Both of my parents were devotedly religious, one of them a Catholic and the other a Jew formerly. Later, they both abandoned their religions and became Protestants and began to attend the Anglican Church. When I was in school I regularly attended the rites performed in the Anglican Church and listened to the lessons given by the priests. Yet the Christian credal tenets that they were trying to teach me contained a number of elements that I did not understand and which seemed quite irrational to me. First of all, the tripartite godhead which consisted of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost sounded so silly to me that it was impossible to accept it. My conscience rejected it vehemently. Moreover, the ecclesiastical credo that attaining God would require expiation was altogether meaningless too. In my idealization, the great being who was (and always is) the only being worthy of being worshipped would not demand compulsory expiation from His born slaves.
Upon this, I began to examine the Judaic religion. I saw that their approach to the unity and grandeur of Allâhu ta’âlâ was much more reasonable and that they did not attribute a partner to Him. Perhaps Judaism was not so badly interpolated as today’s Christianity. However, that religion also contained some grotesque tenets which I could not understand and would never accept. There were so many rites, prayers and compulsory religious practices in the Judaic religion that a pious Jew would have no time left for worldly occupations if he were to observe all those religious obligations. I knew that most of those rites were stupid parodies that had been inserted into the religion later by people. Thereby the Judaic religion had been thoroughly stripped of its social character and become the religion of a small minority. Concluding that there was nothing in Judaism for the world to benefit from, I left it aside, and focused my quest into other religions. In the meantime I attended both the church and the synagogue. Yet those visits were done for quasi-religious purposes. In fact, I was neither a Christian nor a Jew. Alongside the Anglican Church, I examined the Roman Catholic Church, too. I saw that the Catholic credo contained more superstitions than did the credo of those Protestants who were adherent to the Anglican Church. Especially, the Catholics’ excessive adherence to the Pope and their semi-deification of him made me hate them all the more.
Now I turned my face to the east and began to examine the oriental religions. I did not like Magians’ religion at all. For they gave too much prerogative to the priestly caste. A pariah, on the other hand, would deserve what remained from their scorn for beasts. It never occured to them that they should have compassion for the poor. According to them, a person’s poverty was his own fault. If he put up with it silently and without any complaints, there might be some improvement in his situation owing to the priests’ intermediary invocations. The priestly order purposely spread this belief in order to strike a fear of themselves into the people’s hearts and to make the people feel dependent on them. Therefore I hated the Magian religion. And my hatred even doubled when I knew that the Magians worshipped animals. A cult of that sort could not be a true religion.
As for Buddhism; the Buddhists adhered to philosophical thoughts and beliefs. They told me that, if I should exert myself, try very hard and practice the required abstinences, I would obtain great powers and play with the world like doing chemical experiments. However, I did not find any ethical rules in Buddhism. In this system also, the priestly order were different from the ordinary people and occupied a higher status. Indeed, they taught me many wonderful feats of skill. Yet those things had nothing to do with Allah and religion.
Those feats of skill were, like sports or illusionistic artifices, were pastime activities and served only to amaze people who did not know them. They were far from purifying the human heart or bringing man closer to the approval and love of Allâhu ta’âlâ. They had nothing to do with Allâhu ta’âlâ or with the beings He created. The only benefit they gave was that they drilled a full self-discipline into the practicer.
There is no doubt as to the fact that Buddha was a well-educated, intelligent man. He enjoined a full-scale self-sacrifice on them. He gave commandments such as, “Do not retaliate evil!” “Forego all your desires and ambitions!” “Do not think of tomorrow!” Didn’t Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ say the same things? But commandments of this sort had been observed during the earlydays of Christianity, when the religion of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ had been in its pure form; people had already given up obeying them. I diagnosed the same laxity in the Budhhist societies. If people were as pure-hearted as Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ or as benevolent as Buddha, they would in all probability follow their guidance and attain the state approved by Allâhu ta’âlâ. But how many people in the present world could be so pure-hearted and noble-natured as to cease from all vices? It came to mean that the ethical principles laid by Buddha were not practicable in the modern man’s system of thoughts.
How strange it was that I was living in the Islamic world and yet I was examining the other religions without thinking a bit about Islam! The reason was clear: We had already been brainwashed with the information of Islam given to us and with the books written about it in Europe, which asserted that that religion was entirely wrong, meaningless, and false, and that it infused torpor. Reading Rodwell’s translation of the Qurân al-kerîm had specially fixed these preconceptions into my subconscious. Rodwell had purposely mistranslated some parts of the Qur’ân al-kerîm and distorted its meanings, thus turning the holy book into a mass of unintelligible words altogether different from the original version. It was not till after having contacted the ‘Islamic Society’ in London and having read a true translation of the Qur’ân al-kerîm did I know the truth. One thing I would regret to say at this point is that Muslims are doing very little to advertise this lovely religion of theirs to the world. If they try to spread the true essence of Islam over the entire world with due attention and knowledge, I am sure that they will achieve very positive results. In the near east people are still reserved towards foreigners. Instead of coming into contact with them and illuminating them, they prefer to keep as far away as possible from them. This is an exceedingly wrong attitude. I am the most concrete example. For I was somehow hindered from being interested in the Islamic religion. Fortunately, one day I met a very respectable and highly cultured Muslim. He was very friendly with me. He listened to me with attention. He presented me an English version of the Qur’ân al-kerîm translated by a Muslim. He gave beautiful and logical answers to all my questions. In 1945 he took me to a mosque. With intent attention and deep respect, I watched the Muslims praying there, which was a sight I was watching for the first time in my life. O my Allah, what a gorgeous and sublime sight it was! People from all races, all nations and all classes were worshipping. All those people had come together without any sort of segregation in the presence of Allâhu ta’âlâ, and they had entirely devoted themselves to Allâhu ta’âlâ. Next to a rich Turk, for instance, stood a very poor Indian clad in beggar-like clothes, next was an Arab who I would say was a merchant, and besides him prayed a negro. All these people were performing a prayer in profound reverence. No one was different from any other. Entirely oblivious to their nationalities and economical, social and official statuses, they had focused all their existence to the worship of Allâhu ta’âlâ. No one assumed superiority to another. The rich did not despise the poor, nor did persons of rank have an iota of scorn for their juniors.
Seeing all these marvels, I realized that Islam was the religion that I had been seeking for. None of the other religions that I had examined up to that time had had an effect like that on me. In fact, after seeing Islam closely and learning the essence of Islam, I accepted that true religion without any hesitation.
Now I am proud of being a Muslim. I attended lectures on “The Islamic Culture” at a university in Britain, whereupon I saw that as Europe had suffered the gloom of the Middle Ages, Islam had shone through the darkness and illuminated everywhere. Many great explorations had been accomplished by Muslims, Europeans had been taught knowledge, science, medicine and humanities in the Islamic universities, and numerous world conquerers had embraced Islam and established great empires. Muslims were not only the founders of a universal civilization, but also the recoverers of many an ancient civilization devastated by Christians. When the news of my conversion to Islam got about, my friends began to remonstrate with me and to accuse me of retrogression. Each time they did so I answered them with a smile: “Quite the other way round. Islam is not retrogression. It is the most advanced civilization.” Sad to say, today’s Muslims have fallen behind. For Muslims have been gradually getting less and less appreciative of their possession of so sublime a religion as Islam, and more and more negligent in carrying out its commandments.
The Islamic countries still boast the intact remnants of a warm hospitality. When you go to a Muslim’s house, he will welcome you in a balmy air of readiness to help you. For helping others is one of Islam’s commandments. It is one of the basic Islamic tenets for the rich to help the poor by giving them a certain percentage of their wealth. This property does not exist in any other religion. This comes to mean that Islam is the most, and the only, suitable religion for the present social life-styles. It is for this reason that there is no place for Communism in Muslim countries. For Islam has by far forestalled that social problem by prearranging the most essential solutions.
26
H.F. FELLOW
(G.B.)
I am a naval officer. I spent a major part of my life on the sea. I served the British navy in the First World War in 1914 and in the Second World War in 1939.
Even the most perfect tools and machines of the twentieth century are far below the capacity to resist the terrific forces of nature. Let me give you a small example: we have no means as yet to defend ourselves against fog or storms. A warlike situation adds a lot more to these dangers. A naval officer has to be always very careful. The British navy holds a book that contains the Queen’s Directions and the Directions put by the Admiralty. The book embodies not only records such as the duties of a naval officer and the procedures to be followed at times of danger, but also a list of awards, citations and rewards that are to be bestowed in recognition of good behaviour and distinguished services, salaries and pays, and even when an officer will retire. In addition, it contains the penalties imposed for offences and acts of disobedience. If this book is observed with due diligence, life on the sea will be easy and orderly, danger will be minimized, and naval officers will lead a peaceful and happy life.
May Allâhu ta’âlâ forgive me my fault and sin! Never oblivious to the great difference and always observant of the due respect, I have compared the Qur’ân al-kerîm to that book. Allâhu ta’âlâ is the authority who has laid down these principles in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. He teaches in extremely explicit and exquisite expressions and in a language intelligible to everybody how all men, women and children over the world should act, from what directions danger will be coming and what should be done against it, and how the good and bad behaviours will be rewarded. For the recent eleven years, since I retired, that is, I have been growing flowers in my garden. It is in this period when I have seen once again the greatness of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Plants and flowers grow only with the command of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Nothing you plant will grow without His command. However hard you may try, and whatsoever you may do, your endeavour will yield results only with His support. Without this support all your effort will come to naught. It is in no one else’s capacity to predetermine the weather conditions required for the growing of plants. With one command of Allâhu ta’âlâ, bad weather will set in and ruin everything you have planted. Men have devised various systems in order to pre-estimate the weather conditions. Weather conditions are forecast today. It makes me smile to myself. For only one per cent of these forecasts turn out to be correct. The only determinant in this matter is the decree of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Beautiful flowers do not grow in the gardens belonging to those who do not obey the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ. This is only a retribution which Allâhu ta’âlâ visits on them.
I believe with all my heart that the Qur’ân al-kerîm is the Word of Allâhu ta’âlâ and that Allâhu ta’âlâ chose Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ as His Messenger to communicate that sacred book to the entire world. The Qur’ân al-kerîm is in full concordance with man’s worldly life, and it contains rules unsullied with the insertion of exaggerations and superstitions and which are perfectly logical, so that people with common sense will find them entirely true and right. Rather than bringing pressure to bear on the sense of fear inherent in man’s nature, the tenets of worship in the Qur’ân al-kerîmappeal to love and respect.
Having lived for long years in a Christian society and under Christian influence, a Christian needs convincing preliminary persuation to abandon his religion and become a Muslim. However, after examining Islam, I did not need any external persuation. For I had spontaneously believed in the fact that this religion is a true one. No one compelled me to become a Muslim. Nor was I under anyone’s influence. Muslims answered most of my doubts whose solutions I had not found in Christianity, and they satisfied all my mental expectations. I therefore became a Muslim by myself and willingly.
I have realized that the pure religion brought by Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and Islam are essentially the same. Yet the pure Nazarene religion was completely defiled with the superstitions, rites and credal tenets borrowed from idolatrous cults afterwards and turned into what has now been called Christianity. It was so repulsively fraught with the polytheistic accessions that Martin Luther, for the purpose of purifying his religion, had to reform it and to establish the Protestant sect, whereby he, let alone repairing the religion, impaired it all the more badly. As the Queen of England, Elizabeth I, struggled against the Catholic Spaniards who posed a threat against her country, the Ottoman Turks carried on their holy war against the Catholics in Europe. As Protestants and Muslims, these two empires fought against the idolatrous Catholics. The one thing that escaped Martin Luther’s attention was that nine hundred years before him Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ had cleansed and purified the defiled Christianity and all the other religions.
Today’s Christianity is infested with idolatrous elements and superstitions. For a long period of time Christianity has remained as a religion where injustice, cruelty and savagery are all but legalized, and it still maintains this horrendous identity in its exactitude. I would like you to recollect the unjust verdicts that the Spanish Christians gave at the tribunals called the Inquisition and the savageries that they perpetrated in the name of inquisition. The Sephardis who escaped from their cruelties were provided sanctuary only by the Muslim Turks, who treated them as human beings.
Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ asked his umma to obey the Ten Commandments which Allâhu ta’âlâ had given to Mûsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ on Mount Sinai. The first of these commandments is this: “I am the Lord thy God, ...” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”[14] On the other hand, Christians have disobeyed this commandment by increasing the number of gods to three. I did not believe in three gods before converting to a Muslim, either. I always accepted Allâhu ta’âlâ as only one compassionate, forgiving and guiding being. That was the only reason which led me to Islam. For Muslims’ belief in Allâhu ta’âlâ was identical with my thoughts.
The manner of life you are to lead is totally in your own hands. If you are, say, an accountant and embezzle money from the employer’s safe, one day you will be caught and wind up in prison. If you drive carelessly on a slippery road, your car will topple over and you will end up in a hospital with one or two broken bones. If you drive too fast and have an accident for this reason, you, again, will be responsible for it. It would be a grave act of immorality to lay the blame for all these faults on someone else. I do not believe in the hypothesis that people are bad tempered by birth. It is a definite fact that human beings are born with a good moral quality. A group of theorists assume that some people are evil-spirited by creation, which I reject. In my opinion, what makes a person’s soul evil is, first of all, his parents, next his environment, next the subversive publications, and next evil company. Another factor that should be added is harmful tutorship. Children are inclined to idealize the behaviours and thoughts of their parents, school teachers and writers and try to follow their examples. Sometimes, without any apparent reason, children exhibit rebellious and mischievous behaviour. At such times they must be toned down with gentle, but at the same time serious, exhortation. But if we ourselves exhibit inconsiderate behaviour and thereby set a bad example for them, we cannot convince them of their wrong behaviour. How could we dissuade our children from doing the vices that have become our daily practices? That means to say that first of all we have to exhibit a perfect example for our children. We should be able to chastise them when necessary. You know that Britons are fond of sports. Sports is something that is almost sacred to us. If a person does something disingenuous or acts in a crooked way in a sports activity, he will be punished immediately and lose most of his honour. The Islamic religion has laid exquisite and very beautiful behavioral maxims and ideal life-styles, which could be, as it were, compared to our sports rules. During my research in the Islamic religion, these rules won my admiration. It was this logic and order that led me to the true religion of Islam.
Here is the second one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:” (Old Testament, Exodus: 20-4) On the other hand, today’s Christian churches are full of images and icons, and Christians prostrate themselves before them!
One thing I had always mused with consternation about wasthat all those tremendous events, such as the miracles of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, his crucifixion, [which is a Christian belief], his resurrection and ascension to heaven after having been intered, had had very little impact on that time’s Jewish, Roman and other Palestinian community, and their life-styles had not changed at all. The Jews had been quite indifferent towards Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, so that it was only centuries later that Christianity began to spread. Contrariwise, the Islamic religion communicated by Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ spread far and near in a very short time, immediately changed the life-styles there, and civilized the semi-barbarous people. I think the onlyreason was that the original Îsawî religion deterioted in a short time and changed into a perplexing, semi-idolatrous new Christian religion, while Islam, on the other hand, was a logical religion intelligible to everybody. Between 1919 and 1923 I was appointed to a naval duty on the Turkish waters. That mellifluous voice that called daily from the minarets and said, “There is only one Allâhu ta’âlâ. Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ is His Messenger.” How lovely it sounded to my ears! Most of the books about the Islamic religion that I had been reading contained contumelies against Islam. Their discourse followed the rules of a certain textual stratagem wherein the first step was to cast aspersions on the last three hundred years’ Turkish Sultans, who were Khalîfas at the same time, the second step was to associate the acts of atrocity and injustice already ascribed to them and reinforced with the slanders that Turks were mendacious, deceitful and venal people and that they had been oppressing the minorities, with the Islamic culture, which was their source of education, and the final step was to conclude that a Muslim could never be as honest as a Christian. Did the Islamic religion really deserve the blame? I could never believe it. Eventually, I decided to resort to a Muslim man of religion to acquire true information. In the meantime, I looked for Islamic books written by Muslims. Some Muslim religious men living in Britain found the books I needed and sent them to me. When I read these books, I saw what a pure religion Islam was, how brilliantly it shone throughout the Middle Ages, how brightly it illuminated the dark Christian world, how, unfortunately, in the wake of a general inattention to religious principles growing in the process of time, the Islamic world gradually lost its vigour, and the recent efforts to restore it to its former state. Today’s scientific improvements could find no place in the Christian religion. Conversely, they are in perfect concordance with Islam. Consequently, the blame for the decline that the Islamic world has been suffering falls not on the Islamic religion, but on today’s Muslims, who have fallen short of fulfilling the requirements of this pulchritudinous religion with due strictness. I no longer had any doubts as to the merits of the Islamic religion now. So I embraced Islam willingly.
Today, some European philosophers and writers argue that religions are unnecessary. You must be sure that arguments of this sort ensue from the preposterous tenets of Christianity and from its superstitions which would never receive a welcome in the twentieth century. The Islamic religion, on the other hand, does not contain any of such toxins.
Christians can never understand why Islam should meet with such universal acceptance, and they call Muslims ‘eccentric people’. This is an entirely wrong accusation.
My final remarks are these: I chose Islam because it is a religion which is both theoretical and practical, easy to understand and logical, perfect in every respect, and an exemplary guide for humanity. The Islamic religion is, and eternally will be, the best way that will lead man to the love of Allâhu ta’âlâ and to happiness in this world and the next.
27
J.W. LOVEGROVE
(G.B.)
I would like to give the following short answer to your question why I became a Muslim. I shall not attempt to give you a long lecture on religion and belief. Religion and belief make up a virtue that emanates from the human soul and which is unlike anything else. It is identical with the thirst felt by a person left in a desert. Man definitely needs a belief to rely on as a dependable guide. First I studied a history of religions. I read with attention the lives and the teachings of those personages who had invited people to religion. I relaized that the religious essentials that Prophets ‘alaihim-us-salâm’ had taught in the beginning had been changed and turned into entirely different forms in the course of time. What had survived of them was only a few facts. Various legends had been mixed into the lives of those great, distinguished people, and their deeds had been transformed into myths and reached us as a conglomerate of mysterious stories. In contrast with all these ruins, one true religion, Islam, has preserved its pristine purity and simplicity from the day it was revealed to the present time and, without being polluted with any sort of superstitions or legends, it has survived to our age. The Qur’ân al-kerîm is the same today as it was in the time of Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’. Not a word of it has changed. The blessed utterances of Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ have reached our day in exactly the same literal form as they were pronounced by him, without undergoing any alterations.
Allâhu ta’âlâ sent Prophets ‘alaihim-us-salawâtu wa-t-taslîmât’ to humanity whenever He deemed it necessary. They are complementary to one another. In consideration of the fact that the teachings of other Prophets ‘alaihim-us-salawâtu wa-t-taslîmât’ have been interpolated and changed into annoying incongruities, is there another way which one could find more logical than accepting the Islamic religion, which has remained the most intact, the purest, and the truest? As a matter of fact, a simple and useful religion unsullied with illogical superstitions was what I was questing for. The Islamic religion is that very religion. The Islamic religion shows one by one all my duties towards Allâhu ta’âlâ, towards my neighbours, and towards all humanity. Although this was originally the main objective of all religions, their tenor has been watered down into unintelligible credal tenets. In contrast, the Islamic religion embodies easily understandable, simple, logical, convincing and useful principles of belief. In Islam, alone, did I find the information concerning the requirements to be fulfilled to attain peace and salvation in this world and the next. It is for this reason that I became a Muslim willingly.
28
DAVIS
(G.B.)
I was born in 1931, and began to go to elementary school when I was six years old. Completing my elementary education after seven years, I attended a junior high school. My family raised me in a Catholic system of education. Afterwards, I joined the Anglican church. Finally, I became an Anglo-Catholic. During all these conversions, I observed the same thing. Christianity had dissociated itself from man’s normal daily life long ago, and had become reminiscent of an attirement that was worn only on Sundays and kept in a wooden case only for this purpose. People could not find what they were looking for in the Christian religion. The Christian religion was trying to attach people to the church by means of lights of various colours, images, smells of incense, pleasant music, and a variety of glorious ceremonies and litanies performed for saints. Yet all these efforts fell short of attracting people. For the Christian religion concerned itself only with legendary subjects and therefore evinced no interest in what was going on without the church. Consequently, I developed a profound hatred towards Christianity, and finally decided to give a test to Communism and Fascism each, which were being propagated with sequinned advertisements.
When I attempted Communism I was happy because I believed that it rejected class differences. As time went by, I faced the awful truth: let alone rejecting class differences, Communism was a totalitarian regime wherein people led a life of slavery, a small minority inflicted all sorts of cruelty and brutality on the others, no one had the right to protest, and any sort of objection, rightful as it might be, would incur a penalty, which meant, more often than not, being sentenced to death. Stalin is a good example concerning the real face of Communism. Upon this, I shifted from Communism to Fascism.
My first impression in Fascism was its discipline and order, which I liked very much. However, Fascists were self-conceited people. They despised all people and all races outside of their community. Here, too, cruelty, suffering, injustice and oppression prevailed. A couple of months sufficed to make me loathe Fascism intensely. For Mosley[15], in Britain, Hitler[16], in Germany, and Mussolini[17], in Italy, were the exemplary models of stark terror and ruthless and despotic cruelty. Nevertheless, I could not give up Fascism, for there was no other alternative left.
I was desperately writhing in a state of distress, when I came across a periodical captioned The Islamic Review in a bookstore. I scanned the book. I still cannot understand why I bought that book, which cost me two shillings[18] and six pennies and was too expensive for me. I thought, “I have wasted my money. Perhaps the contents of this book are mere twaddles that would not be worth a penny, like those Communist and Fascist follies.” Yet, as I read on, it began to capture my attention, which soon developed into utter amazement. I read the magazine once again, and again. So Islam was a perfect religion which accummulated in itself all the best aspects of Christianity and of the other ideologies ending in ‘ism’. Despite my poverty, I subscribed to the periodical. A couple of months later I decided to embrace Islam. Since that day I have held fast to my new religion with my both hands.
I hope to begin studying Arabic as soon as I enter university. For the time being I am studying Latin, French and Spanish, and reading ‘The Islamic Review’.
29
Dr. R.L. MELLEMA
(Hollander)
(Dr. Mellema is the director of the section concernedwith Islamic Works of Art of the Tropical Museum in Amsterdam. He is known for his works ‘Babies of Wyang’, ‘Information About Pakistan’ and ‘Introducing Islam’.)
In 1919, I began to study oriental languages in the University of Leiden. My teacher was the universally known professor Hurgr