THE WORD OF GOD
From The Scriptures
THE Quran is the book of God. It has been preserved in its entirety since its revelation to the Prophet of Islam between 610 and 632 A.D. It is a book that brings glad tidings to mankind, along with divine admonition, and stresses the importance of man’s discovery of the Truth on a spiritual and intellectual level.
Translated from Arabic and commentary
by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
It is He who made the sun radiate a brilliant light and the moon shed its lustre, and ordained for it stages so that you may learn to count out the years and [to make other such] reckoning of time. God has not created all these without a purpose. He makes plain His revelations to men of understanding. (10:5)
In the alternation of night and day, and in all that God has created in the heavens and the earth, there are signs for a God-fearing people. (10: 6)
The sun is at the most appropriate distance from our earth. That is why it has been a treasure-like source of light and heat for us. If a difference were to occur in this alignment, the sun would not be the sun for us: it would become the fire of hell. Instead of being the messenger of life, it would be the messenger of death. The moon rotates in its orbit in a precise, mathematical way. In spite of its being devoid of its own light, it not only gives us cool light, reflected from the sun, but also provides us with a natural calendar of months and days. These astronomical signs prove that there is strong purposefulness in the universe, and the fate of the purposeful universe cannot be purposeless.
Then, the appearance of day after night indicates, in the language of symbolism, the moral fact that, according to the law prevailing in this world of ours, light should prevail after the reign of darkness; the brightness of light should follow upon darkness. Where, before, human rights had been trampled upon, there will now ensue a system whereby rights will be honoured. Divine justice will dominate in place of human arrogance. Such a time is destined to come, when the prevalence of evil will come to an end and the recognition of truth will prevail everywhere.
God has revealed the realities of the Hereafter by means of symbols. Similarly, in the present world, God reveals Himself in the form of arguments, and not as a tangible manifestation. So, we can find God only in the manner and shape in which He reveals Himself and not in any other form.
In this world, God has offered mankind His guidance. But only those who are ready to follow it according to the godly plan are destined to receive this guidance. Only those who are ready to understand the truth presented in the language of reason and accept it will be inspired to tread the right path. Those who do not bow down before true argument fail to bow down, as it were, before God; it is like not accepting God. Such people may expect nothing but Hell as their reward.
In the heavens and on the earth, there are countless signs which become the elements of a lesson for those who are God-fearing. Fear, or apprehension, is a thing which makes a man serious. Unless a man is serious, he will not pay full attention to matters of importance and will not understand their various aspects.
The whole universe is held together in a creative balance. This is a clear indication of the fact that the Lord of the universe is One who has absolute power over man. Similarly, the initial life which we are now experiencing provides clear proof of the fact that a second life is also possible.
The appearance of material results in the present world and the nonappearance of moral results warrants the taking shape of another world where the moral results will be clearly in evidence. This is an unassailable truth, but this can be grasped only by one who looks at life in fear and apprehension.
Those who entertain no hope of meeting Us, being pleased and contented with the life of this world, and those who give no heed to Our signs, shall have their abode in the Fire in requital for their deeds. (10: 7-8)
For whom is hell meant? It is for those who have forgotten that they will have to face God; those who have contented themselves with the temporary amenities of this world as opposed to the eternal bounties of the Hereafter; those who are satisfied with the things that purely as a matter of trial they have received in this world; those who attach themselves to ungodly things to such an extent that they become completely unmindful of the realities revealed by God. All this amounts to treading the path of hell in the eyes of God, and those who adopt the way of hell will not arrive anywhere except in hell.
Those who believe and do good deeds will be guided by their Lord because of their faith. Rivers shall flow at their feet in the Gardens of Bliss. (10:9)
In that [state of happiness] they will call out; ‘Glory be to You, O God!’, while their greeting in it will be: ‘Peace!’ And the close of their call will be, ‘All praise is due to God, the Lord of the Universe!’ (10:10)
Literally, ‘On account of their faith, God will lead them towards the goal of Paradise.’ This shows that Faith is guidance for man; it prevents him from taking wrong paths and makes him tread the right way until it leads him to the real goal.
Faith is discovery of God. The thread of knowledge comes within the grasp of one who is blessed with faith. He becomes capable of starting his thinking from the right place on all matters. Never allowing his thoughts to err, he attains correctness in his thinking. Furthermore, belief in God is not simply acceptance of a bookish philosophy; it is belief in God Who is alive and Who is going to finally assemble all human beings before Him to take a final reckoning. In this way, Faith inculcates in man a sense of anxiety or apprehension about his future fate and this makes him extremely serious. He is forced to look at all his actions in the light of their being right or wrong, so that he may adopt only the right direction. In this way, Faith provides man with the right way of thinking as well as the power to distinguish between right and wrong, which acts as his permanent practical guide.
The Paradise of the Hereafter is for those who have, in this world, proved themselves to be deserving of it. The Hereafter is a place where one will directly experience and become directly immersed in the glories of God. So, the opportunity to live in Paradise will be given only to those who, in this world, had immersed themselves in the indirect manifestations of the glories of God. In the Hereafter, human hearts will be full of well-wishing and peace-desiring for each other. So, only those who, in this world had proved that in their hearts they had only such feelings for others, will find their abode in Paradise.
