In order to demonstrate to some extent...

In order to demonstrate to some extent, the difference between Islam and what is presented as Islam, I would like to draw your attention to the difference between the Holy Qur’an and the books of hadīth ,[^5] on the one hand, and the practical treatises of jurisprudence, on the other.

The Holy Qur’an and the books of hadīth , which represent the sources for the commands and ordinances of Islam, are completely different from the treatises written by the mujtahīds [^6] of the present age both in breadth of scope and in the effects they are capable of exerting on the life of society. The ratio of Qur’anic verses concerned with the affairs of society to those concerned with ritual worship is greater than a hundred to one.

Of the approximately fifty sections[^7] of the corpus of hadīth containing all the ordinances of Islam, not more than three or four sections relate to matters of ritual worship and the duties of man toward his Creator and Sustainer. A few more are concerned with questions of ethics, and all the rest are concerned with social, economic, legal, and political questions—in short, the gestation of society.

You who represent the younger generation and who, God willing, will be of service to Islam in the future must strive diligently all your lives to pursue the aims I will now set forth and to impart the laws and ordinances of Islam. In whatever way you deem most beneficial, in writing or in speech, instruct the people about the problems Islam has had to contend with since its inception and about the enemies and afflictions that now threaten it.

Do not allow the true nature of Islam to remain hidden, or people will imagine that Islam is like Christianity (nominal, not true Christianity), a collection of injunctions pertaining to man’s relation to God, and the mosques will be equated with the church.

At a time when the West was a realm of darkness and obscurity—with its inhabitants living in a state of barbarism, and America still peopled by half-savaged redskins—and the two vast empires of Iran and Byzantium were under the rule of tyranny, class privilege, and discrimination, and the powerful dominated all without any trace of law or popular government, God, Exalted and Almighty, by means of the Most Noble Messenger (s), sent laws that astound people with their magnitude.

He instituted laws and practices for all human affairs and laid injunctions for man extending from even before the embryo is formed until after he is placed in the tomb.