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

 

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Blessed be He who has revealed the criterion [the Quran] to His servant that he may warn the nations. Sovereign of the heavens and the earth, who has begotten no children and who has no partner in His sovereignty, it is He who has created all things and measured them out precisely. (THE QURAN 25: 1-2)

“The distinguisher” is the literal translation of ‘al-furqan’, which is the criterion for distinguishing between truth and falsehood. In this context “the distinguisher” means the Quran. God is all knowing and all aware and also the Absolute Sovereign. Revelation of the Book, on behalf of God, has two aspects to it. One is that it is certainly true and there is no doubt about its authenticity. The other is that, acceptance or denial of it cannot have the same outcome.

God alone is the Possessor of all Powers. Nobody can influence His decision and nobody can intervene between Him and His decisions. This very fact ensures that one who adopts the Quran as his mentor, will be successful, while one who ignores it will find it impossible to save himself from failure, which is the fate ordained by God for one who ignores the Truth.

Yet they have taken, besides Him, deities who create nothing and are themselves created, and who have no power to harm, or benefit themselves and who control neither death, nor life, nor resurrection. Those who deny the truth say, ‘This is only a forgery of his own invention in which others have helped him.’ What they say is unjust and false. They say, ‘It is just fables of the ancients, which he has had written down. They are dictated to him morning and evening.’ Say to them, ‘It has been revealed by Him who knows every secret that is in the heavens and on the earth. Truly, He is most forgiving and most merciful.’ (THE QURAN 25: 3-6)

Those who denied the truth, used to denigrate the Quran as a false testament, but in fact the target of their allegation was the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet appeared to them as an ordinary man. They were unable to understand how an ordinary man could be the possessor of an extraordinary Book.

The Quran touches upon various topics of a historical, psychological and social nature, etc., but no factual error has ever been pointed out in it. This proves that the Quran was authored by a Being who is aware of the secrets of the universe to the fullest extent. Had it not been so, the Quran also would have been full of mistakes—as are found in other man-made books. This fact in itself is the greatest argument in favour of the Quran being a Book of God.

Those who make baseless statements against the Quran are indulging in undue bravado. Such people will definitely be seized upon by God. However, if they come back to the right path, it is not God’s way to take revenge after their repentance. God looks at the individual’s present and not his past.

They say, ‘What kind of a messenger is this who eats food and walks about in the market-places? Why has no angel been sent down with him to warn us?’ Or a treasure should have been sent down to him, or he should have had a garden from which to eat.’ The wrongdoers say, ‘You are surely following a man who is bewitched.’ Observe what kind of things they attribute to you. They have surely gone astray and cannot find the right way again. (THE QURAN 25: 7-9)

Every preacher giving the call for Truth has had to face the same experience, as that of a Prophet. While his contemporaries looked down upon him with contempt, the people of succeeding ages venerated the preacher like a god. This is so because during his lifetime, a Prophet lives the life of an ordinary human being and his contemporaries therefore fail to appreciate the wisdom he propagates. They see him cast in an overly idealized form, wearing the halo conferred by legend, and therefore, feel obliged to pay homage to him and glorify him in an exaggerated manner.

The minds of succeeding generations develop such deep-seated notions about the extraordinary greatness of the Prophet, that nobody is held superior to or even at par with him. A living Prophet, however, is treated scornfully by the majority of his contemporaries. The few who develop a reasoned understanding of his message are also ‘advised’ to disassociate themselves from one who is “possessed”. Having no rational arguments, the unrelenting contemporaries of a Prophet, resort to unfair vilification of his image so as to curb the preaching of his message.