| Answer: Yes, the team of “Renaissance” is working for a
Muslim revival. Our diagnosis is that this revival cannot be achieved unless the
ailment of intellectual stagnation so rampant among Muslim scholars is done away
with. By this stagnation we mean absence of research and original thinking on
religious issues.
Today, unfortunately, the prohibition against directly
deliberating and interpreting from the sources of Islam has become no less than
the prohibition against liquor. We, however, think that unless competent Muslim
scholars are produced who have the ability to break the shackles of this
intellectual stagnation very little can be done for the revival of the Muslims.
These scholars should be groomed in a manner that they can face the challenge of
the modern era. It is because of a paucity of such scholars that in the last few
centuries the Muslim world has undergone a sharp decline in its individual as
well as its collective affairs. All over the globe, Muslims seem to have lost
their identity. They appear to be dispossessed of the real spirit of Islam, and
have been stripped of the position of supremacy they once held in the comity of
nations. Though they have with them the last and final word of the Creator of
the Heavens and the Earth, yet it no longer plays a vibrant role in their lives.
At “Renaissance”, our basic objective is to promote and
patronize the work of scholars who have taken up the daunting task of carrying
out original research within the ambit of the Qur’ān and Sunnah. We consider our
endeavour to be a humble service to cause of truth.
As to the last part of your question, I can only say that
we consider ourselves victors even if vanquished -- for to us success lies not
in achieving the goal but in sincerely striving to achieve it. |