World: Why I Believe in Islam

I have been asked to state why I believe in Islam. When I put the question to myself, the reply I received was, for the same reason for which I believe in anything else, that is to say, because it is the truth. A more detailed reply would be that in my view the central doctrine of all religions is the existence of God and man's relationship with Him, so that the religion that can succeed in establishing a true relationship between God and man must be true, and the truth of a faith is surely a sufficient reason for believing in it.

Islam claims that the Creator of this universe is a living God and that He reveals Himself to His creatures in this age in the same manner in which He used to reveal Himself in the ages past. This claim can be tested in two ways. God may either manifest His signs direct for a seeker after Him, or the seeker may come to believe in God by studying the life of a person to whom God has revealed Himself. As by the Grace of God, I happen to be one of those people to whom God has on many occasion and in a supernatural way revealed Himself. I stand in need of no further reason for believing in truth of Islam than that I have experienced the truth in my own person.

For the benefit of people who have had no similar experience, however, I proceed to relate the grounds which, in addition to my personal experience, have been the cause of my believing in Islam.

First of all, I believe in Islam for the reason that it does not compel me to accept all those matters the sum total of which is called Religion merely on authority, but furnishes convincing arguments in support of its doctrines. The existence of God and the nature of His attributes, angels, prayer and its effects, Divine decrees and their sphere, worship and its need, Divine Law and its benefits, revelation and its importance, resurrection and the life after death, heaven and hell -- with regard to every one of these, Islam has given detailed explanations and has established their truth with strong arguments to the satisfaction of the human mind.

Islam, therefore, furnishes me not only with faith, but also with the certainty of knowledge which satisfies my intellect and compels it to admit the need of religion.

[An extract from the writing of Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad—the second successor to the Promised Messiah and Mahdi, founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam]

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