A Great Opportunity

1. Since direct argument cannot be applied to religious beliefs pertaining to the unseen world, these can be supported only by indirect or inferential argument. Educated people had therefore come to believe that religious realities belonged only to the domain of dogma, and that they were not academic or scientific realities. But after the breaking up of the atom the science of logic has undergone a change, and it has been accepted that inferential argument too, in its nature, is as valid and reliable as direct argument. It has subsequently become possible for religious realities to be established on an academic level, i.e. exactly on the same level as material or non-religious theories.
2. In ancient times when man observed the world, it appeared to him that in nature there existed things which were very different from one another. This observation of appearance produced the mentality of idolatry. People began to think that in view of the great diversity of things in existence, their Creator too ought to be more than one. But scientific study has shown that this variety is only that of appearance. Otherwise, all things in nature are different expressions of the same matter. In this way shirk (idolatry) lost its intellectual base while monotheism gained the solid support of logic.
3. According to a statement of the Qur’an, the signs of God lay hidden in the earth and the heavens. The study of science has made it manifest to all that the universe is a great storehouse of divine arguments. “We will show them Our signs in all the regions of the earth and in their own souls, until they clearly see that this is the Truth.” (41:53)
4. After the new discoveries of science, many such things have come to the knowledge of man as have rendered it possible to prove with new arguments those events which are of important religious significance. For instance, carbon-14 dating has made it possible to determine the exact age of the mummy of Rameses II, thereby providing scientific proof for the statement of the Qur’an that the body of Pharaoh was saved by God, so that it might become “a sign to all posterity.” (10:92)