What, then, is this new faith —however shy its protagonists may feel in giving it the name of a faith? It consists of, as we have said earlier, the rejection of that All-Knowing, Well-Informed Being who is the Creator of the Worlds, the Owner of Destiny and the Architect of the life of Futurity, the Last Day, Heaven, Hell, Divine Reward and Punishment, Prophecy, Apostleship and the Holy Law, of the Truth that God has ordained for all mankind, and of obedience to the Holy Prophet. It rejects the idea that all salvation and enlightenment are dependent on that loyalty, rejects the principle that Islam is that final and eternal Message from the Divine which enfolds all that is good in this world and the Next, and embodies a programme of life which is higher and superior to every other system, and of the fact that the world has been created for man and man for God.
The ruling classes of Muslim States everywhere today are generally the followers of this new creed, although they may not all belong to the category so far as ardency and strength of spiritual allegiance are concerned. There is no doubt that in these classes are found individuals who bear faith in God and are believers in Islam but the dominant feature of them all is, alas, nothing else but materialism and a Western philosophy of life rooted in atheism.
I say again that it is this apostasy which is nowadays engulfing the Islamic World from one end to another. It has made its onslaught from house to house, family to family. Schools, colleges, universities have all been overrun by it. There is hardly a family fortunate enough not to include a follower of this creed among its members. Approach any Muslim family, talk to its members in confidence, question, scratch them under the surface and you are sure to find someone who does not believe in God or the Hereafter or in the Apostleship of the Prophet or in the Qur’an as a Divine, eternal Message and a complete code of life. Or, he will just say that he has given no thought to these questions because he does not attach any great importance to them. And his will be a lucky case.
