#LIFE_LESSONS

Like It or Not, Your Conduct Represents Islam Shaykh Al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allāh have mercy on him) said: “…They have come to resemble those among the polytheists and the People of the Book who lived alongside some ignorant and immoral Muslims, and then cited certain instances of ignorance and injustice found among those Muslims, making them evidence for the invalidity of the religion of the Muslims—assuming that the religion of Islam is nothing more than what those individuals practice, even though the critic himself is more ignorant and more unjust than they are. In the same way, some among the People of the Book, Jews and Christians, argue against the religion of the Muslims by pointing to immoral acts they find among some of them—whether through so-called taḥlīl marriages or other practices—and to what they observe of injustice, lying, or polytheism. Yet when the matter is examined with fairness, one finds immorality, injustice, lying, and polytheism among them in far greater measure than what they find among those who merely claim affiliation with Islam. When the true reality of Islam is made clear to them, it becomes evident that it contains none of those immoralities, injustices, lies, or forms of polytheism. For there is no religious community without some form of evil entering among certain of its adherents; however, the evil that has entered among disbelievers is greater than that which has entered among Muslims, and the good found among Muslims is greater than that found among others. Likewise, within Islam, the people of the Sunnah possess more good than the people of innovation, and the evil found among the people of innovation is greater than that found among the people of the Sunnah.” [Minhāj As-Sunnah An-Nabawiyyah, pp. 214–215]