The Great Writer Roger Garaudy Embraces Islam

Through the gate opened in 1982 by Roger Garaudy, famous man of writers in Europe, Cousteau, the Captain of the Oceans, turned the course of his ship towards Islam, Bejart, one of the well-known figures of the ballet world, stepped into the Muslim community. The great scholar and writer Roger Garaudy said in a Conference Hall of Garyunes University in Benghazi on April 8, 1983:

“It is true that I have embraced Islam. You ask why I chose Islam; by choosing Islam, I chose the modern age.”

This was the same Roger Garaudy, aged 70, who had fervently defended the communist system for France for decades. At universities and political platforms, he had repeatedly explained Marxism to Frenchmen and to the West, thinking that the salvation of men lay in that unique system. He had been known as the ‘Spiritual Architect’ of modern French communism. Where there was a meeting, conference or seminar organized by communists, there was Garaudy. He carried on a serious struggle against Catholicism and Christianity with his ideas, pen and rhetoric.

One day a bomb exploded in the mids of the West’s world of arts, letters and politics: “Roger Garaudy embraces Islam!” With the spread of this news to the whole world through telexes of news agencies, the Kremlin was terribly shocked, since the Kremlin was losing its greatest master of French communists; Garaudy was a well-known scholar, with whose pen Marxism had been disseminated in the last years.

This great man was now telling the truth: “Islam is the religion that drags the ages behind itself. Other religions, however, were dragged behind the ages. That is, all religions except Islam were altered according to the time and reformed, and their holy books were distorted to conform to the conditions of the time. However, the Qur’ân al-kerîm has dominated over the ages ever since its descent. Not the Qur’ân al-kerîm, but time followed behind. As time got older, it became younger. This is an event that occurs beyond the ages. This is an event much greater than all the terrible social, political and economic disasters that followed so many wars in history. Islam prevails against not only materialism or positivism, but also existentialism. However, none of them prevailed over Islam.

“The Great Prophet of Islam (’alaihi ’s-salâm) explained everything by saying. ‘Work for the next world as if you were to die tomorrow, and work for this world as if you would never die!’ Islam has control over not only the material but also the spiritual. Therefore, these two cannot be separated from each other. How can they be separated since Islam states: ‘Learn knowledge even if it is in China,’ and ’Scientific knowledge is the lost groperty of the Believer; he should get it wherever he finds it!’ Knowledge and working are not limited in Islam. Possessing no limits concerning these two facts, which bewilder the world, Islam has bewildered the world.

“By defining man to be ‘the superior and the most honourable creature,’ Islam means that he should not be exploited. It is a conglomerate of systems that disapproves extravagance, ostentation and luxury, defines income as those earnings obtained thru the sweat of one’s brow, transfers growing capital to the poor by means of a well-balanced and moral rule, prohibits interest, a cause of laziness, and thereby destroys unlawful wealth. Islam has made it obligatory that the Caliph and the slave shall share the same rights. There was the case of the ‘camel’ which is a reality sharper than a king’s sword: Hadrat ’Umar and his slave rode a camel by taking turns as they travelled from one town to another, the halter being held by the Caliph and by the slave alternately… Here is the revolution of Islam in the field of justice and law.

“Both Marxism and capitalism are systems that exploit man. In contrast to them, Islam is a heavenly religion that restores human prestige to humanity.”