During the first half of the twelfth century (Hijra), degradation and decline marked the fall of the Islamic World. Gloom and darkness were ushered into this world through moral degradation and rampant corruption. As for Islam, decadence and decline were also the norm. A number of practices related to polytheism had come to supplant the pure and austere monotheism (Tawheed) of the Prophet (Sal), such as superstitious practices and mysticism. Islamic Mosques stood empty, unfrequented and even deserted. The ignorant multitude decked out in amulets, charms and rosaries listened to and blindly followed squalid faqeers and ecstatic dervishes. It was from their counsel that many Muslims performed pilgrimages to the tombs of Saints to seek their intercession with Allah. Even the moral precepts ordained by the Holy Quran were defied or ignored altogether. The consumption of intoxicants and opium were well night universal. In all certainty, heresy had undermined the precepts of the Quran, leaving many Muslims practicing a form of Islam that was nothing but a meaningless series of rituals and superstitions to true believers.
Many Muslims, no longer living in an era of the Pious Predecessors, began to practice the pre-Islamic polytheistic practices of a former era. Old practices of idolatry were resumed, as many Muslims started paying homage to shrines and graves, so much so that they even directed their devotional prayers and supplications toward them to the exclusion of Allah. They gave precedence to the philosophical views of taqleed (blind following) over the Sunnah. They divested Allah of His essential attributes by making erroneous interpretations of the Quranic texts.
It was into this dark and degraded atmosphere that sincere reformers who saw themselves as true believers tries to eradicate from society what they viewed as paganism that undermined the monotheism of Allah. In IslamÆs darkest hour, a voice came crying ou...