NOVEMBER 3
Divine Planning
Adam was the first man as well as the first prophet. The generations succeeding Adam (according to some traditions) adhered to the path of monotheism and true religion for about a millennium. Adam’s people later came under the influence of polytheism (2:213). The Prophet Noah was then sent to reform the descendants of Adam who inhabited the green, luxuriant land lying between the Tigris and Euphrates.
Despite the Prophet Noah’s prolonged efforts, Adam’s progeny, with the exception of a very few, remained resistant to renouncing their polytheistic religion. Consequently, the Great Storm came and swept away all human existence from the earth. Now the human race made a fresh start with the followers of Noah. But again this new generation, with the passage of time, digressed from the path of monotheism to the path of polytheism. This went on, repeatedly, for many centuries. God continued to send prophets in succession (23:44), but far from showing any willingness to accept their message, people laughed His apostles to scorn. (36:30).
This process continued for thousands of years until polytheism came to be firmly rooted in human existence. Anyone born in the societies of those days came under the influence of polytheism from his surroundings. Religious rituals, social ceremonies, national affairs, governmental organizations, —all were founded on polytheistic beliefs. Ultimately, the situation deteriorated to the extent that any child born in this world opened his eyes in an atmosphere of idolatry and when he closed his eyes for the last time, it was in that same atmosphere. The practice of idolatry, once having set in history, became ineradicable. It is this state of affairs which finds expression in this prayer of Noah: ‘Lord, do not leave a single unbeliever in the land. If You spare them, they will mislead Your servants and beget none but sinners and unbelievers.’ (71:27).
The Prophet Abraham, who lived between 1800 and 2000 B.C., attempted to reform society in ancient Iraq, but met the same fate as that of the prophets preceding him. Then God devised a new plan for the guidance of man. It meant preparing a human race by exclusive divine arrangement, totally detaching them from the sphere of polytheistic influence, so that they would find it easier to accept the message of monotheism. Then people so conditioned were to be used, as per the divine plan, to encounter and rout out the forces of polytheism in order to change the course of history.
Accordingly, Abraham was commanded to leave populated areas like Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Palestine for the desert land of ancient Makkah and settle his wife and little child Isma’il there. Being an uncultivable valley, this area was totally devoid of human population, hence completely free from ancient polytheistic culture. This is what is meant by Abraham’s prayer: “Lord, I have settled some of my offspring in a barren valley near Your Sacred House, so that they may observe the prayer” (14:37). That is to say, Abraham consciously chose a place which was beyond the influence of polytheism, so that there might arise a generation, nurtured in an environment free from polytheistic influences, who would become true worshippers of the one God.
The effect of such detachment from a cultural continuity is illustrated by an example from the life of the writer who belongs to an Urdu-speaking area. My parents spoke Urdu, which is the mother tongue of my children. Now it happened that my eldest son took up residence in London in an area with a predominantly English speaking population. As a result, my grandsons knew only English and could not express themselves in Urdu. On my visit to London, I had to converse with them in English.
My grandsons were in this linguistically deprived state precisely because they had been brought up in an environment completely cut off from the continuous traditions of Urdu. This would not have been possible had these children been brought up in Delhi.
This runs parallel with the story of Abraham, Ishmael and his mother Hajira. The dream shown to Abraham (37:102) was a symbolic one. Abraham, however, with his extreme sense of obedience, stood ready to execute his dream. In ancient Makkah there was neither water, nor vegetation nor any resources to sustain life. Settling his wife and child in such adverse circumstances appeared to invite their death. But the plan of giving birth to a generation detached from the polytheistic traditions could be carried out only at a place devoid of sustenance, because only then would it be devoid of human population. Abraham’s dream ostensibly entailed the economic and social sacrifice of his children, but it was actually a way of realizing the divine plan to prepare the desired generation.
Since this plan had to materialize under the veil of cause and effect it was constantly being watched. Abraham himself stayed in Palestine, but would keep going at intervals to Makkah for the purpose of supervision.
Initially, Hajira and Ishmael were the only inhabitants in the valley. Later, with the appearance of Zamzam, some gypsies belonging to the Jurhum tribe settled there. When Ishmael grew up, he married a girl of that tribe. According to traditions, once when Abraham went to Makkah from Palestine, Ishmael was not at home. Abraham enquired of his wife how everything was going on. His wife told him that they were leading their lives in a very bad state. Life was full of hardship. As Abraham took his leave, he asked her to convey his regards to Ishmael and to ask him to change the door-sill of his home. When Ishmael returned and heard the message from his wife, he realized that the visitor must have been his father and that his message symbolically implied that he should divorce his present wife and marry another woman of the Jurhum tribe. To Abraham that woman was not worthy of mothering the generation under preparation.
After some time, the Prophet Abraham again visited Makkah. This time too Ishmael was away, but his wife was at home. When Abraham asked her how things were going on, she thanked God for everything and talked of contentment, saying that life fared well for them. When he left, Abraham asked her to convey his regards to Ishmael and to give him the message that he should keep the door-sill of his house. On his return, Ishmael received the message of his father and rightly understood its symbolism: that this woman was capable of leading a life in accordance with the divine plan assigned to Abraham to prepare the generation desired by God. (Tafsir Ibn-Kathir)
In this way, in that hostile, aloof environment, a new generation began to be formed. What were the characteristics of this race? The two most prominent characteristics were their being in tune with nature and possessing the human quality of manliness.
The only thing to influence man in this rugged, hostile, Arabian desert was nature: vast wilderness, high mountains, starlit sky. These natural phenomena gave man the message of the unity of God. They were perpetual reminders to man of God’s greatness and omniscience. These pure, divine surroundings nurtured a generation which, in the words of Abraham, had the real capacity to become an Islamic community, that is, one which could surrender itself completely to the Will of God. The nature of this community was preserved intact in its original state, hence it was fully capable of accepting the religion of nature.
It was then the most suitable environment for nurturing that characteristic which is called al-Muruwah (manliness) in Arabic. Life was full of hardships in the mountainous and rocky surroundings of ancient Hijaz, and in that setting innate human qualities had acquired the maximum importance, as external props were totally non-existent. There, man possessed only one thing, and that was his own existence. In such an environment, it was but natural that man’s inner qualities should be cultivated to the maximum. In this way a nation, characterized by manliness to an amazing extent, came into being through a process spanning two thousand years. In the words of Philip K. Hitti, the whole of Arabia was converted into a nursery of heroes, the like of which had never been found before or after in history.
The hour had come with the dawn of the 6th century to bring to completion the plan of breaking the continuity of shirk (idolatry). It was then that the Prophet Muhammad was born among the Ishmaelites. These are the words of the Quran:
It is He who has sent His Apostle with guidance and the Faith of Truth, so that he may exalt it above all religions, much as the pagans may dislike it (61:9).
This verse shows that the main mission of the Final Prophet was to remove the religion of polytheism from its place of domination and establish the religion of monotheism in its place, giving it a position of dominance in the world. This dominance was to be of an intellectual and ideological kind. That is, a dominance similar to that gained by scientific knowledge over traditional knowledge in modern times.
This was the most difficult plan ever conceived in history. In the 7th century, it was the hardest of tasks to stamp out polytheism and replace it with monotheism as the predominant ideology. It was just like uprooting a tree with all its roots and branches. It entailed severe difficulties and could be performed only with meticulous planning and strenuous effort.
To secure this goal the Final Prophet was provided by God with two special supporting factors. One was the divine proclamation:
You are the best nation that has ever been raised up for mankind (3:110)
As a result of a two thousand years long process, a most competent group was prepared for the purpose. As mentioned above, this group had retained its nature (i.e. that with which it had come into existence, preserved intact and free from all the corruptions of civilization) and also possessed in perfect form, a high moral character and manly attributes. It was the people selected from this group who, after their acceptance of Islam, came to be known in history as the companions of the Prophet.
The other special divine succour is hinted at in the early verses of chapter 30. Prior to the advent of the Prophet, there had existed two great polytheistic civilizations in the world, the Byzantine and the Sassanid. The major populated part of the globe at the time, was directly or indirectly, under these two empires. For monotheism to prevail over a vaster world, a confrontation with the polytheistic empires was inevitable. God did bring this about during this period and the confrontation of these two empires continued for generations. First the Persians rose and, destroying the power of the Romans, occupied a large part of their empire. Then the Romans rose to avenge their defeat by destroying the might of the Persians. That is how, when the Companions rose unitedly under the guidance of the Prophet, they rapidly conquered most of the inhabited part of Asia and Africa, subjugating polytheism, and securing for monotheism its rightful place.
To quote professor Philip K. Hitti:
The enfeebled condition of the rival Byzantines and Sassanids who had conducted internecine warfare against each other for many generations, the heavy taxes consequent upon these wars, imposed on the citizens of both empires, and undermining their sense of loyalty., ……all these paved the way for the surprisingly rapid progress of Arabian arms.
(Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, London, 1970, pp. 142-143)
Historians in referring to this turning point have generally represented the foregoing events as having taken place in the natural course. Whereas this extraordinary turn of events was the result of a divine plan specially conceived of by God for the support of the Final Prophet.
An article titled, ‘Islam’, penned by a Christian writer and published in an American encyclopaedia, has this to say:
Its advent changed the course of human history.
It is quite true that after the Islamic revolution of the first phase (of Islam), human history saw such tremendous changes as had never before been seen. The actual reason for all these changes was that the continuity of polytheism came to an end, yielding place to the continuity of monotheism. Shirk (polytheism) was and is the root cause of all evils, while monotheism was and is the source of all virtue. Hence the occurrence of this fundamental change opened for man the door of all virtue, which had hitherto remained locked.
Now the age of superstition gave way to the age of science. The foundation of human discrimination collapsed, giving place to human equality. Dynastic rule was replaced with democratic rule. Where natural phenomena all over the world had become objects of worship, now for the first time they were treated as subjects of research and investigation. This paved the way to the revelation of nature’s secrets to man. It was indeed the monotheistic revolution which laid the foundation for bringing about the modern age of advancement. Abraham’s prayer, “Lord, preserve me and my descendants from serving idols. Lord, they have led many men astray” (14:36), had been answered.
Now the question arises as to how people were misled by these idols. What qualities did these inanimate objects possess which helped them in this regard? We can understand this secret if we have a look at the idols prevalent during Abraham’s time and referred to in Abraham’s prayer.
The idols were of the sun, the moon and the stars. It has been proved historically that these bright, heavenly bodies were objects of worship everywhere in the civilized world of Abraham’s time. This gives us a clue as to how and why these idols managed to lead the people astray.
Although God is the greatest reality, He is invisible to the eye. On the contrary, the sun, the moon and the stars, shining brightly, are visible to every eye. Due to their illuminative properties, people came under their spell and began worshipping them. These brilliant bodies captured human thought to such a degree and so dominated people’s minds that even governments, nay, empires began to be founded on their basis. The emperors of that age ruled over people by declaring themselves to be the descendants of the sun and moon.
This age was brought to an end by monotheism gaining supremacy through the Final Prophet. This was carried out in two stages. The first stage is referred to in the Quran in these words:
And fight with them until there is no more persecution (fitnah) and religion should be only for God; but if they desist, then surely God sees what they do (8:39)
Fitnah in this verse means religious intolerance, which in ancient times had become a form of oppression. Polytheism had become aggressive because it was the bedrock of all governments and as such enjoyed full State patronage. In such a situation, whenever the call to monotheism was raised, it was but natural for the rulers to feel strongly that such a call, in holding their right to rule suspect, posed a challenge to their sovereignty. Therefore they wasted no time in crushing the da‘is of monotheism. This was the actual cause of ideological aggression in ancient times.
The Prophet Muhammad and his companions were commanded by God to fight for the extirpation of polytheism to put an end to the da‘is of monotheism being the targets of polytheistic aggression. That is to say, that shirk and politics were separated from one another. The Prophet and his companions launched this campaign with full force and devotion, and it was due to their unceasing efforts that the power of shirk was given a death blow. Subsequently, in most parts of the inhabited world of the time, the polytheistic system was subjugated, thus putting an end to the aggressive status of shirk forever. Now for all time polytheism and political power were thrust into separate arenas.
The second stage of the domination of monotheism over shirk is mentioned in this verse of the Quran:
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).
The first phase of this mission aimed at putting an end to the practice of deriving political theories from natural phenomena.
This goal was fully achieved in the seventh century. The second stage aimed at removing the veil of superstition from the phenomena of nature and casting upon them the light of knowledge. This second stage began with the era of prophethood (of the Prophet Muhammad) and later reached its zenith in the present scientific revolution.
The present world is a manifestation of the attributes of God. Here man finds his Creator in the mirror of His creation. By making a profound study of creation, he witnesses God’s power and greatness. The ancient idolatrous concepts had, on the contrary, rendered all material things of this world mysteriously sacred. The superstitious ideas which had come to surround them came in the way of research being carried out on the multitude of objects in this world. When the entire world came to be held as God’s creation in the wake of the monotheistic revolution, this mentality of holding everything sacred vanished. Now everything began to be studied objectively.
As a result of this investigation, the truth about the hidden system of nature and its functioning in the world began to be revealed. Ultimately, in the form of the modern scientific revolution, the prophecy mentioned above in verse 53 of chapter 41 was quite finally fulfilled.
The facts unraveled about the universe through modern scientific studies have definitively brought to an end the age of superstition. These newly discovered realities have simultaneously benefited humanity in two ways, one being that religious beliefs are no longer just dogma but facts established through human knowledge itself.
The other benefit to mankind is that these scientific revelations about nature provide an immense source for increasing the faith of the believer.
Although partial in extent, whatever has been revealed by science regarding the universe is so amazing that, on learning it, the believer’s hair stands on end. His mind receives the light of the realization of the Lord. His eyes become wet with tears from awe and fear of God. He is elevated to the plan of ihsan, a state of worship in which man feels as if he is seeing the Almighty. There is a hadith to this effect, asking the believers to worship God as if they were actually seeing Him.
