The Call of Dawah in the Modern Age March-April

Zoroaster and Sri Krishna, or in Buddha and Christ. The very existence of those prophets has been seriously doubted and even totally denied; but nobody, as far as I am aware, has ever ventured to reduce the Prophet of Islam either into a “solar myth” or into a “fairy tale.” Then he goes on to observe, “Oh, what a relief to find, after all, a truly historical prophet to believe in.” (From Why Have I accepted Islam?” A lecture delivered on the 26th August 1904, in Hyderabad). This is the status described in the Quran as the ‘position of praise and glory’ (17:79), that is, the position of historical prophethood. This verse of the Quran indicates that the Prophet of Islam, unlike other prophets, would not be an unknown personality. His teachings would be preserved for all time to come. This is a great advantage for the dayees of Islam in modern times since it enables them to achieve unopposed victory in the field of dawah. The urge to find God is something which man is born with. It remains inherent in his nature. That is why he is eternally seeking the truth. In this he resorts to human sciences, but it is of no avail. Then he turns to religions, only to find that in their present ill-preserved form, they are lacking in historical credibility. Here we are in a position to tell the seekers of truth that what they have been questing after has been available with us all along, that is, the Quran and the hadith in their pristine form. And if they are in that pristine form, it is because they have been so carefully and reverentially preserved. The Prophet of Islam may be regarded as the definitive source of divine truth because his life and teachings have been fully authenticated by historical records. It is this absence of controversy which has been the mainstay of the Prophet’s reputation at all times. This is a very great blessing of God, in that it has made it possible to perform dawah today from the strongest possible position.