.
“There is, perhaps, nothing more amazing in the whole long history of mankind than the extent and the rapidity of the dissemination of Islam. Who could possibly have foreseen that a middle-aged one-time Meccan tradesman and caravan leader, driven in the year 622 from his birth-place to take refuge in Yathrib (Medina), was to found a religion which within a century of his death would have established itself over half the civilized world, would have struck westwards into the heart of France and eastwards crossed the Indus and penetrated to the frontiers of China.
“And supposing the tide of Islam had not been stemmed? Nothing so delayed the advance of science in the West as the clumsiness of the Roman numerals. Had the Arabic numerals, which had reached Baghdad from India towards the end of the eighth century, been soon afterwards introduced into and adopted by western Europe as a whole, much of that scientific progress which we associate with the Renaissance in Italy might have been achieved several centuries earlier.”
