Today the result of India’s parliamentary elections was declared. As I was listening to the radio, the news anchor read the caption of an article in a Hindi newspaper. It said, “kisi ki jeet, kisi ki haar.” (Somebody’s loss, somebody’s gain.)

The title of this article reminded me of the following verse in the Quran:

“When your Lord brought offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord? They replied,

 ‘We bear witness that You are.’ This he did, lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We had no knowledge of that.’ (7:172)

According to this verse, all mankind was created together, and then they were laid on Adam’s back. These human beings appear hereditarily generation after generation. The incident mentioned in the above verse is not symbolic, it happened in actuality. The proof of this lies in all men and women being born with an impression of this incident etched, though faintly, in their unconscious minds. It means that God did not create man and left him in this world all alone, in fact, God made man aware about everything in advance.

Another very profound meaning emerges from the above verse that is, God made the Universe a witness while He addressed man. This means that during the course of his life man will keep unfolding his nature and at the same time the universe will keep reminding him of what had happened. The Day of Loss and Gain will mark the culmination of this process. The above quoted Hindi newspaper spoke of political loss and gain. However, the entire history is moving towards the Day of Loss and Gain. This long journey of human history may be divided into three periods: the traditional period, the scientific period and the discovery period.

Traditional period of human history

In the traditional period, man consciously knew nothing, although potentially everything was interwoven in his nature. The earth does not speak or shout but everything is written in it in a silent language, man had to discover this and convert the potential hidden in earth into actual.

For example, for transportation, God did not give man a readymade train or an airplane. However, He gave us horse for this purpose. At first, man used the horse, later he developed the wheel and then airplane and other means of transport were gradually discovered. Similarly, whereas earlier man used stars in the sky to guide him in his journey in the desert or the ocean, today, man has developed tools and equipments which help in determining direction and are used in airplanes and ships. These are material examples.

In the field of marefat or realization of God, there are similar examples. For example, rain is a phenomenon observed every year. Earlier, man attributed rain to rain-gods. But now we know that rain is a natural process of de-salination. The water in the oceans contains salt as preservative. It is the heat of the sun that evaporates water from these water bodies and separates the heavy salt from the lighter water. This water then forms clouds in the atmosphere which in turn cause rain, which contains fresh, desalinated water. Thus rain was discovered as a natural process.

It is important to bear cognizance of the fact that in earlier times, man’s beliefs were based in the traditional framework. Form the traditional age man has come to the scientific age. God wants man to develop his mind and for this He provided man with limitless opportunities; availing which was left upon man.

God does not intervene directly. He wanted man to discover and unfold his potential however Shirk or nature-worship was predominant in those days. Shirk acted as a mental block due to which the traditional framework persisted for long. This was because an object of worship could not be made the object of investigation. So, when man worshipped nature, he did not explore or scrutinise it. As a result, nature-worship became an obstacle towards discovering the hidden potential in nature. Prophets were being sent continually but shirk did not come to an end. Then God sent Prophet Muhammad as the final Prophet.

It is important to realise that God never stops the course of history, but he intervenes in a situation of crisis or emergency. When God saw that people were not exploring the hidden potential in nature and therefore, the sky and the earth couldn’t become witnesses of God being the Creator, He intervened. That is, if nature was left unexplored then God’s signs which lay hidden in it wouldn’t be known to man.

Hence, God initiated a process through Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet formed an exceptional team of companions who brought a revolution. Every Prophet came with the same ideology as Prophet Muhammad, but in the case of all the other Prophets, this ideology couldn’t be converted into a revolution. In the case of Prophet Muhammad, because of the exceptional team of Sahabas, the ideology was converted into a revolution. A historian has acknowledged it thus, “Islam changed the course of history.”

 This team of heroes removed shirk as the mental block or obstacle in discovering nature. As a result, nature exploration began and the scientific age was thus brought about. Science is not a direct outcome of Islam like Namaz and Hajj. However, the scientific age is a by-product of the revolution brought by Islam. 

Scientific period of human history

The scientific age gave a new framework to man. For example, there is a verse in the Quran which alludes to the positioning of stars as a sign of intelligent planning in the universe.

“Nay, I swear by the setting of the stars” (56:75)

Earlier man only saw the sun and the moon through his naked eye. But after the invention of the telescope man can see far into space. It was discovered that our solar system is situated in a galaxy in space, called the Milky Way. This galaxy is of the shape of a spiral plate. The solar system is situated at one of the wings of this spiral and not at its centre. The reason is that the centre of this galaxy is tremendously hot and had the solar system been placed there, man could not have existed. But because the solar system is placed at the corner of one of the wings, the temperature is much lower and man can exist. This positioning of stars in space is an example of intelligent planning in the universe, as mentioned in the above verse. Such an explanation was possible only in the scientific age wherein man’s framework has broadened.

Newton (d. 1727) is known as the Father of Modern Science. He had said that matter is the building block of the universe. Then Einstein (b. 1807) moved a step forward and proposed that energy is the building block of the universe. An American scientist, David Bohm (d. 1992) said, “Consciousness is the building block of the universe.” Another scientist paraphrased this and said that a conscious being is the behind the making of the universe. This conscious being is God.

The acknowledgement by the scientists that a conscious being is behind the universe is a very serious matter. It means that we are heading towards the end of history. Now nothing is left, we are heading towards the Day of Loss and Gain.

Discovery period of human history

According to a verse in the Quran,

“On that Day people will come forward in separate groups to be shown their deeds: whoever has done the smallest particle of good, will see it;

whoever has done the smallest particle of evil will see it.” (99:7-8)

The discovery period is the period when everything will be unveiled. That is, Shahadat (witness) will reach its acme. God first settled man on the earth. Here, God is unseen and He wants man to see Him without ‘seeing’ Him, that is, to realize or discover Him without directly seeing Him. Then God will give such a person the reward of seeing Him and realizing Him by settling Him in His neighbourhood, that is, Paradise.

Seeing God and praising Him can be explained by an example. We enjoy reading books about beautiful places. But when we actually see these beautiful places then our happiness knows no bounds; it cannot be compared to the joy that we get by merely reading about these places. Similarly, when we study the meaningful world, we realize or discover God as its Intelligent Planner. However, in Paradise we’ll get an opportunity to see this Intelligent Planner. This is the planning of God.

A Hadith tells the difference between a believer and a munafiq (hypocrite):

A believer sees the blessing of God when he eats or drinks. (Mishkat)

For example, when a believer drinks water then the 15 billion year history of the universe comes in front of him. He realizes that first God created the galaxies, then the solar system and then water was created by a composition of many physical processes and chemical elements. Hence he realizes God even when he drinks water. But a non-believer merely eats or drinks without a thought. This is the difference between a person who will go to paradise and a person who will go to hell. The man who sees God without seeing him will be selected for paradise. In other words, there are two types of people: those for whom God becomes their priority and the other type for whom God is secondary. Those who take God as their priority will go to Paradise and the person who takes God as secondary will not go to Paradise.

Conclusion

Now that we have reached the discovery period of history, nothing else is left. We need to reform ourselves (islah) and do dawah work.

Everything other than dawah is idle business. God takes the responsibility of the worldly affairs of those who do dawah work. The following verse in the Quran conveys just that,

“There is not a living creature on the earth but it is for God to provide its sustenance.” (11:6)

Man engages himself in every activity other than dawah work. Those who do dawah, their worldly affairs will be taken care of by God; however dawah is man’s responsibility and God will never do dawah Himself.

It is time we decide our priorities because the time for it is time now for culmination of God’s planning. The process that started with the creation of man and the journey that ensued thereafter have reached its fag end. Now only the Day of Reckoning is due. As the following Hadith alludes, we must strive to exert ourselves in doing Dawah to the best of our capabilities before we are put to task,

“Today, you find yourself in a world that has action but no reward, tomorrow,

you shall find yourself in a world of reward where there will be no opportunity for action.”

May God accept our efforts!