For much of the time, Islam and Muslims are like two ships moored side by side at a port. Or gliding and twinkling past each other in the high seas at night.
At times, there is an interface of sorts between them. Or, if I may spoof off an old Hollywood movie expression, a close encounter of some kind.
And that makes the world what it is.
I wonder what the world would be like if the two – Islam and those professing to be Muslims – really intertwined and merged for any length of time.
After all, 10 years of Islam at Makkah, and another 10 years of it at Madinah, all of it under the most beautiful, sublime and humanly perfect leadership of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, made the world what it is today, did it not?
Is that too much of a stretch to see that practically everything good and productive and nice and wonderful in human affairs that the world has today is more or less traceable to those most amazing 20 years in human history?
And, therefore, a most glorious legacy of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, whom God Almighty says he sent into this world as a Personification of Mercy to All the Worlds?
Rahmatan Lil-'Aalameen!
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