By Shofi Ahmed

Friday Post 8

Islam is true and is proven every now and then every new time and age accordingly. What does it mean? Let’s read on. In Shaa Allah, we will see it’s self-explanatory finding how the Muslim beat that challenge we read last week. When a European Christian in India called on the Muslims to prove that the Qur’an won’t burn by throwing it in the fire. Then he too will throw the Bible into the same fire. The claim is only the true one won’t burn.

In the West, where we live, people say proof is in the pudding. What is true, it has proof. Just have to look at it the right way and find it likewise. Truth is universal. One in many and many in one entailing the varieties. For instance, the truth is the night will end up exposing the sunrise. But it will creep in many different ways, different weather and with different flavour so every morning is a new dawn. A new day. Ushering in a new period of time.

The Muslims took the challenge with ease. They flocked to their sheikhs. They knew that from the bottom of their hearts that the Qur’an won’t burn. But how, just how can any Muslim put it in the fire. Not possible. So, they wanted a decent solution.

It happened some years before the Deoband Madrasa was built in India. Established in 1867, this great institute helped produce some of the most important Islamic thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides teaching and preaching Islam they were instrumental playing an invaluable, though tragically often untold, role in the Indian Independence Movement.

Recalling the true history Pashtun leader Abdul Gaffar Khan once said: “I have had relation with Darul-Uloom since the time the Shaikhul-Hind Maulana Mahmood Hasan was alive. Sitting here we used to make plans for the independence movement as to how we might drive away the English from this country and how we could make India free from the yoke of slavery of the English. This institution has made great efforts for the freedom of this country”.

Muslims, seeking a fitting solution, approached their local sheikh that they knew. But every one of them pointed to one sheikh who was regarded as the most senior at that time. Remarkably it’s a sign of unity that they pointed to one ulema.

As they met him, he listened to them and asked for a ten-minute time. For him to do a Muraqabah (zeroing into the matter evoking remembrance of Allah SWT) alone. After a short while the sheikh returned to them assuring that he had accepted the challenge thrown by the European Christian.

Allahu Akbaar, everyone cheered. He asked them to bring the man. The man comes and hears the sheikh say: ‘I accept your challenge. I am ready to do what you asked from us. But with a condition.’

Yes, a condition. As the westerns say, proof is in the pudding. In Shaa Allah let’s see it up next.