The distance separating the phenomenon of ‘vision’ and ‘reality’ is so narrow that at times, is comparable to the blink of an eye. At times the distance is years and centuries soaked in blood, tears and sweat yet sometimes the distance is unpractical.

In any way, even though most visions that have never reached a realistic stage might be attained, reality cannot be attained without passing through the visionary stage. Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian scholar in his philosophy novel resonating with his Alchemist melodies states that the meaning of each person’s life is identifying a “Personal Myth” and the necessity of personal search for it. He believes that if the identification and effort is made diligently and with sincerity, this personal myth will lead man towards attainment of his wishes throughout his life. Finding the personal myth is the only human philosophy, which everything is at the service of one thing. When you want something, you unite the whole world until you attain your desires. In an interview, he says that an effort towards reaching the personal myth is the one, which splits the day-to-day scales of life.

In the opinion of this writer, just as everyone has a ‘personal myth’ that he should look for and get acquainted with, every society also perhaps needs to have a ‘collective myth’ which it should identify and spare no effort in finding it. In this case, Muslim Unity can be mentioned as ‘the collective myth’ of Muslims. One of the most exciting myths, most sweet visions and by expression more idiomatic and most important ideal of the Islamic Ummah which entails searching for divine guidance, applying Islamic Law, exalting culture, social justice, political and economic power and glory and having a human life….etc, is this ideal collective myth and vision, Muslim Unity. This is an important issue considering how it has been stipulated in ‘The Book’ and traditions and the emphasis placed on it by intellect including modern thought. The hardship experienced by the Islamic Ummah during its decline when unity lacked leading to the Ummah being infected by the opposite which is disunity is another pointer of how unity is crucial.

How far has the Ummah gone in taking steps for uniting or at least identifying plans towards this end? Unfortunately, it must be admitted that, most influential personalities in society have failed to understand the real need for unity, needless to say of general public, hence making no effort to realizing that goal. In spite of the great efforts made by scholars, thinkers and those who have taken pain to contribute towards Muslim unity, but practically nothing has been achieved in this field so far, since the demise of Sayyed Jamal Deen Asad Abadi, who indeed contributed a lot towards Muslim unity. Apart from him, the forceful fruits of Islamic unity, which were brought about by the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, once again rekindled the spirit of honor and Islamic unity in the Muslim world. The many impediments on the way of unity which Sayyed Jamal Deen Asad Abadi identified and made them known to others, while confronting them alone or in company of two or three people, are not only still there to date, but have even become more complex due to the present world state of affairs. Having sacrificed and dedicated themselves for the sake of upholding the word of Allah, these pious men used whatever they had at hand to attain that goal. These impediments are mainly as follows:

· Sectarianism and fanaticism in divisive religious beliefs.

· Clannism, tribalism and nationalism.

· Cultural poverty and its many consequences.

· Military and political state of Islamic countries.

· Thoughts and ideologies, which are hostile to the governance of religion such as atheism, laicism, and secularism.

· Threat of world arrogant powers….etc



What steps have been taken in confronting the aforementioned impediments and how effective have they been so far? We need not to answer this question for now. All the same, in the contemporary world, we cannot ignore the fact that, efforts made in different fronts for the ultimate goal of uniting Muslims are just but exhibitionist, routine, inapplicable, inefficient, illogical, non-inclusive, and alien to the reality on the ground. We can claim that the common definition of unity, specified stages towards perfect and complete unity, new and competent skills, terms and expressions like, common currency, common market, joint information sites and satellite networks, common defense forces for Islamic countries, annulment of visa requirements among Muslim states, are just but ambiguous to the general public. Nevertheless, it can be claimed that these ambiguities are disguised with the aim of disuniting the Muslim Ummah. This is while European countries that engaged in the greatest massacre in human history (during the two World Wars), have been able to move towards unity and build a strong political, economic, and social block.

In any case, there is hope that in the near future this collective myth or dream will be attained because even though there is a long distance from the vision to this reality, if there are sincere and informed people engaged in the efforts for unity, we can confidently say that ‘The Dawn is Near’.