Is today's Islam a failure or a success story? I  came across a recently published article by  

the British born muslim writer Surkheel Abu Aaliyah  which I'd like to share with you and I think it  

has some fascinating insights. And he writes as  follows: One could argue that Islam despite what  

we are being led to believe is actually a modern  success story. Now this might sound strange to some  

perhaps too many so let me explain.  No doubt, media portrayals are negative, dark  

and gloomy. And of course events around the world  involving Muslims or at least the ones we tend to  

hear about and that get most media exposure  don't lend themselves to much joy or cheer.  

So perhaps we as Muslims could be forgiven  for feeling somewhat overwhelmed feeling like  

little corks bobbing up and down in a raging sea  of western liberal modernity, yet despite this if  

we look at it more broadly, Islam is actually the  unsung success story of modernity. How is that?  

Well let's ask ourselves what religion is for. That  will indicate how well or not Islam is doing. Here  

there's much to give thanks for, much  to admire about our current situation;  

and there's much more to look forward to in the  coming future too - God willing. Islam as a religion  

must be judged in terms of: Does it still offer  authentic practical guidance for salvation?  

The answer to that is a resounding Yes!  It certainly does. In fact, Islam continues  

to be relevant and practical to a growing  number of people and accessible to them too  

and one significant reason for this is that  islam is universal the prophet upon whom be peace  

said 'I have been sent to the whole of humanity'.  This echoes what we read in the holy Qur'an:  

'Say O Muhammad: O mankind truly I am the messenger  of Allah to you all' That's surah 7 verse 158.  

Islam therefore has the in-built capacity to be  native to any soil. And we Muslims must remember  

this and not practice islam in a way which blurs  this universality or makes it appear that it is an  

asian or an arab thing. It ought to be remembered  that one of islam's great founding stories is of  

a gentile egyptian mother hagar along with  her hebrew canaanite young child ishmael  

and their enculturation into the native arabian  landscape language and cultural life that's to say  

that islam has the socio-spiritual  technology to become native to any soil  

another reason it's a success story has to do  with numbers what the data shows is that the  

number of muslims is increasing here in europe  and that by 2030 there will be more muslims  

than christians in britain related to this is the  number of people who continue to convert to islam  

despite media negativity and islamophobia and  in spite of us born muslims being asleep to our  

higher vocation of living and spreading the truths  of tawheed islam's powerful message of tawheed  

healing and hope with its universality  still has a powerful appeal to people  

yet another proof of its success is that its  mosques are overflowing and i can say by the  

way for myself whenever i've been to a mosque the  problem is finding somewhere to fit in rather than  

just being in an open cavernous space like i have  normally been in many of the churches i visited  

as a christian the writers continue part of  the reason for this in fact a significant part  

is because islam remains practical and  livable today even in the modern west when  

other religions are capitulating to the juggernaut  of modernity or simply being stamped out by it  

i think he the author here makes a a very uh  good point only has to look at the news for the  

mainstream churches in britain and america  and see what they're doing and as he puts  

it other religions are capitulating to the  juggernaut of the zeitgeist uh powerfully so  

and he concludes all in all then and all praise is  for god islam as a religion is doing what it says  

on the tin it is still offering practical livable  ways of connecting with god and living godly lives  

even in the midst of today's turbulence so i think  that's a a lovely uh article very optimistic and  

actually very profoundly true i think when you  look at islam from the position of its status  

as a religion and not just as a socio-economic  phenomenon i will link to the original article  

in the description below i do recommend  you have another look at it until next time