Since the advent of God's religion on earth, its waves surged north, south, east, and west, hitting the surrounding world’s walls, purifying many lands, and washing them of polytheism, unbelief, and the call to other than Allah. Hostility began to gather at its edges, a never-sleeping enmity, and this enmity continually battled against God's soldiers year after year at the borders of Islam. These scattered hostilities then amassed into a single force, initiating the successive invasions known in history as the Crusades. These wars persisted for long centuries, their tools being weapons, armies, and battles.
The war of weapons and armies ended when the Islamic world laid down its arms, or rather, more accurately, when the Islamic world then had no weapons to raise or lower. If there were any weapons, they were ineffective against the new weapons brought by the invaders. From then on, the Crusades shifted from battlefields to another field: life itself!
The new crusade's plan was to demolish all aspects of Islamic life: to destroy its structure, knowledge, literature, ethics, history, language, and past. During this, a new structure for this life would emerge, with different knowledge, literature, ethics, history, language, and past. One day, the defeat would be as evident as it was on the battlefields, leaving the Islamic world with only remnants of the life that once made it a coherent world, much like the remnants of weapons that were useless in battles. .
The new crusades came swiftly and decisively, spreading their vanguard everywhere, equipped with understanding, awareness, and knowledge of this new field, encountering people stripped of comprehension and awareness of its nature. By instinct, these people knew these vanguards were enemies, resisting them with the innate hatred and suspicion of the enemy, even if they came in the guise of peace and advice. Others fell into the enemy's grasp, deceived by their peacefulness and advice. These wars have been ongoing between us and them for over one hundred fifty years, in silence, persistence, strength, caution, knowledge, and vision, until the enemy reached a point they never initially imagined.
Collapse of Islamic Life
Suddenly, the entire structure collapsed, and Islamic life became ruins, responding to annihilation without resistance or defiance. Everything fundamental to human life disappeared: knowledge, literature, ethics, language, and history. The invaders replaced them with their versions of knowledge, literature, ethics, language, and history. What once flowed from the Quran, the life of the Muslim nation, and the Sunnah of its Prophet was replaced by what flowed from ancient pagan life and modern Christianity. What once passed to us as inheritances from fathers to sons was replaced by a torrent that spares nothing.
Our perspective, thoughts, understanding, and feelings changed, along with our language and expression. We returned to look at our book, our Prophet's traditions, and our ancestors' legacies, denying what we found in them. Some threw it behind their backs, ignoring it, while others hesitated, unsure what to do. A group neither rejected nor feared it but sought a way out by renewing the past heritage to align with the new life in some aspects while denying the old life in others.
From then on, the Arab and Islamic world divided into two groups: one denying the entire past life and the other seeking to renew it on new foundations. However, these foundations were essentially derived from the life the crusading invaders established among us.
Present Islamic World
This is a miniature picture of life in the present Islamic world, one that cannot be grasped without realizing that the Islamic world faces a danger graver than the first Crusade with weapons, one that threatens a complete transformation of Islam. The advocates of this transformation, knowingly or unknowingly, have conspired everywhere under the guise of defending, reviving, and renewing Islam. They diligently work to spread their new religion— as it should be called—by all means they believe will lead to defending, reviving, or renewing Islam. Over time, they will leave a deep impact on the current Islamic world, followed by successors who deviate from the original path on which this Islam was built.
Continued Misguidance
This epidemic that invades Islamic thought and life has penetrated every corner of the world, and its fever has seized many advocates' minds. Tongues rush to build a new intellectual structure for this Islam, which collapsed. Each tongue sends a torrent of words without caution, every one considering their words a correct material for rebuilding this world. Every advocate sees themselves as a source quenching the thirsty, surrounded like a pagan idol, their followers knowing nothing except that the flood of words on them is a correct foundation of the Islam they are called to. Each one thinks of themselves as a fountain of knowledge, answering questions, while their followers revolve around them, drawing from their overflow.
Conclusion
If this situation continues, Islam will end. If a group withdraws from this chaos to reconsider the true principles of their religion—principles that once shattered polytheism and disbelief and established a structure that withstood for thirteen centuries—the first stage of a long, arduous struggle begins, challenging the tyrants of disbelief with true faith untainted by selfish desires. This struggle is rooted in obeying God and His Messenger, essential for any true victory, as stated in the Quran (Ash-Shu'ara: 88-89): "The Day when neither wealth nor children will benefit, except for one who comes to Allah with a sound heart."
Finally, whoever sees this as pessimism and discouragement can think what they will! It does no good to tell a blind man he sees with sharp eyes or convince one doomed to ruin that he is immortal beyond death's reach.
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Source: "Al-Risalah Magazine," Issue (1020), 1953.
