When the Islamic revolution started in Iran and established complete Islamic rule in a country that enjoyed all the benefits of revival and progress, such as manpower, ample natural resources with vast quantities of oil at the top of the list, and a civilisation with a history going back thousands of years, people looked to the newly born Islamic revolution as an incisive test of all the contemporary Islamic movements. If it succeeded in establishing the "society of justice, freedom and progress," the other movements would, consequently, acquire a tremendous momentum that would be difficult to stop in any country throughout the Islamic world suffering from backwardness and sinking under the burdens of repressive regimes, and yearning for those voices calling for Islamic rule and application of the Sharia. The decisive test was there in that revolution, which took full control of an Islamic country of great consequence, an ancient history, and a future rich in encouraging potentials.
Nonetheless, the signs of failure manifested repeatedly following this Islamic revolution, year after year, were not echoed at all among the advocates of Islamic rule in the rest of the Arabic and Islamic countries.
Rishawi, Emir. A Struggle that Led to Conversion. Villach, Austria: Light of Life 1993. p 59. (Trans. unk)
4 comments:
AD, can't find your E-mail at the moment, but I was wondering if you had seen this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/us/13beliefs.html
(Please feel free to delete.)
Hi Fr Greg,
Yes, I have. The whole Camel method is well-trod territory and the debate is fairly old. But what is amazing is that it got all the way up to the Times! Crazy.
What did you think about it?
AD: Reacting to this, someone asked, rhetorically, if St. Paul erred by invoking an unknown God in Athens. This seems to be the whole "Jerusalem vs. Athens" debate all over again. I don't see a problem at all with starting with the Quran. One is obviously not going to stop there.
I agree with you, Fr. Greg. We (the ministry I work for) have been teaching people to witness to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses using their own scriptures (in the case of the JW's, their own translations) so why not the Qur'an?
There's no question the Qur'an portrays Jesus in a higher light than Muhammad (sinless, born without the sting of Satan, working miracles.) If one thinks about that a while, that raises many questions about the centrality of Muhammad's message.
As you say, it's a good starting point...
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