It is work free from remissness, false imaginativeness, or day-dreaming; effective work for the welfare of the whole community and in the interest of the Call; work that drives reform forward with a sure, powerful hand.

 
        For, nothing is more detrimental to nations than having life all leisure, to individuals than procrastination and laziness, to a call or cause than being based on empty theories and uncontrolled fancy.

 
        The Islamic Call, knowing this fact, made good work a prominent feature of the true Muslim, thus coupling faith with its outward expression. Otherwise what avails faith without fruition into good work? One putting forth no effort towards its realisation, his belief will be useless, of no avail.

 
        I know of no other call which equals Islam in exhortation for work and in insisting on it as a characteristic of the true believer. Islam denies monasticism; in the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, there is "No monasticism in Islam". To devote oneself entirely to worship, to the exclusion of all other human activities, is foreign to Islam, as is known from the teaching and life of the Prophet and his companions especially his second Caliph and commander of the Faithful Omar. No religion as far as I know has ever honoured labour and associated it with belief as Islam did. To quote only one of many verses to the point in the Holy Qur'an.

        "And those who believe and do good work., them verily We shall house in lofty dwellings of the Garden underneath which rivers flow. These they will secure".

        The Holy verse goes on to emphasise the noble meaning by an adage that shall stand for ever ; "How sweet the garden of the toilers" .(Surah XXIX, 58)

        So much importance is attached by the Islamic call to good work because it is the only true expression of the reality and value of the creed. Belief may be passive, may not express itself in outward act. Such a passive believer is not worthy of the true Faith because true faith demands from one firm belief in the Call, through active participation in it on the one hand, and on the other, through enlightening those responsible for the call and its propagation as to the way he thinks best for securing it, and the difficulties he has met in doing his part! So will the call be served and disseminated far and wide.

        This positivity God ordered His apostle to make plain to the believers in the Divine words:
 

        "And Say (unto them) Act ! Allah will behold your actions, and (so will) His messenger and the believers, and ye will be brought back to the Knobbier of the invisible and visible, and He will tell you what ye used to do". (Surah IX, 105).

        In the light of this positivity, the Islamic community has been divided into three categories : the patients, the workers, and the fighters, and nothing else is indicated by the holy text:

 

        "Recite, then, of the Qur'an that which is easy for you; He knoweth that there are sick folk among you, and some who seek of Allah's bounty, while others (still) fight for the cause of Allah ! (Surah 73, verse in part).

        It is also this positivity which calls upon believers to actively seek their living thereafter having attended the Friday congregational prayers letting for the moment work aside:

        "And when the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land and seek of Allah's bounty, and remember Allah much, that ye may be successful". (Surah 62,10).

        Contemporary Calls preaching socialism, fascism and democracy put at the head of programs working for the good of the state that the produce of the individual may increase, and hence the income of both individual and nation. A successful state mobilizes individual efforts for the exploitation of national resources, putting to use every tract of land, big or small. A strong state has little labour disturbances or union strikes, all being busy developing resources and increasing production. Only recently have states come to know and fully appreciate these facts with the advance of science and the widening horizon of human thought, yet they were known to the Muslim nation when other parts of the world floundered in ignorance and enjoyed it.
 

        The Islamic call could and did recruit and enlist the services of almost every individual and Muslim believer, integrating all into one powerful whole working with faith for the welfare of the newly risen nation. There was no room for bloody disturbances similar to those previously stirred up by the tribes, and which in fact used up the vitality of the Arab race, threatening it with ultimate destruction. There was no room for that killing poverty which was the real cause for tribal strife. All took to work earnestly and sincerely, and the Arab mind found its way out of the narrow circuit within which it used to revolve, to a sphere world-wide, in order to deliver the Islamic Call a permanent message of enlightenment and guidance to mankind. Only later during periods of weakness and disunion was heard the factious discordant tune, but there had been no echo of it at the time of the strength and glow of the Call.

        In its slogans, in its distinctive features, the Islamic Call is a living ideal for every group, individual or nation. The groups believe and carry into effect what they believe in; the individual subscribes to a principle and works for it; the nation holds a view with unanimity and keeps on calling for it, fighting for it until it is translated into fact, however great the sacrifice entailed.