‘A Handbook of Islam’, new abridged edition of ‘The Religion of Islam’ by Maulana Muhammad Ali
Update on 16 May 2015: Some corrections/enhancements made to the Kindle version (see link below).
Update on 12 May 2015:
I have now created a version of this book for Kindle. It is a .mobi file. You should be able to read it on any tablet or smartphone using a Kindle app (or of course on a real Amazon Kindle).
Right-click here and save the mobi file
After about two years of work, I have, by the grace of Allah, produced this book which you can read at this link.
Zahid Aziz
From ikram:
Dear Dr. Zahid Aziz. I perused your latest well indexed work during my lunch break. I must say that you have a God given knack to simplify matters. On one end of the spectrum Maulana Muhammad Ali wrote the masterpiece “Religion of Islam” which is an encyclopedic reference. While, on the other end of the same spectrum, sometime back you wrote a simple but poignant book “Introduction to Islam” and also a timely “Islam, Peace and Tolerance.” Your current abridgment of Religion of Islam, “Handbook of Islam” is a much needed effort which bridges the gap between your previous stated books and the work of Maulana Muhammad Ali. Besides, you have similarly revised another of Maulana’s masterpiece, the Translation and Commentary of the Holy Quran for the contemporary audience.
The original works of Maulana are a must read, but many a times when friends are referred to them, due to lack of time, some do not make the effort to read them for the details therein. With your efforts, that excuse of time is no longer there. Once they read the revised and abridged versions, they will naturally gravitate to Maulana for his other works also.
In the same vein, you simplified for the audience, once for all, the matter as it stands and identified in the title of your extensive research work “The True Succession – Founding of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement.”
Additionally, your extraordinary English translation of the many books of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and other authors brings the Mujaddid and his contemporaries into realm of modern reader.
Your historical collections of Woking Mission, Berlin Mission and Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi are extraordinary toils that can consume months of sleepless nights of any seeker of that original thinking that was infused by the Mujaddid of our time.
Visiting the web depository and the blog of your single-handed effort acts as a wiper blade to clean the windscreen of dirt that is and has been thrown at the Jamaat of the Mujaddid by the ignorant. You have proven Einstein correct who stated in his own way that the only difference between science (read logic) and ignorance is that science has its limits.
Before, I always wondered as to how Maulana Muhammad Ali could write all he did in one lifetime. Now you evoke the same curiosity. At present, you are the bridge between the core of Anjuman’s literature and the outside world. For no fault of ours, we as readers, still expect more from you. You only led us to that expectation.
May Allah reward you and enhance you for your efforts, of the past and those in the future.
From Tariq:
I wholeheartedly echo Ikram’s sentiments. Jazak Allah, Dr. Zahid Aziz.
From Zahid Aziz:
Please see the update to this post at the top.