Islam and Modern Life — Page 21
ISLAM AND MODE RN LIFE 21 of experience in yourself. And then you begin to believe in certain things which may not be physically demonstrable to the same degree as physical phenomena are. It’s true, Islam bases itself on faith in fundamentals. But it bases itself upon faith not on authority. You must believe because I say so. It invites belief on the firmness of reasoned conviction. Without that, a person is not a believer. I shall, from the scripture of Islam, just quote two slight instances, both positive and negative. On the positive side, in the Quran, God commands the Prophet to announce O Prophet, proclaim to mankind I and those who follow me, we stand on the firmness o f reasoned conviction. I don’t ask you to believe in certain things because I say so. And because I am the Prophet, therefore you must believe. Allah basira , faith must be based on the firmness of reasoned conviction. The second instance I wanted to quote is, after the Prophet’s thirteen years of severe persecution inflicted upon him and his followers in Mecca, when he was compelled to leave and his followers were compelled to leave Mecca and go to Medina, and then Islam was sought to be put out by the use of force, ruthlessly employed, but it survived, and everybody began to see that this thing is going to triumph, and a large number of people began to accept Islam and become Muslims. Now with regards to some of them, the Quran says, these people say, we believe, we are believers. Tell them that they have accepted, or they have submitted, but faith has not yet entered their hearts. Now Islam itself makes that distinction. A prima facie, for any reason, a prima facie acceptance is not belief or faith. It is faith only when it gets on to the firmness of reasoned