One of the most
widespread and yet least challenged fallacies is the notion that the history of the
development of civilisation shows that that there has been a continuous general advance
from the prehistoric times up to the present day; a concept that is no doubt reinforced by
the explosive growth of our technology during the last fifty or sixty years.
However, this is
a completely mistaken assumption; not only has civilisation occasionally remained
virtually static for centuries at a time, but it has often reversed itself, losing
knowledge and skills it had so laboriously acquired. For instance, that the Earth is
spherical in shape and spins on its axis in space was known to educated people more than
400 years B.C., yet hardly a thousand years later the accepted opinion among learned men
was that it is flat! Also, it is quite common for archaeologists to find that advanced
cultures have been superseded by relatively inferior social organisations and levels of
technology.
The truly
outstanding, most notable characteristics of the history of civilisation is that its
progress has been so wildly erratic. There is nothing steady about it. An added
complication is that while it might be advancing in one respect, it might at the same time
be standing still or even retrogressing in another.
In the field of
religious teaching where over-piousness, excessive zeal, personal ambition and the
credulity of the public at large are some of the many active factors involved, the
well-known process of accretion is always at work. An original teaching tends to become so
encrusted with accretionary matter such as pious embroidery of the truth “for the
greater glory of God”, deliberate additions and omissions, falsifications,
paraphrasing at the expense of meaning, mistranslations and so forth that little or
nothing of it remains visible.
To dislodge the
accretions so that the original gems of truth are revealed is no easy task. Not only does
it call for intensive, painstaking research and study, but also for great patience,
perseverance, determination, motivation and sheer mental stamina.
Above all, it
demands nothing less than the highest grade of moral fibre and personal courage; many men
have paid with their lives for much less than Mr. Joommal dares to do in this book.
Mr. A.S.K.
Joommal, the prolific journalist so well-known to the newspaper reading public in this
country as a defender of Islam against malicious slander and as an exponent of Islamic
teachings, is one of South Africa’s handful of original, creative thinkers. He is the
author of “The Path of Islam” and many articles about Islam.
He is a firm
believer in the great religious truths revealed to mankind through the agency of the long
line of Prophets whom God had sent to this world through the ages; a series of Messengers
that ended with the Holy Prophet Muhammad, the last and as such the Seal of the Prophets.
Mr. Joommal
realises that the most urgent need of these times is to arrive at a true understanding of
the Revealed Words of God. Such an understanding calls for the ruthless and uncompromising
removal of the accretions of centuries, accretions that obscure the truth in the various
writings which were eventually assembled into what we know as the Bible - whether in the
King James version or any of the others. He believes that the Bible still contains the
Revealed Words of God, but that man’s tampering so distorted and beclouded them that
a New Revelation became necessary.
This New
Revelation, which supports and confirms some of the truths still found in the Bible, is
the Holy Quran. Not one word, letter or punctuation mark in the Quran has ever been or
will ever be changed. It is still exactly as the Angel Gabriel conveyed it from God to the
Holy Prophet Muhammad, who then recited it for his followers to write down as he himself
was illiterate.
For careful,
thoughtful and rational study, I commend this book to those for whom Faith follows the
light of Reason. As for those for whom Reason is merely the handmaiden of Faith, this book
will not benefit them because, having closed minds, they are beyond all human help.