Selections from Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's "Islam Rediscovered"

Maulana Khan is known for his strong anti-violence teachings. He has passionately devoted his life to showing Islam to the world as a religion of peace and tolerance instead of violence and hate. Islam Rediscovered took me a while to really get into (the translation is weak and much of his introductory rationalizations for belief are rudimentary and flimsy), but he eventually gets onto the subject of the dangers and mistakes in the most popular current interpretations of Islam. That was interesting to me. The main points he makes in this section:

1. The current Muslim mindset believes that Islam only provides a model for action in a position of strength (Muslim dominance...the dar al-Islam), not of modesty (Muslim minority...the dar al-harb).

2. The real struggle that the Muslim Ummah are called into is not the political, but the ideological spread of Islam through peaceful da'wah. -- He argues that this problematic tendency is derived from drawing inspiration from the political glory of early Muslim history rather than the Qur'an and Sunnah.

I was impressed by a few quotes in particular. With regard to point #1:

Muslims fight for their communal objectives, but they call it Islamic Jihad. Their leaders form political parties, they enter into violent conflict with other rulers in order to gain power, but they carry out all these activities in the name of Islam. Power play, pure and simple, is given the name of Islamic politics. The so-called Islamic jihad is the most glaring example of engaging in non-Islamic activities under the banner of Islam.

and,

A state of affairs has developed in which Muslims have come to believe that the cause of Islam can be served only through jihad activism, that is, armed struggle. With this mindset, they are unable to understand the significance of peaceful struggle. Anyone who talked in terms of peace and tolerance finds his integrity in question. Any attempt at making them understand the importance of peaceful struggle is seen as a conspiracy to keep them from performing jihad as a "religious duty." It is thus an extremely difficult task to call Muslims to peaceful Islam. Such a mission involves the risk of being dis-credited among one's own co-religionists.

With regard to point #2:

If the Qur'an and Sunnah are taken to be the true sources of knowledge of God's will, all mankind, in the words of a hadith, will be regarded by the believers as God's family; the whole of humanity will become their concern: whereas, when the mind is shaped by hsitory, Muslims see themselves as rulers, and others as subjects.

First published in 2001 in India, my host sister gave me this book when I was studying in
Oman. I would like to get a better feeling for how widespread teaching like Khan's really is. I know the Indian school of teaching (I know there is a better description, but i mean roughly the Tabligh movement) is very different from many other 'schools,' but it would be nice to know more. I'll dig around.