Syed Manazir Ahsan Gilani[1]
Translated by Waqar Akbar Cheema
The dark and swirling clouds of intellectual rebellion and mental unrest, what we call kufr, can be torn apart only by rays that flow, directly or indirectly, from the fountain of Prophethood. Whenever doubt and apostasy stir within an otherwise practising Muslim community, whether or not other religions face similar trials, Muslim history testifies to one recurring pattern: Providence has always raised people of truth to restrain the storm.
The first outbreak of apostasy in Islam began immediately after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). Known in history as the Wars of Apostasy, this rebellion was subdued by the very figure who was Islam’s first and greatest Ṣiddīq.
In the Middle Ages of Islam, the Book of Allah found itself surrounded by doubts and speculations inherited from Greece and Rome, Egypt and Persia, China and India. The very community that had been shaped to live under the Qur’an now pressed the Qur’an beneath its own changing circumstances. Open rebellion in words was rare, but minds that drifted away from the Qur’an’s meanings, and souls that quietly apostasised, began to appear in homes still called Muslim and among people who still bore Muslim names.
Just as during the first apostasy, a simple cloth merchant commanded armies with courage and clarity, selecting tribes one by one and returning them from rebellion to obedience, a remarkably similar episode unfolded in the medieval period of Islam.
From the household of the first Ṣiddīq emerged another person of truth, not merely by lineage but in spiritual stature as well. Those endowed with insight found him firmly standing in what the Qur’an calls “the Assembly of Truth before the Sovereign Omnipotent” (Qur’an 54:55). Observers watched in amazement as a man who had recently been absorbed in grammar, jurisprudence, logic, and scholastic theology now appeared openly in the marketplace, singing, reciting, swaying, and drawing others into that rhythm.
This scholar, intoxicated with meaning, later came to be known by many titles. In his own time, people simply called him Mullā Jalāl al-Dīn.
Those who memorised Zamakhsharī and Bayḍāwī, who drilled Bazdawī and Ibn al-Ḥājib into their students, who dissected Khayālī and ‘Aḍudī line by line, how many of them still endure, or even promise to endure? Yet the very man once dismissed as a teller of animal fables is today regarded as one of Islam’s greatest philosophers, a profound interpreter of the Qur’an, and one of the most penetrating explainers of the inner dimensions of the Sharī‘ah.
Sufis whirl to his verses. Preachers sway as they recite his lines. Philosophers untangle problems through his paradoxes. Poets draw strength from his free and unbounded language. He walked from the madrasa into the marketplace, but people lifted him and his compositions from the marketplace and placed them everywhere. They are found not only in schools and seminaries, but also in colleges and universities; not only in the East, but also in centres of learning in the West; not only in mosques and pulpits, but even in monasteries and temples.
Who can say to what heights this product of the earth has risen in the heavens?
Those who have been granted insight into the verse, “Its roots are firm, and its branches are in the sky,” (Qur’an 14:24) can describe what they see in this work. I have seen even the most cautious and austere scholars hesitate little in calling it “the Qur’an in Persian.”
The Masnawī’s response to the apostasy of Islam’s medieval period, its strength and effectiveness, deserves a separate, detailed study. In brief, Allah fulfilled the intention of that truthful servant. Allah does not allow the reward of those who do good to be lost.
Today, Islam once again finds itself surrounded by doubts and temptations emerging from the Western world. Families within Muslim societies who are increasingly shaped by Western civilisation are gradually, and often imperceptibly, drifting away from the Book of Allah and the message of His Messenger.
In earlier periods of apostasy, Islam still held political dominance over rival civilisations. As a result, the inner rebellion of mind and soul had a limited outward effect on Muslim society. Today, however, under the shadow of Western dominance, Muslims have lost even that political advantage. The consequence is stark. Apostasy that begins inwardly may remain hidden for a time due to social pressure. Still, as communal bonds weaken and proximity to Western power increases, it steadily emerges into the open.
Western-style schools and institutions now serve as the strongest accelerants of this fire. No one can predict where it will end. Only belief in the Finality of Prophethood and trust in the divine promise, “Indeed, We are its Guardian,” (Qur’an 15:9) offer hope in moments of despair. Otherwise, the pace of events leaves hearts heavy and souls wounded.
Allah is the best Protector, and He is the Most Merciful of the merciful.
Across the Muslim world, sincere individuals are doing what they can, each in their own place. It cannot be denied that every sincere effort produces some result. May Allah reward them on behalf of the Prophet of Islam with the best of rewards.
History leaves us with one clear lesson. The most effective response to intellectual apostasy has never been noise, spectacle, or coercion. It has always been the quiet power of meaning, of story, symbol, and inward persuasion. It was through such means that the apostasy of the medieval period was confronted, subdued, and eventually pushed beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world.
If, in our own time, the Masnawī of Rūmī were to be reintroduced to Muslims in a form accessible to the contemporary mind, without distortion and without apology (alongside other voices in the tradition of fiqh al-qulūb, such as Ghazali and Ibn Qayyim among the kindred masters of inner reform), it would not be unreasonable to hope that this rising tide of apostasy and heresy might not only be slowed, but in due course firmly reversed.
[1] This text is an English translation of the first half of a book review titled “Fitna-e-Irtidad aur Mir’at al-Masnawi,” written by Syed Manazir Ahsan Gilani (d. 1956) on Mir’at al-Masnawi, a work by Syed Talammudh Hussain. The original review was published in Monthly Tarjuman al-Qur’an, 4:2 (April 1934 / Ṣafar 1353 AH) 75–79
The translation seeks to preserve the original Urdu text’s argument, tone, and stylistic character. Minor editorial adjustments have been made for clarity and readability. The concluding section has been rendered in a general form, omitting the specific reference to the author under review, while retaining the substance of the original intellectual conclusion.
