From Damascus Sermon

In the conditions of the present time in these lands, I have learnt a lesson in the school of mankind's social life and I have realized that what has allowed foreigners, Europeans, to fly towards the future on progress while it arrested us and kept us, in respect of material development, in the Middle Ages, are six dire sicknesses. The sicknesses are these: (Firstly) The rising to life of despair and hopelessness in social life. (Secondly) The death of truthfulness in social and political life. (Thirdly) Love of enmity. (Fourthly) Not knowing the luminous bonds that bind the believers to one another. (Fifthly) Despotism, which spreads, becoming widespread as though it was various contagious diseases. (Sixthly) Restricting endeavour to what is personally beneficial.

I shall explain, by means of six 'Words,' the lesson I have learnt from the pharmacy of the Qur'an, which is like a faculty of medicine. This lesson constitutes the medicine to cure our social life of those six dire sicknesses.

FIRST WORD: The first word is 'hope;' that is, to nurture a strong hope of Allah's mercy. The future shall be Islam's and Islam's alone. And its ruler shall be the truths of the Qur'an and belief. I start with the premises of those arguments:
Islam and its truths possess the perfect capacity to progress, both materially and in moral and non-material matters.

Progress in Moral and Non-Material Matters, which is the First Aspect: History shows that the Muslims increased in civilization and progressed in relation to the power of the truths of Islam; that is, to the degree that they acted in accordance with that power. History also shows that they fell into savagery and decline, and disaster and defeat amidst utter confusion to the degree of their weakness in adhering to the truths of Islam.

If we were to display through our actions the perfections of the morality of Islam and the truths of belief, without doubt the followers of other religions would enter Islam in whole communities; some entire regions and states, even, would take refuge in Islam.

Moreover, man has been awakened and aroused by the modern sciences in particular; he has understood the true nature of humanity. Without any shadow of a doubt, man cannot live without religion, aimlessly. He cannot. Even the most irreligious person is compelled to take refuge in religion. For the only point of support for impotent man in the face of the innumerable disasters and the external and internal enemies that plague him, and the only point from which he may seek help and assistance in the face of the innumerable needs with which he is afflicted, and his desires that stretch to eternity, despite his utter want and poverty, is in recognizing the Maker of the world, in faith, and in believing and affirming the hereafter. There is no help for awakened mankind apart from this.

Conclusion: We Muslims, who are students of the Qur'an, follow proof; we approach the truths of belief through reason, thought, and our hearts. We do not abandon proof in favour of blind obedience and imitation of the clergy like some adherents of other religions. Therefore, in the future when reason, science and technology prevail, of a certainty that will be the time the Qur'an will gain ascendancy, which relies on rational proofs and invites the reason to confirm its pronouncements.

The following therefore are two examples out of hundreds:

The First: A famous European scholar and philosopher of the 19th century, Carlyle, did not hold back from proclaiming in the loudest voice to philosophers and Christian scholars the following, which he also wrote in his works, that Islam was born like a brilliant flame and devoured the religions of its time as though they were dead wood. It was Islam's right to do this he said, for it was a reality, while the other religions lacked reality. He said also that the words most worthy to be heeded first are those of Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace), for the true word was his. He said too that if the truth of Islam is doubted then the most self-evident matters should be doubted, because the most self-evident and necessary truth is Islam.

Second Example: A famous European of the last century who was also a scholar and philosopher, Prince Bismarck, said: "I have studied all the revealed books, but since they are corrupted, I have been unable to find the true wisdom I was searching for, for the happiness of mankind. Then I saw that the Qur'an of Muhammad was far superior to all the other Books. I found wisdom in all its words. There is no other work that will serve man's happiness like this. Such a work cannot be the word of man. Those who say it is Muhammad's work are denying the imperatives of knowledge. That is, the Qur'an is self-evidently the word of Allah."

So, supported by the fact that the clever fields of Europe and America have produced crops of brilliant and exacting scholars like Carlyle and Bismarck, I say with all assurance:

Europe and America are pregnant with Islam; one day they will give birth to an Islamic state. Just as the Ottomans were pregnant with Europe and gave birth to a European state. Islam that will be the true, and spiritual, ruler over the future, and only Islam that will lead mankind to happiness in this world and the next; and that true Christianity, stripping off superstition and corrupted belief, will be transformed into Islam; following the Qur'an, it will unite with Islam.

Second Aspect: That is, the powerful reasons for Islam's material progress show that Islam will also be materially dominant in the future. The First Aspect demonstrated its progress in moral and spiritual matters and this Second Aspect offers strong proofs for its material progress and supremacy in the future. For established in the heart of the Islamic world's collective personality are five extremely powerful, unbreakable 'Strengths,' which have blended and coalesced.

First Strength: This is the reality of Islam, which is the master of all perfection, can make three hundred and seventy million souls as a single soul, has been furnished with a real civilization and positive, true sciences, and is such that it cannot be destroyed by any power.
Second Strength: An intense need, which is the real master of civilization and industry, and is the source and means of development, together with complete, back-breaking poverty, are such strengths that they may be neither silent nor crushed.
Third Strength: The freedom which is accordance with the Shari'a. That is to say, it has been fitted out with the desire for the highest accomplishments worthy of humanity.
Fourth Strength: This the fearlessness arising from belief, which is decked out with compassion. That is, neither to demean oneself or to be servile to oppressors and despots, nor to oppress and be arrogant towards the unfortunate; these form the foundations of the freedom which is accordance with the Shari'a.
Fifth Strength: This is the dignity of Islam, which proclaims and upholds the Word of Allah. In this age, proclaiming the Word of Allah is contingent on material progress; it may be proclaimed only through ahieving true civilization.

In the future, in place of weapons, the immaterial, moral swords of true civilization, material progress, and truth and justice will defeat and scatter the enemies.

You should understand that what I mean are the good things that are civilization's virtues and its benefits for mankind. Not its iniquities and evils that idiots have imagined to be its virtues, and imitating them, devastated our possessions. Giving religion as the bribe, they have not even gained the world. Through civilization's iniquities prevailing over its benefits and its evils being preferred to its virtues, mankind has suffered two calamitous blows in the form of two world wars, and overturning that sinful civilization men have been so utterly disgusted that they have smeared the face of the earth with blood. Allah willing, through the strength of Islam in the future, the virtues of civilization will prevail, the face of the earth cleansed of filth, and universal peace be secured.

SECOND WORD: The Second Word has been born in my thought as a result of my experiences in the course of life. It is as follows:

Despair is a most grievous sickness and it has entered the heart of the world of Islam. It is despair that has as though killed us so that a small state of one or two million in the West has as though made twenty million Muslims in the East its servants and their country, its colony. And it is despair that has killed our high morals, and causing us to abandon the public good, has restricted our sight to personal benefits. It is despair too that has destroyed our morale. Although with little power we were victorious from east to west through the moral strength that arose from belief, because it was destroyed through despair, tyrannical foreigners have made three hundred million Muslims their captives for the last four hundred years. And because of this despair, Muslims even suppose the indifference and despondency of others to be an excuse for their own laziness and say: "What is it to me?" Saying, "Everybody is contemptible, like me," they abandon the courageousness of belief and fail to perform their Islamic duties.

Since the sickness of despair has inflicted so much tyranny on us and is killing us, we shall totally shatter it with the verse, "Do not despair of Allah's mercy." Allah willing, we shall destroy it with the truth of the Hadith, "Even if a thing is not wholly obtained, it should not be wholly left."



Despair is a most grievous sickness of communities and nations, a cancer. It is an obstacle to achievement and is opposed to the truth of the Sacred Hadith, "I am with my bondsman who thinks favourably of Me." It is the quality and pretext of cowards, the base and the impotent. It does not tell of Islamic courage. It cannot be the quality of a people like the Arabs in particular, who among mankind have been privileged with a fine character that is the cause of pride. The nations of the Islamic world have taken lessons from the Arabs' fortitude. Allah willing, once more the Arabs will give up despair and will stand together with the Turks, who are the heroic army of Islam, and will unfurl the banner of the Qur'an in every part of the world.

THIRD WORD: Truthfulness is the basis and foundation of Islam, and the bond between people of good character, and the basis of elevated emotions. Since this is so, as the foundation of the life of our society, we must bring to life truthfulness and honesty, and cure our moral and spiritual sicknesses with them.

Truthfulness and lying are as distant from one another as are belief and unbelief. With Muhammad's rising to the highest of the high by means of truthfulness in the Era of Bliss, and with the treasury of the truths of belief and the truths of the universe being unlocked with the key of truthfulness, truthfulness became the most valuable merchandise in the market of human society, and the goods most in demand.

Because of lying, the likes of Musaylima the Liar fell to the lowest of the low. Since that mighty revolution showed that at that time lying and falsehood were the key to blasphemies and superstition, they became one of the worst and filthiest goods on the market of the universe, and it was not as though everyone wanted to buy them, indeed, everyone detested them. Certainly the Companions, who were in the first line of that mighty revolution and in whose nature it was to buy things that were the cause of pride and to be customers for the most valuable goods and those most in demand, would never knowingly have advocated any falsehood. They would not have soiled themselves with lying. They would not have made themselves resemble Musaylima the Liar. Indeed, since with all their strength and through innate disposition they were customers for truthfulness and honesty, which formed the steps whereby Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) rose to the highest of the high, and were the most sought-after merchandise and the most valuable commodity and the key to realities, and since as far as was possible they tried not to depart from truthfulness, it became an established principle in the science of Hadith and among scholars of the Shari'a that "the Companions always spoke the truth. Their narrations do not require to be investigated in the same way as other narrations. The Hadiths they related from the Prophet (PBUH) are all sound." A decisive argument for the consensus of the scholars of Hadith and the Shari'a is this fact.

Indeed, everything you say must be true, but it is not right to say everything true. If on occasion it is damaging, then be silent. But there is no fatwa for lying. Everything you say must be the truth, but you do not have the right to say everything that is true. Because if it is not sincere, it will have a detrimental effect and truth will be spent on wrong.