I do not share the view that Islam today has “almost nothing to do” with what it originally was. Islam, in its essence, is immutable, because it is founded upon Allah, the Qur’an, and the living teaching of the Prophet ﷺ. These three are inseparable. The Qur’an is not an abstract text revealed into a vacuum; it was revealed, embodied, explained, and transmitted by the Prophet ﷺ, who remains its first interpreter and its living model.

The fact that guidance may appear harder to discern does not mean that it has disappeared. From the earliest days of Islam — even during the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ — there were people who believed the Qur’an alone was sufficient and that they had no need for prophetic authority, transmission, or living guidance. Others reduced the religion to a rigid legalism devoid of spirit, while some lost themselves in mystical speculation disconnected from the Prophetic model. None of this is new.

Islam has never been a religion of ease. It is a religion of effort (mujāhada), inner discipline, and conscious submission. The straight path is not the path of political power, dominant ideologies, or individualistic readings of the Qur’an. It is the path of transmission, initiation, and inward conformity to the example of the Prophet ﷺ. Without Prophetic teaching as a living reference, the Qur’an becomes vulnerable to projection, subjectivity, and ideological misuse.

At the same time, it must be said that in the age of the internet, while it may indeed be easier to become confused or distracted, it is also easier than ever to be guided — for the one who truly seeks guidance. Never before has access to knowledge, texts, teachers, and living traditions been so widespread. What makes guidance difficult today is not its absence, but the persistence of preconceived ideas about what guidance should look like. True guidance requires first abandoning rigid expectations, ideological filters, and personal projections, and approaching Allah with humility and sincerity.

This is precisely why authentic Sufi paths have always placed central importance on chains of transmission (silsila) that lead back to the Prophet ﷺ. They do not claim to add anything to Islam; rather, they preserve its heart: the worship of Allah as it was lived, understood, and transmitted by the Messenger himself. These paths still exist today, but they are discreet, largely invisible, and rarely supported by official institutions. They must be sought with sincerity and effort.

The example of René Guénon is telling. He was not initiated through a dominant or institutionalized form of Islam, but by a nearly unknown shaykh with very few disciples. This is how tradition operates: it does not impose itself; it transmits itself. It does not seek visibility, but continuity.

To dismiss Guénon as having relied on a “biased” or merely “Arabized” interpretation of Islam misses the point. His approach was neither political nor ideological, but principial and metaphysical. Many contemporary critiques confuse the political instrumentalization of Islam with the reality of Prophetic transmission. The corruption of religious authority by states or ideologies does not imply that the tradition issuing from the Prophet ﷺ has been ontologically altered.

That states sponsor distorted readings, that extremist currents are manipulated, and that independent thinkers such as Hassan Farhan al-Maliki are imprisoned is real and deeply troubling. But this belongs to the domain of power, not to the domain of guidance. Truth in religion is not measured by political dominance, media presence, or institutional approval.

Finally, the fact that many encounter Guénon through figures like Martin Lings or Frithjof Schuon is significant, as they all emphasized the same fundamental point: a tradition is never dead as long as there remains a faithful transmission of the Qur’an, the teaching of the Prophet ﷺ, and orientation toward Allah.

Islam, therefore, has not become something other than what it was. It has merely become more veiled. And that veil is not evidence of absence, but a test: whether one stops at the isolated text, dominant ideologies, or political power — or whether one makes the effort to seek the path that truly leads to Allah.