In this world of ours, there is Islam. And then there are all these people called Muslims. They are not one and the same thing.
Even though, generally speaking, it may perhaps be so to many non-Muslims. And that is due, at least in part, to the methodology many non-Muslims use to understand what they call "Religion" and the world in general.
To many of them, Islam is what Muslims do. And what Muslims are in their daily life.
But to the Muslim mind, that is a most terrible thing to do: To equate Islam with Muslim behavior and practice.
And that is because Islam is from God Almighty. And Muslims are merely people. Like everybody else in the world.
As a result, Islam is perfect and complete and wonderful and every inch a most beautiful and practical thing.
Muslims on the other hand are frail, fragile and fickle human beings, like everybody else on the face of this earth, buffeted by the vicissitudes of time, space and circumstance. They bob up and down in the whirlpools of life's turbulent waters, pretty much like all other people do.
And part of the reason why Islam stands out so clearly in a class of its own is because Islam has something that others don't. Islam, most fundamentally, has the Qur'an. Others don't.
No one, but no one, has a book quite like the Qur'an. There are no ifs or buts about it.
The Qur'an is a book that exists in the original, in exactly the same form, with precisely the same wording and organization in which Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, gave the world well over 1400 years ago.
Whether or not that book is from God is a matter of investigation, discussion and belief. But what brooks no doubt, debate or discussion is the fact that this book that the world has in its hands today is that very same book.
Nor does it bear discussion or questioning that no one else in the world has a book like that. The world today does not have a book given by Moses, Jesus, Krishna, Rama, Buddha or Jaina or anyone else.
It is as simple as that.
Islam has it, others don't.
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