The Time of Estrangement

Main Part · Full-text chapter from the book The Doctrine of Monotheism · Read as PDF

As has been mentioned multiple times, the historical reality of the past centuries and millennia clearly shows that individual religious teachings were increasingly altered after the passing of their respective messengers, and much of their original message was forgotten.

From a historical perspective, this process is nothing unusual. Rather, it is a recurring phenomenon that has repeatedly taken place throughout history. Whenever a prophet عليه السلام passed away, the shared message of all prophets was gradually forgotten. From the stories of individual nations in the Qur'an, or in the Bible, it becomes clear that this state of neglect persisted and intensified until the Creator eventually sent a new prophet to renew the original message of monotheism (tawhid). This renewal through a messenger always took place when ignorance within the respective people had reached its peak. As a result, each prophet found his people distant from tawhid and deeply immersed in polytheism.

Interestingly, this circumstance is also mentioned in early Islamic sources as a future development from the perspective of that time, specifically concerning Islam itself.

In this regard, Muslim رحمه الله narrates in his Sahih from Abu Hurayrah رضي الله عنه that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said:

عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ: قَالَ رَسُولُ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: «بَدَأَ الْإِسْلَامُ غَرِيبًا، وَسَيَعُودُ كَمَا بَدَأَ غَرِيبًا، فَطُوبَى لِلْغُرَبَاءِ»

Islam began as something strange, and it will return to being strange as it began. So all the best to the strangers⁴⁶.