Learn about Islam from a Muslim who accepted Islam through research and understanding. Only a Muslim would tell you the truth about Islam and will show you the beauty of it. One who has discovered Islam, does not need anything else. Explore and discover "Islam" for your own knowledge and satisfaction by beginning your journey from here. Exercise your freedom and right to know. Welcome to Islam!
"Soon will We show them our Signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth) and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord doth witness all things? And indeed! Are they in doubt concerning the Meeting with their Lord? Ah indeed! It is He that doth encompass all things!" (Qur'an: Ha-Mim(41): 52-4).
Welcome to my Global Virtual Home!
My doors are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Thanks to GeoCities for welcoming me in the neighborhood of intellectuals. It is my real pleasure to share my views, ideas and wisdom with the rest of the world. I'm not really new to the Internet community. I had an Internet web presence at AOL's members server for almost 2 years. But due to AOL's policies, I was limited to only AOL's member's community. I always wanted to move to a larger community to have a greater access to others who might have some interest to what I have to share with them. Finally, GeoCities has given me that privilege.
One might wonder, why have I chosen "Religion" as a main theme of my web presence ? Well, the answer is as follows:
As far as I'm concerned, religion is the basic root of our life and philosophy. It is the religion that regulates us in life. This is the "standard" for us to "judge and determine" our day to day actions and activities. Religion is a "philosophy", as well as a "belief". And for "Islam" - in addition, it is also a "way of life" prescribed by the creator himself and demonstrated practically by his messenger Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Therefore, we ought to be grateful and thankful to our God -the creator who created us with great love and mercy. And situated us over "all his creations". But alas, few of us are even aware of it.
My heart and soul goes to "Islam". This religion has shaped me and my life. Therefore, it is a dear thing to me. And thus I spend a lot of time in propagating the message of Islam to others who is seeking a change in life.
You will get to know everything I've to say about this magnificent religion. But, in the beginning, to initiate some interest in your mind, let's see what others said about "Islam".
Face to Face with True Islam
1. "Islam appears to me like a perfect work of Architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other. Nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking, with the result of an absolute balance and solid composure." -Leopold Weiss (now Mohammed Asad): Austrian statesman, journalist.
2. "The Sword of Islam is not the sword of steel. I know this by experience, because the sword of Islam struck deep into my heart. It didn't bring death, but it brought me new life; it brought an awareness and it brought an awakening as to who am I and what am I and for what am I here?" -Ahmed Holt: British Civil Contractor, traveler.
3. "When I was 12 years old I rejected illogical and contradictory faith of the Church. Two years later in 1962...I was fascinated by victorious struggle of the Algerian Muslim mujahideen against French colonialism. It was the first arrow of Islam...The high school and the earliest days of my education in the university, I was a typical example of "rebel generation" of Reds...My way to the truth of Al-Qur'an was slow and unpaved...In 1974 I visited Turkey, I wrote my M.A. dissertation about Sultan and Caliph Suleiman Kanuni's policy towards Polish Kingdom. There, I was hit by the most beautiful voice of mankind, Adhan, the call to prayer. My hair stood up. Unknown powerful force led me to the old masjid in Istanbul. There, old smiling Turkish, bearded men taught me Wuzu, ablution. I confessed to tears Shahadah and I prayed my first Salah Maghrib...I swept out the rubbish ideologies...The first time in my life, my mind was relaxed and felt pleasure of Allah's love in my heart. I was a Muslim..." -Bogdan Kopanski (now Bogdan Ataullah Kopanski): Ph.D in History and Politics. Now an American citizen.
4. "In Islam I found suitable replies to nagging queries arising in my mind with regard to the theory of creation, status of woman, creation of universe, etc. The life history of the Holy Prophet attracted me very much and made easy for me to compare with other world leaders and their philosophies." -Vengatachalam Adiyar (now Abdullah Adiyar): Noted Tamil (Indian) writer and journalist.
5. "I have lived under different systems of life and have had the opportunity of studying various ideologies, but have come to the conclusion that none is as perfect as Islam. None of the systems has got a complete of a noble life. Only Islam has it; and that is why good men embrace it. Islam is not theoretical; it is practical. It means complete submission to the will of God." -Herbert Hobohom (Aman Hobohom): German diplomat, missionary and social worker.
6. "It will be wrong to judge Islam in the light of the behavior of some bad Muslims who are always shown on the media. It is like judging a car as a bad one if the driver of the car is drunk and he bangs it into the wall. Islam guides all human beings in the daily life - in it's spiritual, mental and physical dimensions. But we must find the sources of these instructions, the Qur'an and the example of the Prophet. Then we can see the ideal of Islam." -Cat Stevens (now Yousef Islam): Ex-British pop singer.
7. "The authority of Islamic Morals and Laws proceeds from Almighty God. Pleasure and happiness in Islam are but the natural byproducts of emotional satisfaction in ones duties conscientiously performed for the pleasure of God to achieve salvation. In Islam duties are always stressed above rights. Only in Islam was my quest for absolute values satisfied. Only in Islam did I at last find all that was true, good, beautiful and which gives meaning and direction to human life and death." -Margaret Marcus (now Maryam Jamilah): American author.
8. "For some time now, striving for more and more precision and brevity, I have tried to put on paper, in a systematic way, all philosophical truths, which, in my view, can be ascertained beyond reasonable doubt. In the course of this effort it dawned on me that the typical attitude of an agnostic is not an intelligent one; that man simply cannot escape a decision to believe; that the createdness of what exists around us is obvious; that Islam undoubtedly finds itself in the greatest harmony with overall reality. Thus I realize, not without shock, that step by step, in spite of myself and almost unconsciously, in feeling and thinking I have grown into a Muslim. Only one last step remained to be taken: to formalize my conversion. As of today I am a Muslim. I have arrived." -Wilfried Hofman (now Murad Hofman): Ph.D. in Law. German social scientist and diplomat.
9. "I have had many nice moments in my life. But the feelings I had while standing on Mount Afarat on the day of Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage), was the most unique. I felt exalted by the indescribable spiritual atmosphere there as over a million and a half pilgrims invoked God to forgive them of their sins and bestow on them His choicest blessings. It was an exhilarating experience to see the people belonging to different colors, races and nationalities, kings, heads of states and ordinary men from very poor countries all clad in two simple white sheets praying to God without any sense of either pride or inferiority. It was a practical manifestation of the concept of equality in Islam." -Cassius Clay (now Muhammad Ali): Ex-World heavyweight boxing champion.
10. "...The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by those who see Muhammad as the author of the Qur'an untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole Arabic literature ? How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human-being could possibly have developed at that time, and all this without once making the slightest error in his pronouncement on the subject ?" -Dr. Maurice Bucaille. A French Scientist and author of "The Bible, the Qur'an and Science".
11. "The greatest success of Muhammad's life was effected by sheer moral force without the stroke of a sword." -Edward Gibbon in "History of the Saracen Empire", London, 1870.
12. "The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand the Qur'an in the other is quite false." -A.S.Tritton in "Islam", London, 1951.
13. "...Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practised by the people of all colors and races here in this ancient holy land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other prophets of the holy scriptures. For the past week I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem...You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced to re-arrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions...During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept on the same rug - while praying to the same God - with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white...We were truly the same (brothers) - because their belief in one God had removed the 'white' from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude."- Malcolm X and Haley in "The Autobiography of Malcolm X".
14. "History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims, sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated." -De Lacy O'Leary in "Islam at Crossroads", London, 1923.
15. "My problem to write this monograph is easier because we are not generally fed now on that (distorted) kind of history and much time need not be spent on pointing out our misrepresentations of Islam. The theory of Islam and sword, for instance, is not heard now in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam, there is no compulsion in religion, is well known." -K.S.Ramakrishna Rao in "Mohammed the Prophet of Islam:, Riyadh, 1989.
16. "No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam...The West has widely believed that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts that idea, and the Qur'an is explicit in support of the freedom of conscience...At Muhammad's own death, attempt was made to defy him, but the man who was to become his administrative successor killed the hysteria with one of the noblest speeches in religious history: "If there are any among you who worshipped Muhammad, he is dead. But if it is God you worshipped, He lives forever."" -James A.Michener in "Islam-The Misunderstood Religion", Reader's Digest (American edition), May 1955.
17. "Incidentally these well established facts dispose of the idea so widely fostered in Christian writings that the Muslims, wherever they went, forced people to accept Islam at the point of the sword." -Lawrence E.Browne in "The Prospects of Islam", London, 1944.
18. "I wanted to know the best of one holds today undisputed sway over the hearts of mankind...I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life." -Mahatma Gandhi in Young India.
19. "...how one man single handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades." -Thomas Carlyle in "Heroes and Hero-worship".
20. "Muhammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him." -D.C.Sharma in "The Prophets of the East", Calcutta, 1935.
21. ""I believe in One God, and Mahomet, an apostle of God" is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honor of the Prophet have never been transgressed the measure of human virtues; and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion." -Edward Gibbon and Simon Ockley in History of the Saracen Empires", London, 1870.
22. "It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy; for, in the mosque, when the call for prayer is sounded and worshippers are gathered together, the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and king kneel side by side and proclaim: "God Alone is Great"...I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes man instinctively a brother." -Sarojini Naidu in "Ideals of Islam", Madras, 1918.
23. "My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels." -Michael H.Hart in "The 100:A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", New York, 1978.
24. "But Islam has a still further service to render to the cause of humanity. It stands after all nearer to the real East than Europe does, and it possesses a magnificent tradition of inter-racial understanding and cooperation. No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavors so many so various races of mankind...Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of east and West is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition. In its hands lies very largely the solution of the problem with which Europe is faced in its relation with East. If they unite, the hope of a peaceful issue is immeasurably enhanced. But if Europe, by rejecting the cooperation of Islam, throws it into the arms of its rivals, the issue can only be disastrous for both." -H.A.R.Gibb in "Whither Islam", London, 1932.
25. "I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion, which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence, which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him-the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Savior of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today." -George Bernard Shaw, "The Genuine Islam".
26. "The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue." -A.J.Toynbee in "Civilization on Trial", New York, 1948.
27. "The closer we examine this development the more extraordinary does it appear. The other great religions won their way slowly, by painful struggle and finally triumphed with the aid of powerful monarchs converted to the new faith. Christianity had its Constantine, Buddhism its Asoka, and Zoroastrianism its Cyrus, each lending to his chosen cult the mighty force of secular authority, not so Islam. Arising in a desert land sparsely inhabited by a nomad race previously undistinguished in human annals. Islam sallied forth on its great adventure with the slenderest human backing and against the heaviest material odds. Yet Islam triumphed with seemingly miraculous ease, and a couple of generations saw the Fiery Crescent borne victorious from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas and from the desert of Central Asia to the deserts of Central Africa." -A.M.L.Strddard in "Islam-The Religion of All Prophets."
28. "I am not a Muslim in the usual sense, though I hope I am a "Muslim" as "one surrendered to God", but I believe that embedded in the Qur'an and other expressions of the Islamic vision are vast stores of divine truth from which I and other occidentals have still much to learn, and Islam is certainly a strong contender for the supplying of the basic framework of the one religion of the future." -W.Montgomery Watt in "Islam and Christianity Today", London, 1983.
29. "It is greatly to his (Muhammad's) praise that on this occasion (conquest of Mecca), when his resentment for ill-usage in the past might naturally have incited him to revenge, he restrained his army from all shedding of blood, and showed every sign of humility and thanksgiving to Allah for His goodness...Ten or twelve men who had on a former occasion shown a barbarous spirit were prescribed, and of them four were put to death, but this must be considered exceedingly humane, in comparison with the acts of the other conquerors; incomparison, for example, with the cruelty of the Crusaders, who in 1099, put 70,000 Muslims, men, women and helpless children, to death when Jerusalem fell into their hands; or with that of the English army, also fighting under the Cross, which in the year of grace 1874 burnt an African capital, in its war on the Gold Coast. Muhammad's victory was in very truth one of religion and not of politics; he rejected every token of personal homage, and declined all regal authority; and when the haughty chiefs of the Koreishites appeared before him, he asked: "What can you expect at my hands ?" "Mercy, O generous brother!" "Be it so; you are free!" he exclaimed." -Arthur Gilman in "The Saracens", London, 1887.
I can go on and on..., but I think it is enough for now. So many scholars and wise people inquired into Islam throughout the ages up to our modern times, above quotations explains just that. But how many of you were aware of these researches? Many of you are reading these quotations for the first time in your life! This is how your educational curriculum, news media is setup. They will never tell you the truth. These wise people did not care what their educators or media said, they went onto their own research. They ultimately discovered the beauty of Islam and appreciated it. Is it not yet time that you have done your own research ?
"Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; And argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: For thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His path, and who receive guidance. And if ye do catch them out, catch them out no worse than they catch you out: But ye show patience, that is indeed the best (course) for those who are patient. And do thou be patient, for thy patience is but from God; nor grieve over them: And distress not thyself because of their plots. For God is with those who restrain themselves, and those who do good." (Qur'an: The Bee (16):125-28).
At the bottom of this page, you will find a link which will lead you to the contents of my articles placed on the Internet. Please click on it and move on to that page to see the rest. A list of articles with prefaces will appear. And the titles are the links to the article files. Just click on the titles to load the article pages.
Following addresses are for sources on Islamic information materials. Please feel free to inquire for more information by contacting them directly. Some of them supplies free literatures and information materials upon request.
Islamic Book Service
Islamic Book Center
The Institute of Islamic Information and Education (III&E)
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Islamic Propagation Center International (IPCI)
Darul Kitab el Islami
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
Islamic Information Foundation
Foundation for Islamic Knowledge
Sound Vision
Tahrike Tarsille Qur'an
Begum Aisha Bawany Wakf
These are some of the sources I used in the past myself. There are many more out there. There are also Muslim Student Associations (MSA) on every college / university campuses in the United States and Canada. These MSA's also work as source of Islamic information for interested quarters. Feel free to call them up for more information and their special programs. They often hold meetings, seminars and lectures on campus as well.
The following link would take you to the next html page (page 2) where you will see a list of my research articles. These articles are based on years of my research, understanding and experiences. Fortunately for you, these articles are "short cuts" to learning and understanding Islam. Feel free to read them and use them. Share them if you will. There is NO CHARGE whatsoever. My reward is with God. If any of my writings help anyone at anytime in anyway, I'll consider my efforts a "success". "May Allah accept my efforts and endeavors and be pleased with me, Ameen."
Delivering the "message" is the purpose of this site. Therefore, I kept this site as simple as possible for quick loading by your browsers.
You are likely to get an overlapping screen of GeoCities while loading this page. Don't panic, just close that screen and you will find my page nicely loaded right behind it!
Welcome to the world without boundaries! Finally, we're becoming truly global (at least on the internet!). Hope this revolution will lead us all to "One World, One Humanity."
Page 2: List of Web Articles...
© 1997 javedahmad@geocities.com
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