Why did God do this? Why creation? Why human beings? The Quran answers: وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنْسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ (51:56) The Quran says that God created the jinn and mankind only so that they might worship Him. If we reflect on the word worship, we will find great meaning in it. The Quran doesn’t say go to the mosque and worship God. Why this great creation and vast universe? Does it mean to go to the mosque to bow and prostrate? The phrase li-yabudoon has something implicit.

What is that? The Quran says that the entire universe has been subjugated by God. The entire universe is worshipping God.  وَيُسَبِّحُ الرَّعْدُ بِحَمْدِهِ (13:13) This is worship. All the objects in the universe are worshipping God. But their worship is out of compulsion. God has kept them bound to the laws of nature.

For example, the earth revolves with great accuracy. Why is this so? Because the law of nature controls it. The rotation of the earth is also a kind of worship: double rotation on its axis and on its orbit. Why such accurate movement? We have to accept, just as we accept about subatomic particles, that there is surely a controller. If there is no controller, things will happen at random. There will be some or the other error or breakdown. You have to accept that probably there is a controller.

If you accept this principle or apply it here, then you will begin to think. If the whole universe was already worshipping God, why were humans created? Lightening and thunder are also worshipping, the rotation of the earth is also worship. The worship of all other objects happens under compulsion. God wanted to create a creature who worships God without such compulsion. One who represents self-discovered realization of God and follows self-adopted discipline or self-imposed discipline. This is worship out of choice. In the verse, God created humans to worship Him, it is understood that He wants humans to adopt self-imposed discipline.