Conversion: An Intellectual Transformation (Part II

choice of title for the book. I felt that it might more justifiably have been called “The Politicization of Conversion”. This would have underscored the necessity to avoid the sensationalism of giving a political hue to something which was, after all, a natural reality. What is conversion? Usually conversion is equated with proselytism. But conversion, in its broadest sense, is much further-reaching, in that it is a universal principle of nature. It is a historical process—healthy and inexorable—and attempting to put a stop to it would be like trying to put a stop to history itself. And who in this world has the power to do so? Conversion, in reality, is the birth of an entirely new entity resulting from the encounter between old and new schools of thought. This is a universal law established by nature itself. The study of human history reveals that a certain process is always at work, which Carl Marx had wrongly called dialectical materialism. More rightly this is a dialogue-conversion process. That is, when two systems of thought clash with each other, an intellectual revolution ensues. This dialogue-conversion process is the only ladder to all kinds of human progress. That is, whenever any revolution of civilization has been produced or a human group has succeeded in performing some great creative role, it has always come in the wake of this same dialogue—conversion process. There is no single form of this process. It can be religious or non-religious in nature. In the history of the last fifteen hundred years we find two major examples—one of religious conversion and the other of secular conversion. The history of the Arabs provides the example of religious conversion. Up to the sixth century A.D., the Arabs led a