The Importance
of the Fear of God
Fear of God is the real focus in Islam. Being the source of all positive qualities, it makes man both serious and modest and is the greatest source of personal reform.
Faith is the discovery of God. This discovery produces certain qualities in a human being. One such important quality may be called fear of God (khushu or taqwa), that is, always going in fear of being accountable to God. That is, God will take us to task for all our misdeeds. By introspection one must remind oneself of the accountability on the Day of Judgement. This is the sign of true faith. The true believer is only that person whose greatest concern is God. The true believer’s focus of thinking is only one and that is fear of God. That is, he never forgets that he will be called to account by God. Such a person is always conscious of God.
In present times, great movements have been launched for the revival of the Muslim community. But these movements have been infructuous. The basic reason for this failure lies in the shifting of focus in all these Muslim movements. Some have focused on protection from those who are conceived of as enemies, some have focused on political power, some have focused on the forms of worship, others on community identity, etc. That is why all the Muslim movements of the present time, despite a great furore, have totally failed to achieve the desired result.
It is a fact that fear of God is the real focus in Islam. The fear of God is the source of all positive qualities. The fear of God makes a man both serious and modest. Fear of God instils in man the incentive to admit his mistakes. Fear of God is the greatest source of personal reform. Fear of God nullifies the individual’s sense of his own greatness and paves the way for social unity. Fear of God makes one a realist. Fear of God produces Quranic thinking in a man. Fear of God compels man to live in constant remembrance of his death. Fear of God saves man from becoming egoistic and arrogant. The position of the fear of God is, to use the jargon of the carrom board, that of the master stroke, which completely transforms man’s entire personality.
