Therefore, Islam spread not because Muslims went around chopping off non-Muslims’ heads wherever they went, but for two simple reasons. First, people everywhere welcomed and embraced Islam because Islam was the most liberating and life-giving message the world had heard in a long time.
When Muslims Walked the Walk
Second, people welcomed Islam because the Muslims not only talked the talk but they also walked the walk. In many ways and to an extraordinary extent, Muslims personified in their own lives and societies the message of human equality, dignity and freedom that they preached and spoke about.
Most fair-minded non-Muslims, most of them in bondage and suffering all kinds of injustices, oppression and exploitation, couldn’t believe their ears when they heard the message of love, liberty, tolerance and human fellowship Muslims preached. Nor could they really believe it, until they saw with their own eyes, over and over again, that Muslims were not merely preaching these things but they were also actually practicing them.
When these non-Muslims could no longer deny the testimony of their own ears and eyes, they had no option but to jump on this colossal bandwagon of love and liberty that was Islam. That is how Islam spread to the four corners of the world at a time when there were no newspapers and when there was no radio, television or the Internet.
Show-and-Tell about Islam
If Muslim individuals, families and societies don’t “show” a great deal of true Islam in their lives, the way Islam is truly supposed to be lived and shown to be practiced at all these different levels, by and large Muslims have also lost their historic flair for “telling” or preaching about Islam. So, they don’t “show” and they don’t “tell.”
So, how do you expect the rest of the world to know about Islam?
Add to this great wall of Muslim silence and the anemic and misleading Islam many Muslims practice, the totally false propaganda and hate that are let loose upon the world about Islam from so many different sides – by the so-called enemies of Islam – and you have a perfect scenario for the way the world is either ignorant about Islam or suspicious of it.
At the same time, someone somewhere should ask the non-Muslims what efforts they have made on their part to learn about Islam. Muslims are one-fifth of the population of the world and yet non-Muslims have not lifted a finger to decipher Muslim life on earth? Unbelievable!
Islam in many ways dominates and drives the lives of so many people in so many parts of the world and yet that does not make non-Muslims sit up and smell the roses? What planet do they live on?
Muslim oil forms the life-blood of modern civilization and society at all levels and yet non-Muslims will not go beyond the oil slick and take an honest look at what Islam really is – beyond the naiveté and foolishness of Muslims and the propaganda of non-Muslims?
Unbelievable!
Part Two. So, part of the reason why so many non-Muslims do not seem to know about the true nature and teachings of Islam is because so few of them seem to be showing the necessary curiosity or taking the required initiative that would connect them to the true message of love and liberty that Islam and the Qur’an brought into this world.
Part Three. Another powerful reason for the closing of the non-Muslim mind to Islam is the negative propaganda that is let lose on the world to demonize Islam and Muslims by those who have reason to fear the success of Islam in the world.
The Crusaders, for example, not only killed people – mostly Muslims but also Jews – for centuries, they also engaged in systematic demonization of Islam and Muslims by spreading all kinds of lies and distortions about them.
The Colonizers built on the falsehoods the Crusaders had invented and further deepened and compounded the ignorance and mistrust of most non-Muslims about Islam and Muslims. Ever since, the military onslaught against Muslim lands, as well as the propaganda barrage against Islam, the Qur’an and Muslims have continued, right down to our days, under new names, forms, pretexts and excuses.
Part Four. By and large, the Muslims themselves have lost the flair for the preaching and practice of Islam as a message of liberation and uplift for the world and have chosen to view and practice Islam as a set of often empty rituals mostly for purposes of personal salvation. Most Muslims – the good ones I mean – are mostly fixated with success in the next world often to the detriment of success in the present world.
Simple Facts:
Muslims Don’t Tell, Non-Muslims Don’t Ask
There are so many other parts to my answer to the question of why the world harbors such colossal ignorance, hate, mistrust and hostility about Islam and its life-giving message of liberty, equality and dignity for all that I have neither the time nor other resources to do justice to them.
But in spite of there being so many parts to this answer, the facts are quite simple: Muslims never told and non-Muslims never bothered to find out.
As a result, both sides – Muslims as well as non-Muslims – are in the kind of trouble and jeopardy that they are in. Meaning: Humanity is in peril. And this state of perfect peril is brought on by both sides of the Muslim-no-Muslim divide.
If you want, read chapter 103 of the Qur’an – Surah Wal-‘Asr – and it will tell you precisely how and why. That amazing Surah will also tell you what humanity can and should do about it.
Dilution of Human Freedom and Dignity in Muslim Lands
As a result, Muslim communities and societies are no longer vibrant examples of human freedom, dignity, achievement, equality and exaltation that Islam came to teach the world, making it difficult for the rest of the world to take Muslims as role models. It is fair to say that most Muslim individuals and societies today are not exactly lodestars of excellence, brilliance and achievement in the fields of knowledge, education, science, organization and management.
