Jamaal al Din M. Zarabozo | Pages: 178 | Format: PDF | Language: English | Size: 2.4 MB
This book explains basic introduction to the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Islamic faith. An attempt has been made to be as concise as possible, but with the hope that the reader will be encouraged to study Islam in more depth.
Introduction
The Goal and Motivation for Writing this Book
The Goal and Motivation for Writing this Book This is a very important time for the publishing of clear and concise material about Islam. Today, Islam is often pictured in a very unflattering manner in many parts of the world—not much different than it was in the not-so-distant past. A Western author writing about the life of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) wrote.
When the war blazed up between Islam and Christianity, lasting for ages, animosity grew severe between the two sides; and each side misunderstood the other one. It should be admitted, however, that the basic misunderstanding was more on the part of the westerners than the easterners. In fact, immediately after such violent intellectual disputes — in which argumentative debaters overloaded Islam with vices, degradation and abasement without taking the trouble to study it — mercenary writers and paid-poets set out to attack the Arabs, but their attack was a merely false, contradictory accusation.
There is no need to go into details but today such misunderstandings concerning Islam have continued from all sorts, including some public and church leaders in the West.
Unfortunately, since many of the masses are unfamiliar with Islam beyond what they see in the mass media—which of course recently has been filled with a terrorist taint—it is not surprising that such misrepresentations of Islam resonate with the public as a whole.1 The easiest and probably the most productive cure for this situation is by reaching out to those people and allowing them to hear what Islam is truly all about. One must go beyond the hype and get to the true authentic teachings of the religion. (Unfortunately, it is also a sad state of affairs that today one must also go beyond the picture that the Muslims themselves give non-Muslims of Islam. Although, in general, Christianity or Judaism is not blamed for the misdeeds of Christians or Jews, today Islam is still often blamed for the misdeeds of Muslims, even when the practices of such Muslims clearly violate the tenets of Islam.2)
Unfortunately, today the negative views and misrepresentations of Islam are not simply an issue of one’s personal religious beliefs. The ramifications have gone far beyond that and touch upon the security and politics of the world as a whole. Most harmful though is that as Islam is misunderstood and continually painted as the “other” and a source of evil, many are closed off to its beauty and its priceless truths that it has to offer to humankind. In reality, in these troubled times, there is a great need to turn to the guidance from God, which is exactly what Islam is all about.
The goal here is not to deal with the misinformation that is being spread about Islam. The goal here is simply to present what Islam truly is, based on the original and universally recognized sources of Islam:The Quran—or, in other words, the book revealed from Allah (God) to the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)—as well as the words and guidance of the Prophet himself.1
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