Progress and Decline of Muslims

Allama Syed Sulaiman Nadvi writes:

 "Progress and Decline of Muslims,

  Both have one reason and that is their immediate and temporary excitement. They can move a mountain out of its place like a flood, but cannot clear a path like a mountaineer by removing stones one by one. They can burn the threshing floor in a flash like lightning, but they can't destroy a single grain like an ant. They may shed their blood like water in the defense of a mosque, but they cannot sustain a sustained effort to rebuild a destroyed mosque. It was possible for him to fall to the left and right of Muhammad Ali and Abul Kalam. But it is not enough for them to release these captives of Islam from the prison through continuous constitutional struggle. "

 He goes on to write: "The real reason for our failure is that we come like the wind and pass like lightning." We should be like the water of a river that slowly, slowly rises and widens its banks by cutting off the banks over the years. Success is only in continuous and sustained effort. The snowy peaks of the Himalayas melt slowly, but never freeze and allow the Ganges to dry up. The water of the sky turns the plain into a scorched earth in a couple of hours, but in a few days dust starts flying everywhere.

 (Sharat Ma'rif: October 1917)