Discovery of Islam

tragic phenomenon of the alienation of Islam as predicted in the Hadith. Why Islam alone We seldom hear the adherents of other religions complaining about their faiths being misunderstood. For instance, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians do not hold that their respective religions are badly understood. One reason is that they do not mix their religions with communal politics, and do not generally try to advance their own worldly interests in the name of their religions—as present-day Muslims are doing on a large scale. One who studies Islam, directly from its sacred scriptures, is astonished to find that the original Islam is totally different from what it is now generally held to be. Other religions are known to people as they are; hence, the need to rediscover them does not arise. The problem of misapprehension applies, therefore, exclusively to Islam. There is a great need to study Islam from its original scriptures in order to rediscover it in its original form. In modern times, many books have been published with the aim of removing misunderstandings about Islam. One title is as follows: ‘Islam, the Most Misunderstood Religion.’ But titles such as these are not in accordance with the actual state of affairs. These books start with the premise that nonMuslims have mistakenly come to regard Islam as a religion of intolerance and violence, and then they attempt to remove these misapprehensions. But the actual question to be addressed is why there should ever have been such a misunderstanding. It has to be conceded that it is based not on some allegation but rather on the fact that the Muslims of today, in almost every country, repeatedly display violence and intolerance towards others. They have adopted this course of action in the name of