I told it by way of an answer:

“You cannot be like an animal, for animals have no past and future. They feel neither sorrows or regrets at the past, nor anxiety and fear at the future. It receives perfect pleasure; it sleeps and rises and thanks its Creator. An animal held down to be slaughtered, even, does not feel anything. It wants to feel it as the knife cuts, but that feeling disappears as well, and it is saved from the pain. This means that a great instance of Divine mercy and compassion is not making known the Unseen, and veiling the things that will befall one. It is more complete for innocent animals. But, O man, your past and future emerge from the Unseen to an extent because of your reason, so you are entirely deprived of the unconcern of the animals due to the Unseen being concealed from them. The regrets and painful separations coming from the past, and the anxieties coming from the future reduce to nothing your insignificant pleasure; they make it a hundred times less than that which the animals receive. Since the reality is this, either throw away your intellect, become an animal and be saved, or come to your senses through belief; listen to the Qur’an, and receive pure pleasure a hundred times greater than that of the animals in this transitory world too.” Saying this, I silenced it.

Yet, that obdurate collective personality still turned to me and said: “At least we can live like those Westerners who are without religion.”

I replied: “You cannot be like the irreligious people of Europe, either. For even if they deny one prophet, they can believe in the others. If they do not know the prophets, they may believe in God. And even if they do not know God, they may possess certain personal qualities through which they find fulfilment. But if a Muslim denies the Prophet of the End of Time (Peace and blessings be upon him), who was the final and greatest of the prophets and whose religion and cause are universal, and if he abandons his religion, he will accept no other prophet and perhaps not even God. For he knows all the prophets and God and all perfections through the Prophet of the End of Time (Peace and blessings be upon him); they can have no place in his heart without him. It is for this reason that since early times people have entered Islam from all other religions, but no Muslim has become a true Jew, Magian, or Christian. Muslims who abandon their religion rather become