Foreword

Muslims today constitute one-fifth of the human race. Muslim states in the U.N. go to make up about one-fourth of its total membership. Africa is the Muslim continent, 60 per cent of its population believes in Unity of God and the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) Muslim countries contain huge quantities of some of the most important mineral and economic resources of the world. The racial and physical stock of their populations is one of the best in the world. They possess the great ideology of Islam, which can lead mankind out of its contemporary crisis, generated by the conflict of Godless, amoral and lopsided ideologies of Communism and Secularism. And despite all this, Muslims have no effective voice in the world affairs. They have become passive amp-followers of others. Imperialist powers of the East and the West are active in their lands. Their basic problems remain unattended, what to say of their solution. Palestine bleeds, Kashmiris groan, Turkish Cypriots cry. Eritrean Muslims are being crushed. Nigerians are being subjected to sabotage from within. Somalians grumble and protest. But all these voices of agony and anguish fall on deaf ears. Problems are becoming more and more aggravated. Situation is worsening and we, the six hundred and fifty million Muslims stand bewildered and aghast, helpless spectators of our own ruin. This is a paradox and we must wriggle ourselves out of this unhappy state of affairs.

The answer to this situation is that the Muslims must sincerely remodel their individual and collective life in accord with the principles of Islam and pool their resources to play their rightful role in the world. It is through Islamic Revival and Islamic Unity that we can change the course of events and fulfill our tryst with destiny. Maulana Maududi has called the Muslim world, particularly its thinking elements, to this strategy.

The present brochure contains a speech .of Maulana Maududi : Unity of the Muslim World, which he' delivered at a meeting in the B.N.R. Auditorium, Lahore, and air article The Task Before the Muslim Summit, which was published in the Daily Dawn, Karachi. Their translation and editing have been done at the Islamic Research Academy, which offers them to the Muslim intelligentsia with the hope that it shall respond to this call of the hour.

17th February, 1967.

KHURSHID AHMAD