With this issue we are at last taking the step our readers have long demanded and we have long wished : that of increase in the volume of this Digest. If we have delayed it so long it was for reasons of quality which happens to be our first concern. We do not believe, as we have several times stated in these pages, in presenting trash or even sub-standard material, following the hadith which says, in effect, “When you do something, do it well”.

However, two new columns are being added from this issue: one introducing Islam and the other, great Muslims. Both we hope will continue to appear for a while. Indeed the latter will for long.

Introduction to Islam is going to be in the form of questions and answers: as a lively discussion rather than a dry pedagogic discourse. We chose this method if on the one hand for reasons of keeping alive the reader s interest, then on the other for reasons of contingency. For under this method we will be at a greater liberty to discuss widely varying topics under one heading than in a continuous piece of writing sub-divided into sections each dealing with a specific topic. We also chose this method, which we admit still smells of pedagogy, after dissatisfaction with whatever material that is already available on this subject both in English and Urdu. All of them we found lacking in some respect or the other. Not one we could lay our hands on which could satisfy both the non-Muslims as well as Muslims, the well- schooled as well as the averagely educated, the absolute beginner and the ‘somewhat’ advanced student of Islam. Obviously then we have attempted at combining the best of each preceding work with what we thought should also be presented. How far we have succeeded in this endeavor, only time will tell. But surely our readers can always help us with their doubts, questions and criticism. Our gratitude is due of course to every author who has poured his energy before us on this subject and from whom we have profited. At the end we will also introduce books that introduce Islam.

It may also be said here that our approach has been to lay emphasis on the “basics” of Islam in the simplest of language and in terms comprehensive to the common intellect. However, occasionally we have had to deviate and touch upon points of interest to the questioning mind. If to some these sections sound a bit abstract and besides the point, our assurances to them are that upon continuation they are sure to come across brighter patches.

Comparisons too with other religious and philosophical thoughts have been avoided so far as it was possible. We have always tried to limit ourselves to presenting the Islamic point of view. Polemics have rarely yielded fruit. Nonetheless, occasionally we had to override this golden rule of noninterference with other religious and philosophical thoughts and ideas. For, it should not be forgotten that we are also aiming to address followers of other faiths. On certain occasions then this comparative study was inevitable. However that has been done only when the need was felt very strongly and on all such occasions we have tried to remain as objective, as impartial and unbiased as human beings supporting their own cause can. Yet, if in the process we have hurt someone’s sentiments, surely it was unintended.

The other column of interest and profit to our readers will be the life of heroes of Islam. Surely, coming as it does, third in order of importance after the Quran and Hadith it should have found appearance a long time ago. But however great the need and the ensuing profit, it was never an easy thing to do. The material that is available in English is poor beyond any description. In Urdu, most meet the requirements of the Asian mind. Islam however is not Asian. It is a message of universal values and application. It’s ideals, values and teachings are of the kind that appeal to people of all regions, and of all ages. They can be as attractive to the Westerner as to the Easterner, as to the Korean peasant as the Cuban elite—if properly presented. Obviously then the great men produced by Islam can also be called universal men. They were not Asians, Arabs, or Spanish Moors. They were Muslims, pure and simple— of character that appeal to people of all natural dispositions : whether rational or emotional, material or spiritual, simplistic or philosophical. Islam had developed them from all around, in every direction and in every aspect of body and soul. Islam, it may be known, does not create characters who can only fit into the niches of the mosque or who can only breathe freely in the spiritual atmosphere of the mystic East. Islam, when taken in its full, creates a people who take equal delight in praying in the mosque and enjoying the company of the opposite sex, in fighting in the battle-field and in reading poetry on an arm-chair. It creates a character that is equally at home in the laboratory and in the mosque, on camel-bac.< and occupying a throne, and which excels both in kindness and in severity upon the enemies of God. Why then such characters, when developed to exemplary scales as it happened with early Muslims, should fail to appeal to all varieties of people that nature produces ! ?

To see and present such people in Asian light is to belittle them. Their greatness remains in presenting them as they were. To highlight certain shades of their character in order to win admiration of the people of a certain region is to localise them. But when Islam and its heroes were regionalized they lost their universal, and in a narrowing world, regional appeal also.

In presenting the heroes of Islam in our paper we hope to fight that trend.