estrangement it can experience occurs when those who have embraced it renounce it. Allah Most High has said:

“Whoever among you renounces his religion, Allah will bring forth a people whom He loves and who love Him, humble toward the believers, firm against the disbelievers, striving in Allah’s cause and fearing no one’s reproach.”

These people uphold it when those others renounce it. Likewise, it began as a stranger and continued to grow stronger until it spread. Thus, it becomes a stranger in many places and times, then prevails until Allah, Mighty and Majestic, establishes it. When Umar ibn Abd al-Azīz came to power, for example, much of Islam had become unfamiliar to many people, to the point that some did not know that wine was forbidden. Through him, Allah restored to prominence those aspects of Islam that had become unfamiliar.

The Sunan collections relate:

“Allah will send this community, at the beginning of every hundred years, someone who will renew its religion for it.”

Renewal takes place only after the teachings have faded, and that is what Islam’s estrangement means. This hadith teaches the Muslim not to grieve over how few people understand the true nature of Islam, not to be distressed by that, and not to doubt the religion of Islam—just as was the case when it first began. Allah Most High said:

“If you are in doubt about what We have revealed to you, ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you.”

There are other such verses