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 those who have faith, and do not mix their faith with wrongdoing, who will be secure, and it is they who are rightly guided. This is the reasoning We gave to Abraham against his people. We raise in rank anyone We please—your Lord is wise and aware. We gave him Isaac and Jacob, each of whom We guided as We had guided Noah before. Among his descendants were David and Solomon, and Job, Joseph, Moses and Aaron. Thus do We reward the righteous. (6: 82 – 84)
In this world there is only one Supreme Being—God, whose majesty and greatness are based on sound arguments. All other kinds of socalled greatness and the reverence for them are based on superstitious beliefs. God’s supremacy stands by virtue of its own strength, while all other godheads owe their existence to the acceptance of their followers. If their followers refused to accept them, they would become nonexistent.
Looking to externals, the worshippers of these deities are misled into believing that they are more securely situated than the worshippers of the one and only God. But this is the worst type of misunderstanding. It is one who goes by sound arguments who is in the really safe position. But if it is by compromising with worldly considerations and customs that he attempts to better his situation, this has no value from the point of view of his final fate.
Sometimes the domination of false deities becomes so universal that even the worshippers of the real God are overwhelmed by it and make compromises. Worldly considerations and material interests are so closely linked with these false deities that, to all appearances, it seems that there is no other way to have a respectable life than to effect a compromise with the structure formed under them. But this procedure amounts to such an adulteration of one’s own faith that it makes one’s sincerity doubtful in the eyes of God.
Zachariah, John, Jesus, and Elijah—every one of them was righteous— Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah, and Lot—We favoured each one of them above other people, and also some of their forefathers, their offspring, and their brothers: We chose them and guided them to a straight path. This is the guidance of God : He gives that guidance to whichever of His servants He pleases. If they had associated other deities with Him, surely all they did would have been of no avail. (6: 85 – 88)
Excellence, or superiority, is not anyone’s racial or national prerogative. It is a gift of God to only those individuals who keep themselves righteous according to God’s guidance, who avoid all sorts of polytheism (shirk) and who throw themselves, body and soul, into the task of ‘preaching (admonition) without remuneration.’ These are the people who make the Book of God their real guide. They identify themselves with the Book to such an extent that the divine mysteries reveal themselves to them; the result of which process is known as wisdom (hikmah). These are the people whom God picks out, then commissions some of them, whom He likes, with the task of conveying His message, as prophets during the age of prophethood, and thereafter as dayees. God’s reward either to prophets or dayees will be entirely on the basis of righteous action (ihsan).
The task of giving the call of Truth is undertaken only by those people who have become so selfless and so immersed in this work that they have no material expectations whatsoever of their addressees. Then the preacher cannot stage protests or run a campaign of demands pitted against the very person or group of persons to whom he is conveying the message of the Hereafter. Such an action on the part of the messenger of Truth would risk his exhortations being treated as ridiculous in the eyes of his addressees, and in society at large his call could never thus attain the status of a serious effort to convey the Word of God.
Those are the ones to whom We gave the Scripture, wisdom, and prophethood. If these people [the Makkans] reject it, We shall entrust it to a people who will never refuse to acknowledge it. Those [the previous prophets] were the people whom God guided. Follow their guidance then and say, ‘I ask no reward for this from you: it is only a reminder for all mankind.’ (6: 89 – 90)
In Makkah, a few individuals had embraced the faith on the strength of the Prophet Muhammad’s preaching. But, as a community, the people had rejected him. Thereafter, God the Almighty softened the hearts of the people of Medina towards his call; and they embraced the faith as a community; so much so that it became possible for him to go to Medina and establish a centre of Islam there. This aid from Almighty God was granted to the Prophet Muhammad in its complete form. However, God can give this aid even to the successors of the Prophet who rise to follow his call. This is something which God has always done according to the requirement of His dayees.
They do not make a just estimate of God, when they say, ‘God has not revealed anything to any human being.’ Say, ‘Who revealed the Book which Moses brought, a light and guidance for the people, which you made into separate sheets, showing some but hiding many? You have been taught things that neither you nor your forefathers had known before.’ Say, ‘God has sent it;’ then leave them toying away with their speculation. (6: 91)
When the call of the Prophet Muhammad reached the people of Makkah, some of them asked certain Jews what they thought about it and whether God’s Word had really been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. The Jews replied that God had not made revelations to any human being. This is obviously very strange, because the Jews themselves accepted a series of prophets, thus tacitly admitting that God’s word had indeed been revealed from time to time to human beings. But when a man blindly opposes anything, he will go to the extent of contradicting his own accepted ideas in the heat of attempting to defeat his opponent.
Meet the challenges
Those who only blame the external factors underestimate their own capacity. Those who discover and develop themselves become free of this obsession and can meet all challenges.
