Desert Therapy
God created man and settled him on this planet earth, providing him with all sorts of opportunities. He also gave him full freedom. Now it is man’s choice whether or not he holds himself deserving of eternal success by making the right use of freedom. But if he misuses his freedom, according to the creation plan of God, nothing but eternal failure will be in store for him.
God has given man the ability to reason. He has instilled in him the distinction between truth and falsehood, right and wrong. Subsequently, God made the arrangement of sending His messengers to every community and in every area. These messengers imparted to them the knowledge of truth as well as falsehood in their own understandable language. The Prophets performed this task in the best possible way, but men, by misusing their freedom, inevitably failed to give a positive response to their call. This is expressed thus in the Quran:
“Alas for human beings! They ridicule every messenger that comes to them.” (36:30)
According to His creation plan, God did not want to deprive humans of their freedom. That is why, by maintaining human freedom, God devised another plan for guidance. In order to realize this new plan, God chose Abraham and his progeny. This happened between 2324 to 1850 BC. This was like a matter of re-planning of Divine guidance.
Prophet Abraham was born in ancient Iraq. There he showed people the path of truth but the inhabitants of Iraq at that time were idolaters. They did not accept the message of Abraham. Finally, in accordance with the Divine plan, Abraham left Iraq and settled in the desert area where Makkah is now situated. He settled his wife Hajira and his son Ishmael at a place where there was nothing except the desert.
This new planning can be called desert therapy. This desert environment, although extremely unfavorable for the human population, was the most proper place for the new planning. In this desert environment, naturally, a new community or race began to be formed which was away from the ill effects of civilization. Besides the environment of nature, there was nothing else to influence them. In this environment of nature, Ishmael, son of Abraham, married a girl from a tribe of Jurhum and then through a long chain of procreation, a new race or community began to come into existence. This desert planning has been mentioned in Sahih al Bukhari in a long tradition (Hadith No. 3364).
This Abrahamic Sunnah was a case of second planning. What was desired was to prepare a new strong community whose nature was intact, and because of that desert training they had developed the ability to receive the message of truth without any difficulty. It was into this generation that the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad bin Abdullah, was born in 570 AD. Those who are known as Ashaab-e-Rasool (the Prophet’s Companions) belonged to this generation.
As expected, this plan was successful. Through a great dawah struggle, the Prophet and his Companions prepared a group which brought about a revolution on the basis of monotheism. It was this group which initiated a new age in human history. For the first time in human history their sacrifices resulted in a revolutionary process which changed the very course of history. As a result of this process, on the one hand, the age of shirk came to an end and along with that, on the other hand, the thinking of independent research and investigation in nature was produced. Later on, that age dawned in human history which is called modern civilization. This revolution in history was the result of re-planning.
