A New Challenge to ISLAM?

A New Challenge to ISLAM?

Islam has experienced many an apostatic upsurge during the course of its history. The most
powerful of them was the one that manifested itself among the Arab tribes soon after the
Prophet’s death. By this we mean the mightily rebellious movement that was nipped in the
bud by Caliph Abu Bakr through his matchless courage and strength of will. The then, again,
the second great onslaught of apostasy within Islam was the widespread swing towards
Christianity with the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain. This stole into other countries too
that were then under the demonation of the Western Christian powers, and was actively
supported and encouraged by Christian missionaries. Apart from these well-known episodes,
there are also some stray instances such as that of a few faint-hearted Muslims going over to
some other faith in India. But such cases have been very rare, and the fact is that with the
exception of the large-scale conversion of Muslims to Christianity in Spain, if it can be
described as an apostatic movement, the general opinion of Islamic historians is that the
Muslim millat has never seriously had to encounter a general threat of apostasy

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