SECOND SIGN

The people of innovation who have changed the marks of Islam first of all sought fatwas from corrupt religious scholars. They had previously pointed out that the fatwa we  explained  was  particular  in  five  respects.  Secondly,  the  people  of  innovation adopted   the  following   inauspicious   idea  from  the  European   reformists:   being dissatisfied with the Catholic Church foremost the revolutionaries, reformists, and philosophers, who were innovators according to the Church, favoured Protestantism, which was considered to Mu‘tazilite, and taking advantage of the French Revolution they partially destroyed the Catholic Church and proclaimed Protestantism.

Then the pseudo-patriots here, who are accustomed to imitating blindly, said: “A revolution like that came about in the Christian religion. At first the revolutionaries were called apostates, then later they were again accepted as Christians. So why shouldn’t there be a similar religious revolution in Islam?”

T  h  e   A n  s  w e r  : The  difference  here  is  even  greater  than  in  the  false comparison in the First Sign. Because in the religion of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), only the  fundamentals  of religion  were  taken  from  him.  Most  of the  injunctions relating to social life and the secondary matters of the law were formulated by the disciples and other spiritual leaders. The greater part were taken from former holy scriptures. Since Jesus (Upon whom be peace) was not a worldly ruler and sovereign, and  since  he  was  not  the  source  of general  social  laws,  the  fundamentals  of  his religion were as though clothed  with the garment  of common laws and civil rules taken from outside, having been given a different form and called the Christian law. If this form is changed and the garment transformed, the fundamental religion of Jesus (Upon whom be peace) may persist. It does not infer denying or giving the lie to Jesus himself (Upon whom be peace).

However, the Glory of the World (Upon whom be blessings and peace) was the founder of the religion and Shari‘a of Islam. He was the sovereign of this world and the next, and the East and West and Andalusia and India were his seat of rule. He himself therefore both taught the fundamentals of the religion of Islam, and brought its secondary matters and other injunctions, including even minor matters of conduct; he himself taught them; he commanded them. That is to say, the secondary matters of Islam  are  not  like  a  garment  capable  of change,  so  that if they are  changed,  the essential religion will persist. They are rather a sort body for the fundamentals of religion, or at least a skin. They have blended and combined with it and cannot be separated.  To  change  them  infers  direct  denial  and  contradiction  of  the  one  who brought the Shari‘a.