What have the Muslims done
to Islam?

While the great religion of Islam calls for peace, tolerance, freedom of belief and mutual understanding, almost the exact op-posite has been happening in the so-called Islamic world. It is no wonder therefore that many “Muslim” nations of the world are in constant misery and turmoil through fighting and hostilities with their neighbors or each other. They are generally the least democratic and the most tyrannized people plagued with political and civil corruption. Also, they have relatively no religious tolerance and have little consideration to-wards the faith of their own people or the people of other nations.

With the events of September 11, 2001 and those which followed it, there is more awareness today than ever about the religion of Is-lam and the state of Islamic coun-tries. Many recognized the fact that the terrorists who killed inno-cent people in the name of Islam were indeed radical groups that have nothing to do with the main stream Islam. But more impor-tantly, some people started realiz-ing and questioning the wisdom and current state of so-called Is-lamic practices, and the need for returning to the real roots of Islam, Submission to the will of God, as practiced by Muhammad and those who truly followed him.

In an article called “What Went Wrong?” the January 2002 issue of Atlantic Monthly, the author Bernard Lewis has written the fol-lowing:

By all standards of the modern world—economic development, literacy, scientific achievement —Muslim civilization, once a mighty enterprise, has fallen low. Many in the Middle East blame a variety of outside forces. But underlying much of the Muslim world's travail may be a simple lack of freedom.

…In the course of the twentieth century it became abundantly clear that things had gone badly wrong in the Middle East— and, indeed, in all the lands of Islam.

Cont’d on page 2