Some reasons for accepting Islam
Posted by amad on February 12 2008 02:13:48
A thinking person pondering over the trend of modern thought will come at last to the conclusion that he must think for himself. There are so many schools of thought and so many methods of expression that, unless he is content to be an automaton reflecting only the opinions of his environment, and at all times ready to agree with the conventional or popular view, he must be prepared to go out into the desert and there reflect and find guidance. There alone will the thinker be able to find the inspiration which will enable him to import his own ideas to others.
Various paths will lie before him. He has the ancient and traditional path of Roman Catholicism, with its claim of infallibility--a church which to many minds must make a powerful appeal because of its ritual, its antiquity, the vast number of adherents which it possesses all over the world and its multitudinous of religious activity.
He may think of Protestantism in general as according to all the right of individual expression of opinion, and of its claim that it grants liberty of conscience, thought and action; but he will find, on examination, that this is but another form of traditional belief as arbitrary and as formal as the creed which it supplanted and often more inquisitorial than the ancient forms of intolerance and authority.
Rationalism will appeal to many minds because of its ready acceptance of modern science, it s condemnation of priestcraft and the excellent serve it has given in breaking down the hidebound hostility of the past to any real freedom of thought in either religion or politics. Such iconoclasm is undoubtedly neccessary before the human mind can ever find freedom or an opportunity to think over new discoveries.
Socialism or communism, with their gospel of social, economic and political equality as the immediate goal of human effort, will certainly make progress if only because of the clear necessity for some new re-organization of human society which even, thought it be purely materialistic as its opponents assert, yet offers a change from the chaos into which modern society has drifted in recent years, more especially since the late Great European War with its wholeslae shattering of illusions, and this has led many to look for an entirely new set of human ideals, if the human race is to make any lasting progress.
In recent years many new societies have been formed, each claiming to be the new guide for which the world is looking, and the number of societies and brotherhoods now in existence, is but an expression of the time-spirit. If any or all of them could act up to their claims so eloquently and cleverly put forward, then the transition periods from one age to another would be much easier than that produced by the sudden and violent methods which the last few years would seem to have called into existence.
In Islam, however, I think, I have found the elements which make for stability. Its simplicity, its freedom from ritual, its toleration, its lack of social distinctions and racial antipathies; its freedom from mysteries, reserved entirely for the select few or the wealthy and socially influential, and its possibilities for the future wider than those contemplated by any other of the modern forms of faith make it, when rightly understood, the best expression which I have yet found for my social, political and religious ideals.
David omar Nicholson