He was a young man searching for the truth, and for many long years the fire of a single question had burned in his chest:
“Why have we fallen behind while others have advanced?”
He was not like other people, who cast the blame on someone else and move on; rather, he resolved to try for himself and to dive into the depths until he found the answer.
He set off into the world of politics. He waded into the field of party factions, called for democracy and chanted for justice, thinking that in them lay the revival of the Ummah… Then he came out of it shattered, having seen the quarrelling and division, and having seen how principles change according to interests. So he asked himself: Is this the way?
Then he tried the path of “charitable work”. He spent, contributed, and founded initiatives… and he saw poor people who only grew more grasping, and hearts that knew kindness only at the appointed time of charity, as though goodness had become conditional on need, not on faith… And he said: Where is the change?
Then he searched in the world of thought. He read the leftists and the liberals, dabbled a little in Sufism, and inclined to philosophy for a while, but behind every door he entered he found a mirage… no guidance, no certainty, no fruit.
Then he joined a da’wah group, and found it preoccupied with numbers, not with substance. It multiplied activity and excelled at organisation, but without spirit, without revelation, without light.
Indeed, people in it came to be called to the organisation, not to Allah; to the idea, not to the text; to the symbol, not to the Messenger ﷺ!
He grew tired and worn out, and his bewilderment increased. So one day he sat in a sincere prostration, confiding in his Lord:
“O Allah, show me the truth as truth, and grant me to follow it.”
That very night, a small booklet fell into his hands, entitled:
“Why Have We Fallen Behind While Others Have Advanced?” by Shaykh Dr. Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Naqib, may Allah preserve him.
He began to read… as though he were hearing his inner voice answered for the first time.
He read that the problem is not the absence of ways, but the absence of revelation, and that every attempt at reform that does not begin from the text and return to the text is fallen, however much it may seem to glitter.
He read that Islam is not the interpretations of the jurists, but the revealed revelation, and that conflict among people arises only when understanding is put before the text, and opinion before revelation.
He read that the calls that succeeded in history were neither partisan nor ideological, but prophetic and Salafi: they set creed right, purified conception, refined character, and directed action.
He read that the solution lies not in gathering people around ideas, nor around money, nor around power, but around the truth, around revelation, and around noble character.
He read the sentence that struck him like a thunderbolt:
“The last of this Ummah will not be set right except by what set right its first.”
Then he wept… he wept a great deal…
He had tried everything… except the path of the Prophets.
From that day on, he resolved to tie the rope of his heart to heaven and to return to revelation, Qur’an and Sunnah, in understanding and conduct, in da’wah and method.
And afterwards, to everyone who asked him:
“Why have we fallen behind while others have advanced?”
He would answer firmly: “Because we tried everything except the path of prophethood… the path of revelation.”
For those who want the details, this story is inspired by a splendid booklet by Shaykh Dr. Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Naqib, may Allah preserve him, entitled “Why Have We Fallen Behind While Others Have Advanced?”, published by Dar Taybah, Mansoura, Egypt.