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

[This is] a Book, with verses which are fundamental [in nature], and then expounded in detail by One who is all wise and all aware. [It teaches] that you should worship none but God. I am sent to you from Him to warn you and to give you good tidings. Seek forgiveness from your Lord; then turn towards Him [in repentance]. He will make generous provision for you for an appointed term and will bestow His grace on all who merit it! But if you turn away, then I fear for you the torment of a dreadful Day: to God you shall all return; and He has power over all things. (11: 1-4)

The message of the Quran is that man should not worship anyone except the one and only God. He should make the one and only God his everything; he should fear Him alone and repose his hopes in Him alone; his mind and heart should obey Him alone. In the affairs of his life, he should give prior consideration to His will and pleasure. He should be willing to place himself in the position of a worshipper and give God the status of the worshipped one.

The task of the prophet is, in fact, that of making man aware of this position. This has been powerfully and lucidly described in the Quran. Now, what is expected of man is that he should give the correct response to the divine message. He should not ignore it under the influence of such feelings as jealousy, hauteur, vested interest or self-centredness, but duly accept it and turn towards God. He should seek God’s pardon for his past sins and, for the future, he should solicit God’s help.

If food is presented to a man and he accepts it, it means that he intends to stimulate his physical growth. On the contrary, if he does not accept the food, it is as if he means to stunt his physical growth. The same holds for the call to the Truth. When a man accepts the Truth, in reality he accepts that Divine provision which enters into him and causes the righteous growth of his soul and his body, and finally takes him to that stage of his spiritual progress which entitles him to enter the Gardens of Paradise.

One who does not accept the call to the Truth has, in effect, deprived his soul of the opportunities afforded by Divine uplifting. While the acceptor of Truth lives in modesty, the rejecter of Truth will be flawed by hauteur.

While the acceptor of Truth will spend each moment of his life in the remembrance of God, the denier of God will spend his time in the remembrance of beings other than God. While the acceptor of Truth adopts the way of obedience to God on all occasions in his life, the denier will instead adopt the way of arrogance.

The result of this will be that the former will leave this world with a healthy and developed soul and will be treated as deserving of being settled in the rarefied atmosphere of Paradise. The soul of the latter will be unhealthy and under-developed and will deserve only to be thrown on to the garbage dump of hell.

See how they cover themselves up to hide [their thoughts] from Him. But when they cover themselves up with their garments, He knows what they hide and what they reveal. He knows their innermost thoughts.

There is not a living creature on the earth but it is for God to provide its sustenance. He knows its dwelling and its [final] resting place. All this is recorded in a clear book. (11: 5-6)

When the call to the unity of God (tawheed) was made to certain chiefs of the Quraysh, they rose and, nonchalantly donning their mantles, they left.

This is, in fact, a way of ignoring something. When a man considers a preacher lowly in comparison to himself, he behaves in this way. But he forgets that Almighty God knows very well the psychology of his doing so. This is not only ignoring a man (the preacher) but amounts also to ignoring God Himself, Who knows all open and hidden matters.

And then, what will be man’s condition when he faces God? He will see that God, whom he had ignored, was the Being who gave him all that he possessed—even those things on the strength of which he had ignored the word of God. Man is living in God’s world and ultimately he has to return to his Maker. But he lives as if he has no connection with God today and will have nothing to do with Him in the future.