If there is something that has ever influenced my life in a big way, I would say it is Islam. I have always responded to the Azan, though not always in prayer. Islam does something to my soul, I don’t quite know what and I suppose knowing it would spoil the pleasure. I can name a million things that drew me to Islam and a million other that make me want to shut my brain to any institutionalised religion. And then I realised that it wasn’t Islam, that is an institutionalised, formal religion that I was in love with. I was, in fact, in love with Islam-ism…the ideology. And somehow the differences between the two are great.

Every time I read or watch a movie about the Prophet and how Islam began, I feel this over whelming sense of awe and admiration. The truth and simplicity that rang through Mohammad’s message drove people to him. And what faith they had! They gave up their families, their land, suffered cruelties at the hands of the other Meccan tribes and all for that one Ideology…that God is one. Islam stood for equality, social justice and human rights and the men who championed its cause had the faith, the strength and the courage to help it flourish. It was not just a religion…it was a revolution to change the prevalent social conditions that ordained female infanticide and slavery. 1200 years from when Islam had made widow remarriage permissible, Indians were still burning sati. Such was the power and potential of that original Ideology!

Today, although Islam is the fastest growing religion, I see that spirit fading, that zeal dying. Like all religions that begin as an ideology and end up becoming a culture, Islam too has become this stagnant pool of do’s and don’ts…of traditions that make no sense in today’s world. Somehow it has lost its true essence…truth, equality, justice seem all a part of its former glory. Divided by factions, misunderstood by propaganda from within and without, destroyed by constant justifications that Muslims think they need to give for everything they do…Islam ends up being no Ideology at all but this entire social canvas where the Syed believes he knows his religion the best because he is from the Prophet’s family, where the Mullah thinks emulating the Prophet’s clothes would take him to Heaven, where a woman in hijab, no matter how UnIslamic is still considered a true believer, where people are intolerant and turn violent at the drop of a hat, where they pray and fast, not out of love for God but in greed for a promised Heaven or in fear of Hellfire.

We need a revolution within. We need to eliminate the frills and fancies and bring back the Ideology that Islam originally stood for. For that surely can revolutionize the world we live in today. The Ideology that changed 7^th Century Arabia can change the 21^st Century too, only this time, the social reforms need to be different…agenda needs a change…one cannot still talk of slavery or female infanticide or widow remarriage. The Ideology needs to be applied to the problems of the age. And this can only happen if we stop complaining and justifying and actually prove in action the basic teachings of Islam…of kindness, mercy, generosity and tolerance.

That face glistens

Like clear water

In the desert sand.

As if King Solomon's mines

Were dancing in the Heavens.

Those eyes shimmer

With an intensity

And fervour so reminiscent

Of Mahomet's first followers.

One breath could perform

The miracles of Christ.

And one hint of a smile

For all of Byzantium to bow.

All the minds of Baghdad

With their letters

Could not, oh, could not

Equal in eloquence or grace.

The dervishes in Turkey

Whirled and whirled

For one glance at a face so divine.

The great artists in Italy painted.

Painted all they could.

But the colours of that Knight in black

Were elusive to their brush.

That gleaming sword

At my neck had asked

Sacrifice! Sacrifice!

And I had only whispered a kiss

Amen!