Discovery of Islam

for their own communal purposes, they inevitably call their activities Islamic jihad. The harm done by such violent jihad has multiplied 1000-fold due to the modern media’s selective coverage of news. Since hot news is more profitable than soft news, examples of Muslim jihad are seized upon by the media as grist to the mill. This has distorted the image of Islam to such an extent that, today, Islam and violence have become synonymous. A state of affairs has developed in which Muslims have come to believe that the cause of Islam can be served only through jihad activism, that is, armed struggle. With this mindset, they are unable to understand the significance of peaceful struggle. Anyone who talks in terms of peace and tolerance, finds his integrity in question. Any attempt at making them understand the importance of peaceful struggle is seen as a conspiracy to keep them from performing jihad as a “religious duty.” It is thus an extremely difficult task to call Muslims to peaceful Islam. Such a mission involves the risk of being discredited among one’s own co-religionists. In consequence, the call goes unheeded. The Veil of Interpretation One reason for original Islam becoming alien is that, as time went by, self-styled interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah gradually placed a veil over the original content of these texts. A time came when the original Islam was completely obscured from view. The wrong, man-made interpretations took the place of revealed guidance. In later times, people mistakenly took them to be the real Islam. In the early phase of Islam, people derived their religion directly from the Quran and Sunnah; therefore, their association with the original Islam remained intact. But the interpretations