How, over the passage of time, Islam got transformed into a Religion is indeed a very painful but an interesting historical phenomenon. This involves the interplay of several forces of human history. Precisely how the radical teachings of Jesus were gradually transformed into a Religion is story well described in the Quran itself. Kings and Rulers out of their vested interests and the human mind with its tendencies to follow the path of least resistance lead to this transformation. Perhaps mankind was still too immature to adopt this highly transcendent ideology. The initial momentum from the period when Islam was a living ideology however provided a great impetus to The Believers. For over six centuries they were the masters of the World in culture and scientific learning. They were pioneers in the fields of Astronomy, Medicine, Algebra, Physics and Chemistry. Their children today spread over half of the globe, are trapped in the very shackles of Religious Fundamentalism from which Islam had once liberated the entire mankind. They can only talk with pride about their glorious past. Nothing but misery is their fate. Such are the rewards of Islamic fundamentalism. This is the fate of a Religious culture. The Quran calls this the Doom. It warns of such a miserable Doom for those that follow the Disbelievers. In contrast, the liberated western philosophers proclaim and propagate the very principles that shine through the verses of the Quran. Slavery is abolished. Democracies are established. A concept of separation of the Church and the State prevails. Fundamental rights of equality and social justice are recognized
and adopted. Freedom of speech and freedom to love and live happily is proclaimed. The United States of America is the most illuminating example of people that live in the liberty and freedom which the Quran proclaims. Americanism is Mohammed’s ideal. It is a society in which The Quran lives by night and by day. Liberty and Freedom and the pursuit of happiness. What else is the Quran about?
The turn of the last century heralded a very strong movement of Islamic reconstruction and the reestablishment of Mohammed’s Quranocracy. There was a very strong move towards revivalism of Mohammed’s ideology of human liberty and the creation of a free society where mankind could flourish fearlessly. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan ( 1898) , Iqbal (1936) and Jinnah ( 1948) were the stalwarts of this great movement. Not to forget Ayub Khan, the graduate from Aligarh who strived hard for the establishment of a society free from the shackles of religion. Indeed Pakistan was created in order to reestablish Mohammed’s Quranocracy and The System of Al Salat and Al Zakat. The religious fundamentalists opposed the creation of such a Pakistan tooth and nail. To them
Al Salat meant “prayers” and Al Zakat meant “alms and charity”. When nations decline, their language attains a new passivity of meaning for all phrases that represented alive and active institutions. A negation of self, an order of worship, rituals and prayers, a belief in miraculous happenings and superstition had become the hallmark of this pseudo-Islam of the miserable Muslims. A revival of Mohammed’s Quranocracy implied death to their established institutions of exploitation. The capitalists feared that Pakistan was going to be a harbinger of death to their system.
After Pakistan was established no effort was spared by the Mullahs in averting Quranocracy. Quranocracy meant liberty and freedom from the shackles of the Mullah. “Every person will be his own priest for there is no priesthood in Islam. There is no theocracy in Islam,” declared Jinnah the founder of Pakistan.
