“This Is the Time to Read This Book”
Praise be to Allah. The cause of Jerusalem (al-Quds) and al-Masjid al-Aqsa is not something incidental in the conscience of the Ummah, nor a seasonal file summoned at times of crisis and then folded away. Rather, it is – and has been and still is – a central, pivotal cause in Islamic consciousness, which no sensible member of this Ummah may neglect, and which may not be reduced to its political or humanitarian dimension alone.
The cause of al-Masjid al-Aqsa is fundamentally a creedal cause, connected to the foundations of faith, to Allah’s law (sunnah) of alternation and empowerment, and to the Ummah’s relationship with its history and its revelation. It is not an intellectual luxury, nor a passing emotional passion.
Throughout Islamic history this cause has remained a field for great epic struggles, a stage for the conflict between truth and falsehood, and a true measure of the vitality or weakness of the Ummah. Every reading that empties Jerusalem of this dimension contributes – intentionally or not – to diluting its centrality and emptying it of its real content.
Hence the importance of the book The Road to Jerusalem (al-Tariq ila al-Quds) by Prof. Dr. Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Naqib; for it does not present descriptive material or a purely historical narrative, but puts forward a comprehensive, composite reading that combines: grounding in the Shari’ah, historical analysis, political critique, and civilisational awareness.
It is a book that traces the cause with particular depth in the twentieth century, uncovering its developments and the positions of the various parties towards it – Arab, Islamic and international – with the eye of an academic researcher, the mind of a critic, and the concern of a caller to Allah.
It is no exaggeration to say that this work – in its three volumes – is one of the few books that make others unnecessary in this field, while no other book makes it unnecessary, for whoever wishes to encompass the cause of Jerusalem with a conscious, scholarly grasp and to understand its angles and hidden aspects, far from damaging oversimplification or emotional rhetoric.
From this standpoint comes this series of successive articles, as a scholarly da’wah reading of this book: not a summary of it, nor a reproduction of its material, but analytical and foundational pauses that bring out its method, discuss its ideas, and link its conclusions to the reality of the Ummah and Allah’s laws in history.
The author – may Allah preserve him – said in describing the book:
The wise of the Ummah should not link what they do now with seeing the fruit of their action; for the aim is that we plant in order to benefit others, especially the coming generations of the blessed Islamic Ummah. Thinking for the future of the Ummah should always be better than thinking for the present, so that we reach the elevation of the Ummah; that is, that each generation be better than the one before it, and so on. Accordingly, the generations of today must think in order to make something for the future of the Ummah tomorrow, even if they do not see the fruit of what they have planted, for perhaps those after them will benefit from it. This is an Islamic principle that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ emphasised, for he, upon him be peace, said: “If the Hour is established while one of you has a palm seedling in his hand, then if he is able not to stand up until he plants it, let him plant it” [Sahih]. The descent of great calamities upon the Ummah does not prevent it from thinking about the future and benefiting its generations in it, even if that calamity is the Dajjal!! Dawud ibn Abi Dawud al-Ansari said: ‘Abdullah ibn Salam (the noble Companion to whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ bore witness that he would enter Paradise, who was present with ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, at the conquest of Bayt al-Maqdis, and who died in Madinah in 43 AH) said to me: “If you hear that the Dajjal has come out while you are planting a palm shoot, do not hurry to finish tending it; for people will have a livelihood after that” [Sahih]. End of quotation.
Since this preface has been an introduction to the cause and an indication of the value of this work and its method, its purpose is not to stop at praise or remain at commendation, but to open the door to a conscious, unhurried reading of this book: a scholarly da’wah reading that takes up its issues, themes and ideas through analysis, discussion, and linking to reality and to Allah’s laws in nations.
Accordingly, further articles in this series will follow – Allah willing – each one an independent pause with one aspect of the book or one of its central issues, in the hope that this reading will contribute to reviving awareness of the cause, establishing its centrality in souls, and linking it to the method of reform and construction, not to the logic of passing reaction or temporary emotion.