Murder in the Name of Allah — Page 38
CHAPTER 4. PROPHETS AND TROOPERS. A Study in Contrast. Remind them for thou (O Prophet) art an admonisher. Thou art not at all a warder over them. . Quran, 88. 22 - 3. It [Jamaati Islami] is not a missionary organisation or a body of preachers or evangelists, but an organisation of God's troopers. . Maulana Abul Ala Maududi¹. The picture of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam painted by nineteenthcentury orientalists has been examined in the previous chapter. It was a picture of a fanatical warrior riding out of the Arabian deserts with a drawn sword in one hand and the Quran in the other, offering his helpless victims a choice between the two. The harshness of this picture, popularised by Edward Gibbon² has now been toned down by modern orientalists. Even the well-known Jewish scholar, Bernard Lewis, with his dry. British humour, had to admit that the picture, 'Is not only false but also impossible unless we are able to assume a race of left-handed swordsmen. In Muslim practice, the left hand is reserved for unclean purposes, and no self-respecting Muslim would use it to raise the Quran. "³. But there is one 'self-respecting' Muslim, Maulana Maududi, who clutched his drawn sword in his right hand, irrespective of its lack of relevance to the teachings of the Holy Quran and the practices of the Holy. Prophets. . The Maulana claims to be a loyal follower of the Prophets, and, as such, one would expect him to talk admiringly of his Master. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But how can he see defects in his Lord which even Islam's modern enemies reject? There are three answers to this question. 1 That the Maulana's claim to be a loyal follower of Islam is false. In view 38