NOT REFORM BUT RETURN TO THE QURAN
The primitiveness, the ugliness and the contradictions displayed in the name of Islam make it indispensable to clarify where we stand and what should be done to redirect people who have been diverted from the true path described in the Quran. Muhammad Ikbal, ill at ease at the sight of this state of affairs, had made the following remark in the 1920s: “If we are resolved to describe Islam as a system of superior values, we are obliged, first of all, to acknowledge that we are not the true representatives of Islam.” Muhammad Abduh had, before him, expressed the same truth in the following words: “If the word ‘Islam’ associates in the mind problems, dilemmas and contradictions, this is due not to Islam itself, but to the Muslims. So long as the books taught at Al Azhar and similar publications exert authority, I see no future for this community. The spirit needed to awaken the public is inherent in the Quran. Everything remaining outside the sphere of the Quran is but an obstacle preventing the Quran from being understood and experienced.” The famous Turkish poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy had the following to say to describe the plight of Islam that the interpreters had corrupted in total disregard of the clear indications of the Quran: “If it is the Quran that is understood by the word ‘Islam’, we must be in a position to acknowledge that there is no such thing as Islam, since the Quran has been raised back to the heights and the Islam on the earth today has lost all contact with it.” An American professor of Arabic origin, Ýsmail Faruki, interprets the situation as follows: “Islam is not represented by the lifestyle and behavior of Muslims, nor is it represented by any one period of history of Islam, nor by any book written on Islam. Islam is the Quran.”
PAGE 2: THIS IS NOT A POPULIST MOVEMENT
PAGE 3: THERE WAS A TIME WHEN NO SECTS EXISTED
PAGE 4: LET US SET ISLAM FREE FROM THE MONOPOLY OF IDOLIZED MASTERS
PAGE 5: RELIGIOSITY AND ATHEISTIC FANATICISM
