Today man is in search of a new ideology. F.H. Bradley has termed this new ideology as ‘New Religion.’ By this New Religion he actually meant unaltered version of revealed religion. But probably Bradley did not know the concept of unaltered and altered; otherwise he would have used the term unaltered religion in place of ‘New Religion.’
As a matter of fact, the search of the modern man is nothing but a quest of Islam. It is a religion based on the law of nature. Islam is free from any sort of alteration. Those who are not acquainted with this, call the feeling of their quest as ‘New Outlook,’ ‘New Religion,’ ‘New Order,’ ‘New Revolution,’ etc.
Reaching the beginning of the twenty-first century, man is confronted with a void—a void of thought. He is disillusioned with his previous ideological base. He is in search of a new and firm intellectual base to rely upon. I would like to take the case of Japan to explain my point.

Experience of Japan

The present royal family of Japan has been the ruler of Japan for the last fifteen centuries. Japanese used to address their King a Kami—god. The King was supposed to have the godly attributes. But after the Second World War, the Japanese have come to regard their King as just a Hito—a human being. This change has been like an eruption of a volcano on their intellectual level.

The Japanese had believed for 1500 years that their King, endowed with divine powers, was invincible and able to protect them from all aggressions. However, during the Second World War, when America devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki by dropping two atom bombs, Japan’s military power was shattered. It was the first defeat of Japan in the long span of fifteen centuries. The king of Japan, Hiro Hito, announced on the radio on August 15, 1945 that Japan had been defeated and was surrendering before the USA. This was an extremely shocking declaration for the Japanese people. Their godly King was accepting defeat. It was hard for them to believe. But the truth dawned upon them, and they realized that their King too was a human being and not the incarnation of god.

This incident proved to be more devastating than the scars of atom bombs on Japan. The bombs had destroyed two of its cities temporarily, but the crack in the faith eternally changed the whole inner personality of the Japanese. The new generation of Japan is suffering from acute frustration. It has lost its source of confidence. The Japanese are in search of a ‘new god’ today and this search is their most important issue at hand.

Other people all over the world, more or less, are facing this state of affairs. Everyone has lost his traditional god and everyone, consciously or unconsciously, is looking out to find a new god to fill this void.

This is not a chance happening, but a real one. It is so because religion is not an externally imposed thing. Religion is the inner urge of a human being and so imbued in his nature that it cannot be separated from his personality. Research in the field of psychology and anthropology has proved it with finality that man cannot live without God and religion. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11984, v. 15, p. 628)

Edmund Burke confirms the same fact when he says: “Man is by his constitution a religious animal.”

This is the reason why man’s inner self is searching for the true and real God who can quench the thirst of his haunting soul. Islam is the answer to this quest of the human soul. If Islam is presented to the twenty-first century man in its original form, it will be able to address his mind and fill the void of his soul. It is, therefore, incumbent on Muslims as the followers of the Prophet of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, to rise and convey this message of God to all mankind.

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