“From this day forward,” he declares, “Muslims have no need for any further of these intellectual studies. Despite their differing cultures, Muslims have now reached a level of awareness in such matters that would grant them full immunity—if the issue were left to awareness alone.
“What they lack today is the tremendous force that impels implementation, and it is futile to imagine that implementation can be carried out by thought or reason alone.
“The tremendous force they require is, in fact, the power of morals.”
Such are the words of the learned doctor! Yet his statement brims with fallacies and errors too numerous to detail here. No Muslim thinker has ever claimed, as his words insinuate, that awareness and intellect by themselves suffice to resolve the crisis. The very problem he denies is the well-spring of moral strength itself: true faith, sound monotheism, and correct creed. That is why the Prophets and Messengers—peace be upon them—and their followers always began their call with the affirmation of Allah’s oneness. At the outset they did not address moral, economic, or other social problems—issues that so many writers today rush to treat—while overlooking the fundamental calamity: the departure of countless Muslims, past and present, from the sound creed. The speculative-theology works they label “books of monotheism” have played a large part in that deviation.
I shall put a single question to the learned doctor: Can an individual, a group, or an entire nation attain the tremendous force they need today—the force of morals—if their creed is unsound? If he answers that such a thing is impossible, we must then ask: Does he, in fact, believe that there still exists a Muslim nation whose creed remains as sound as it was in the era of the early generations, even though within it are those who hold the doctrines of the Muʿtazilite negators, the Jabrites, and the extremist Sufis? Indeed, in our own land there are people who say that a Muslim has no need to study the Book and the Sunnah or the sciences that aid in understanding them; it is enough, they claim, to have God-fearing piety, and they cite passages from the Qur’an as their proof.