MUHAMMAD SULAIMAN TAKEUCHI (Japanese)
With the guidance of Allahu ta'ala I became a Muslim.
I decided to become a Muslim for the following reasons:
1) Islam infuses a very powerful spirit of fraternity.
2) Islam prearranges a solution for any sort of difficulty that
a person is likely to encounter throughout his life. It has not
separated religious matters from worldly events. Islam embodies
not only spiritual values, but also social efficacies that would
perfectly harmonize with today's systems, such as uniting people
together and encouraging them to perform their acts of worship
in lines made up of people from all races and classes, to help
the poor, and to co-operate for the solution of one another's
problems.
3) The Islamic religion trains both the soul and the body. In
short, Islam is an immaculate embodiment of all spiritual and
corporeal matters.
Islam's fraternity rejects all sorts of discrimination, race,
class, and else. Muslims throughout the world are one another's
brothers. There are many Muslims on the earth. Islam is the religion
of common-sensed people. All the Muslims living on the earth,
be they Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Afghans, Turks, Japanese,
or Chinese, look on one another as brothers. For this reason,
Islam is an international religion. Islam is the only means that
could rectify the present time's degenerated societies and correct
their mistakes. Because it is a religion bestowed by Allahu ta'ala,
the variety of its Madhhabs makes it a religion to which people
from all races and classes can adapt themselves. The Islamic religion
has played a very important role in the history of civilization,
and has guided many a semi-barbarian nation to civilization. The
Islamic religion aims at a peaceful and tranquil life for humanity.
It has prescribed the rules whereby to attain happiness and peace.
The rule-making policy followed by the other religions, such as
Christianity and Buddhism, is quite the other way round. The commandments
of these two religions are of a quality to, let alone unite, completely
separate people from one another by infusing into them a feeling
of a total isolation from the world. Most Buddhist temples are
situated on the peaks of mountains that would defy an average
climber to scale frequently. It is the outcome of a 'fewer visitors
the better' policy. A close examination of the Japanese religious
credal systems will reveal a similar approach wherein the most
excessive forms of isolation are essential. As for Christians;
it would take no extra attention to observe that the more devoted
Christians established their churches at remoter places. Inside
them are as dark as possible. It dates only from some recent years
that churches have been able to make their ways into urban areas.
Predisposed with the belief that mankind is already sinful from
birth, Christians consider the world only as a place where they
should always suffer. As it is seen, the main purport commonly
shared by all religions is that religion is something that should
be completely insulated from the normal proceedings of human life
and that life in the world consists in suffering.
The happy contrast comes with Islam, which cherishes mankind as
a born slave beloved to Allahu ta'ala. Small mosques are built
in the middle of villages, on cites most accessible to all the
villagers. Their interiors are bright and airy. People feel pleasure
in going there and performing their acts of worship there. They
come together and perform their congregational prayers. After
the prayers they invoke blessings on one another. They show friendly
interest towards one another, and help one another if necessary.
In Islam, helping people in need or, if helping is not possible,
pleasing the concerned Muslims with a cordial smile and soft words,
produces many blessings.
A person has a soul and a body. Allahu ta'ala has given us both
a soul and a body each. As long as we live, we have to train both
the soul and the body, with different systems but without discriminating
between them. Islam has taken into consideration not only man's
spiritual needs, but also his body, formulating extremely logical
and heavenly principles for both of them.
I am a new Muslim. I accepted Islam two years ago. I am sure that
Islam satisfies all my spiritual and physical needs. Japan's technology
is extremely advanced today. It has been coping with the entire
world successfully. Owing to this scientific progress and material
well-being, the Japanese people have changed entirely. Japan is
devoid of natural resources. All the raw materials are imported
from abroad. But we can make more perfect and cheaper products
than other countries. This success is due to continuous work and
contentment with little. In the meantime, the Japanese people,
who have had to work and exert themselves ceaselessly, have not
had time for spiritual interests and activities, and consequently
they have become like machines. The Japanese are now imitators
of Europeans in their sheer materialistic pursuits. They have
completely stripped themselves of all sorts of religious belief,
and they are thoroughly devoid of spirituality. Today's Japanese
people are entirely satiated materialistically. Their pockets
are full of money. Yet their souls are becoming poorer and poorer,
emptier and emptier. What could be the value of materialistic
richness despite spiritual poverty? What benefit could the world
reap from people clad in decorated garments but emptied of spiritual
values?
In my opinion, this is the most propitious time for Islamic propaganda.
For the Japanese, having reached perfection with respect to material
well-being, are very much aware of the excruciating abyss in their
soul and are therefore urgently questing for a guide. There is
only the Islamic religion to rescue them from this spiritual bankruptcy.
For Islam will be their guide in this life as well. I am sure
that a qualified Islamic propagation carried on by a serious and
orderly organization in Japan would take no more than a couple
of generations for the entire Japanese nation to become Muslims.
And this, in turn, means an honourable far-east source from where
the entire humanity will benefit.
35 - ALI MUHAMMAD MORI (Japanese)
Exactly eighteen years ago,[Sixty-six years ago, as of today.]
in 1929 that is, I was in Manchuria. Japan had reached one of
the apices of its history.
During one of the journeys I took around Manchuria, I met a Muslim
in a desert in the vicinity of Pieching. They were leading a very
plain and pious life. I admire their life-styles, their trust
in Allahu ta'ala, the hospitality they showed to strangers, and
their sense of faith. As I moved further inland in Manchuria,
I met many other Muslims, observed the same pure and beautiful
quality in all of them, and consequently began to feel growing
sympathy for them.
It was no earlier than 1946 that I managed to go back to Japan.
In the meantime, Japan had joined the Second World War, being
on the losing side in the end. The one-time powerful Japanese
Empire was all gone. Buddhism, to which most Japanese people had
been so sincerely and so heartfully adherent until that time,
had been entirely stripped of its original essence and its logical
features, and was now a mere source of detriment to society.
A minor number of Japanese people had already been Christianized.
Despite the ninety long years wherein Christianity had been forcing
its spread in Japan, very few Japanese people had become Christians.
Yet, by the time I arrived in Japan, I saw that their number had
increased considerably. The Japanese people had realized, after
the heavy defeat they had suffered, that Buddha would give them
no help at times of disaster. Having thoroughly lost their love
for and trust in Buddha, they were now looking for a new religion.
The younger people, especially, had accepted Christianity with
the expectations that it would be the best possible substitute
for their lost faith. Yet it did not take them long to realize
that the Christian missionaries who had been trying to Christianize
them were in actual fact squalid mercenaries working for American
and British capitalists and that by Christianizing them they would
not only refill the vacuum vacated by the no-longer wanted Buddhism,
but also divest them of the deep-rooted purity and integrity that
had so far been associated with their Japanese identity. During
the process of Christianization, the Christian missionaries were
continuously inculcating into their minds the superior qualities
of American and British goods, which in turn gradually infused
into them a growing feeling of aversion to their domestic goods,
and which consequently resulted in an influx of foreign materials
into Japan. In more concise terms, the capitalists were exploiting
us to increase their wealth via Christianity.
Japan is a country lying between Russia and America. Each of these
superpowers will normally try to bring Japan under its own sway.
The inculcations they have been practicing on us must therefore
be intended for their own advantages, rather than guiding our
souls to salvation. On the other hand, especially in those days,
the Japanese people needed true tutorship.
As far as I am concerned, only the Islamic religion will satisfy
this requirement, guiding them to spiritual peace and salvation,
and showing them the truest way they should follow. One merit
that I admire best in Islam is the powerful feeling of brotherhood
with which it equips Muslims. Islam emphasizes that Muslims are
brothers beyond their cutaneous and racial identities, and Allahu
ta'ala commands the human race to live in brotherly peace and
safety without fostering any feelings of harm towards one another.
Could another commandment more perfect and more true be conceived
on the face of today's miserable world? Who on earth could doubt
that the great being who gives such a command should certainly
be Allah Himself? Last year two Muslims came to Tokoshima. They
were from Pakistan. I paid them a visit immediately. They gave
me very beautiful and very profound information about Islam. Later
I talked with some Japanese Muslims. Two of them, Mr. Molivala
and Mr. Mita of Tokyo, enlightened me and recommended that I should
convert to Islam. Upon this I embraced Islam.
I wish with all my heart that Islam, the most logical and the
purest religion, should spread all over the world and rescue humanity
from this disastrous situation. If the entire humanity become
Muslims, this miserable world will become a Garden of Paradise.
Then, the Grace and Grandeur of Allahu ta'ala will illuminate
the human souls and guide them on the right way, which will lead
them to eternal salvation. Only through Islam will humankind attain
happiness, both spiritually and physically, and be blessed with
the divine favour of being beloved born slaves of Allahu ta'ala.
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