Towards Understanding Islam
Some may think it pretentious of me to write
a foreword to a book by an Islamic thinker as outstanding in our time as
Mawlana Mawdudi, especially when any need to introduce the eminent author
or his remarkable book Towards Understanding Islam has
been magisterially fulfilled by Brother Khurshid Ahmad. Towards
Understanding Islam has already made its mark and this edition
is only an improved English version. However. I can hardly neglect this
opportunity to express our gratitude to Allah, subhanahu wala'aia
for having enabled us to bring out a new revised version of a book which
has so deeply influenced such a large number of men and women. Only
recently I received a letter from a friend in Brazil, saying how a leading
journalist had embraced Islam purely because of the simple and persuasive
exposition of the Islamic way of life in Towards Understanding
Islam. There must be innumerable other examples of a similar kind and I
hope that the book will be even more effective in its present form.
The Islamic Foundation envisages a
comprehensive plan to bring the moving and inspiring work of Mawlana
Mawdudi before the world at large. in English and other major European
languages. Towards Understanding Islam is only the
first step and we hope that other important books by him, certainly some of
the most influential in our age, will soon find their way to thirsty souls
and hungry intellects.
We pray to Allah to bless our effort with
mercy and acceptance.
13 December, 1979
4 Miiharram 1400 A.H.
K. J. Murad
Director General
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND
EDITION
The present edition of Towards
Understanding Islam is more than a new translation of my book
Risalah Diniyat: it is an entirely new and revised version. The
first edition, which was rendered into English by the late Dr. Abdul Ghani
(Director of Public Instruction, Afghanistan), was very brief and sketchy.
Unfortunately, Dr. Abdul Ghani did not live to improve the translation. I
later revised the original book and made substantial additions to it. Prof.
Khurshid Ahmad, to whom my heartfelt thanks are due for this labour of
love, has now skillfully translated this revised edition of Risalah Dinivat.
I am confident that the book will serve its purpose better in this new
form.
My object in writing this book has been to
provide all those — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — who have no access to
the original sources with a brief treatise giving a lucid, comprehensive
and all-embracing view of Islam. I have avoided minute details and
endeavoured to portray Islam as a whole in a single perspective. Apart from
staling what we Muslims believe in and stand for, I have also tried to
explain the rational bases of our beliefs. Similarly, in presenting the
Islamic modes of worship and the outlines of the Islamic way of life, I
have also tried to unveil the wisdom behind them. I hope this small
treatise will go far towards satisfying the intellectual cravings of Muslim
youth, and that it will help non-Muslims to understand our real position.
Lahore ABUL A'LA
11th September, 1960
It is a cherished intellectual fashion of our
times to highlight the challenge of secular civilization to faith and
religion. There is however, very little reflection on the challenge that
religion — particularly Islam — poses to the sensate culture of the age. For
the last few centuries religion in the West has been on the defensive, most
often apologetic, at all times making concessions to and compromises with an
approach to life and culture that is alien to the values and ideals of
religion. The Muslim World has also weathered the global onslaughts of
Western civilization, especially its politico-economic arm, imperialism,
which inflicted many a dent and deformity. The religious approach to life
and its problems was discarded and the role of religion in the socio-
economic spheres became minimal. At both the conceptual and operational
levels the faith and religion of all those under colonial rule, and of the
Muslims in particular, was reduced to a secondary position, if not to one of
total irrelevance. The situation is now changing. The tide of Imperialism
has receded. The Muslim World, after attaining political independence, is
now engaged in an ideological effort to rediscover its cultural personality.
By drawing upon its own spiritual and historical sources it is trying to
develop new attitudes and roles for restructuring its own society and for
the establishment of a new world order. This new resilience in the Muslim
World symbolises the revivalist movement of Islam.
The Muslims look upon the crisis of the
twentieth century as a crisis of values and believe that the way out of the
human predicament lies in the construction of a new social order. The real
need is not to seek concessions here and there or to effect a few changes
in the institutional superstructures. What is needed is a searching
re-examination of the foundations on which the entire structure of society
is built and of the ideals, which the culture aspires to achieve. The
crisis in economic and political relations is the natural outcome of the
ideals, values and institutions that characterize modern civilization.
Islam, therefore, suggests that it is only through summoning mankind
towards a new vision of man and society that its house can be set in order.
This calls for a basic change in man's approach. It is only through a
thorough understanding of the social ideals and values of religion and a
realistic assessment of their socio-economic situation — resources,
problems and constraints — that faith-oriented communities can develop a
creative and innovative approach to the challenges confronting humanity
today. This approach must be ideological. The real objective which inspires
the Muslims is not a package of economic and political concessions nor even
certain changes in the economic superstructure, but the construction of a
new world order, with its own framework of ideals, values and foundations.
The Western approach has always assumed that radical change can be brought
about by changing the environment. That is why emphasis has always been
placed on change in structure. This approach has failed to produce proper
results. It has ignored the need to bring about change within men and women
themselves and has concentrated on change in the outside world. What is
needed, however, is a total change — within people themselves as well as in
their social environment. The problem is not merely structural, although
structural arrangements would also have to be remodeled. But the starting
point must be the hearts and souls of men and women, their perception of
reality and of their own place and mission in life. The Islamic approach to
social change takes full cognizance of these aspects.
Islam is an Arabic word. It is derived from
two root-words: one Salin, meaning peace and the other Silm,
meaning submission. Islam stands for "a commitment to surrender one's will
to the Will of God" and thus to be at peace with the Creator and with all
that has been created by Him. It is through submission to the Will of God
that peace is brought about. Harmonization of man's will with the Will of
God leads to the harmonization of different spheres of life under an
all-embracing ideal. Departmentalization of life into different watertight
compartments, religious and secular, sacred and profane, spiritual and
material, is ruled out. There is unity of life and unity of the source of
guidance. As God is One and Indivisible, so is life and our human
personality. Each aspect of life is inseparable
from the other. Religious
and secular are not two
autonomous categories; they represent two sides of the same coin. Each and
every act becomes related to God and His guidance. Every human activity is
given a transcendent dimension; it becomes sacred and meaningful and goal-centred.
Islam is a worldview and an outlook on life.
It is based on the recognition of the unity of the Creator and of our
submission to His will. Everything originates from the One God, and
everyone is ultimately responsible to Him. Thus the unity of the Creator
has as its corollary the Oneness of His creation. Distinctions of
race, colour, caste, wealth and power disappear: our relation with other
persons assumes total equality by virtue of the common Creator. Henceforth
our mission becomes a dedication to our Creator; worship and obedience to
the Creator becomes our purpose in life.
The Creator has not left us without guidance
for the conduct of our life. Ever since the beginning of creation He has
sent down Prophets who have conveyed His message to humanity. They are the
source from which to discover God's Will. Thus we have the chain of
Prophets beginning with Adam (peace be upon him) and ending with Muhammad
(peace be upon him). Abraham, Moses, Noah, John, Zechariah and Jesus (peace
be upon them) all belong to this golden chain of Prophets. The Prophets
David, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (may peace be upon them all), brought
revealed books of guidance with them. The Qur'an, the Book revealed to the
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), is the last and final of these books
of guidance.
The Qur'an contains the word of God. In it is
preserved the divine revelation, unalloyed by human interpolation of any
kind, unaffected by any change or loss to the original. In it is distilled
the essence of all the messages sent down in the past. In it is embodied a
framework for the conduct of the whole of human life. There are explicit
criteria for judging between right and wrong; there are principles of
individual and collective conduct. In it are depicted the human follies of
the past. In it are warnings for humankind, and in it are assurances for
continued guidance for those who seek God's help.
The Qur'an has depicted a path, the Straight
Path (Siral al-Muslaq'lin), which when followed
revolutionizes the whole of life. It brings about a transformation in
character and galvanizes us into action. This action takes the form of
purification of the self, and then unceasing effort to establish the laws
of God on earth, resulting in a new order based on truth, justice, virtue
and goodness.
Men and women play a crucial role in the
making of this world. They act as God's vicegerents (Khulofa')—His
deputies and representatives on earth. They are morally prepared to play
this role. Success lies in praying it properly, by enjoining what is right
and for hiding what is wrong, by freeing people from the bondage of others,
by demonstrating that a sound and serene society can only result if one
harmonizes one's will with the Will of God. This makes seeking the
Creator's pleasure one's purpose in life, treating the whole of creation as
one's partner, raising the concept of human welfare from the level of mere
animal needs to seeking what is best in this world and what is best in the
Hereafter.
This is the Islamic worldview, and its
concept of men and women and their destiny. Islam is not a religion in the
Western understanding of the word. It is at once a faith and a way of life,
a religion and a social order, a doctrine and a code of conduct, a set of
values and principles and a social movement to realize them in history.
The uniqueness of Islamic culture lies in its
values and principles. When Muslims, after an illustrious historical
career, became oblivious of this fact and became obsessed with the
manifestations of their culture, as against its sources, they could not
even fully protect the house they had built. The strength of Islam lies in
its ideals, values and principles, and their relevance to us is as great
today as it has ever been in history. The message is timeless and the
principles Islam embodies are of universal application. In our search for a
new world order today, Islam emphasizes that we must aspire to a new system
of life through which to approach human problems from a different
perspective, not merely from the perspective of limited national or
regional interest, but from the perspective of what is right and wrong, and
how best we can strive to evolve a just and a humane world order at
different levels of our existence, individual, national and international.
That the present order is characterized by injustice and exploitation is
proved beyond any shadow of doubt. But Islam suggests that the present
order fails because it is based upon a wrong concept of man and of his
relationship with other human beings, with society, with nature, and with
the world. The search for a new order brings us to the need for a new
concept of man and his role. From the viewpoint of world religions in
general, and of Islam in particular, the focus of the discussion must be
shifted to a new vision of man and society, to an effort to bring about
change at the level of human consciousness, of values, leading to new
cultural transformation.
This is the, concept of Islam that lies at
the root of the contemporary resurgence of Islam. It is in the framework of
these parameters that the Muslims are today awakening to a new world role,
facing the problems of modernization, challenging the secular concepts and
institutions of the world establishment, purging their thought and society
of alien intrusions from Western civilization, and harnessing their
resources to build a new order at home which could act as a window on the
Islamic order for all humankind. Amongst the chief architects of this new
awakening in the world of Islam is Mawlana Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi.
Born in 1903 C.E., Mawdudi started his public
career as early as 1918. He wrote and spoke as editor, scholar, religious
thinker and leader of a movement, authoring over a hundred works of
varying size and delivering more than a thousand speeches. His death in
September 1979 marks the end of an era.
He made his debut in the intellectual life of
the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent in 1927, at the early age of twenty-four,
and created a stir by his voluminous scholarly work Al-Jihad
fil-lslam ("Jihad in Islam") first serialized in a newspaper, and
subsequently published in the form of a book in 1930. From the early
thirties he was a major, dominating, undaunted figure on the intellectual
scene of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. The monthly magazine, Tarjuman
al-Qur'an, which he edited since 1933, has been a major influence on
the minds of the Muslim intellectuals of the subcontinent. Since the
forties, when Mawlana Mawdudi's writings began to be available in
translated versions, especially in Arabic and English, his ideas have
attracted an increasing number of people far beyond the confines of the
subcontinent. It is no exaggeration to say that by the time of his death he
had become the most widely read Muslim author of our time, contributing
immensely to the contemporary resurgence of Islamic ideas, feelings and
activity all over the world.
Islam, however, was never a merely
intellectual concern of Mawlana Mawdudi. He consciously tried to live Islam
and to live for Islam. As far back as his mid-twenties he had resolved not
only to devote all his energy to expounding the teachings of Islam, but
also to do all that lay in his power to transform Islamic teachings into
practical realities. Mawlana Mawdudi was always emphatic in asserting that
Islam is not merely a body of metaphysical doctrines, nor merely a bundle
of rituals, nor even merely a set of rules of individual conduct. It is
indeed a way of life, the bases of which lie rooted in Divine Revelation; a
way of life which is permeated with God consciousness and is oriented to
doing God's Will and actualizing good and righteousness in human life. A
Muslim is committed to follow this way of life, to bear witness to it by
word and deed, and to strive in order to make it prevail in the world.
Hence, in addition to his intellectual contribution, in 1941 Mawlana
Mawdudi founded a movement known as the Jamaat-I-Islaim ("The
Islamic Organization"). He led this movement as its chief from its
inception till 1972. Even after getting himself relieved of the duties of
its formal headship for reasons of health, he continued to be a major
source of guidance and inspiration for those associated with the
Jamaat-I-Islaim, and indeed for a very large number of men and women
across the globe, who do not have any affiliation to that organization.
More and more people, particularly Muslims of the younger generation, are
coming to appreciate Mawdudi and even identify with the vision of Islam
that he articulated so lucidly and incisively.
Mawlana Mawdudi, therefore, was no mere
academician; he was also a man of action engaged in a grim struggle for the
implementation of the Islamic vision. During this struggle the many
sterling qualities of .his character came to the surface — notably his
magnanimity and tolerance. It is because of his involvement in practical
matters, especially since 1948, that Mawlana Mawdudi often had to suffer
persecution at the hands of the men of authority in Pakistan who failed lo
perceive the real motives and true character of his movement. Many a time
he had to court imprisonment, not unlike some of the great heroes of Islam
— Abu Hanifah, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyah, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, and
Sayyid Qutb of our own time, to name only a few luminaries. Not only that,
in 1953 he narrowly escaped the gallows and, in 1963, the bullets of an
assassin. In braving persecution for the sake of his cause, Mawlana Mawdudi
displayed a serene dignity and heroic fearlessness, which won him the
abiding love and respect of friends and foe alike.
It is remarkable that despite the exacting
tasks laid on Mawlana Mawdudi's shoulders as the head of a large movement,
he remained prolific as a writer and his writings remained impressive, not
only qualitatively, but also quantitatively. His magnum opus,
of course, is his translation and tafs'ir (exegesis) of the Holy
Qur'an, an epitome of his elegant literary style, his erudition, and the
clarity and brilliance of his thought. One of the major characteristics of
Mawlana Mawdudi was his ability to bring out the relevance of Islam to the
problems and concerns of man in the present age. This is largely because he
combined with his Islamic scholarship awareness and knowledge of the
intellectual trends and practical problems of man in the modern age. In
encountering the challenge of modernity. Mawlana Mawdudi displayed neither
ultra-conservative rigidity, nor proneness to be overawed by the ideas and
institutions current in our time simply because they were fashionable in
the modern age or had gained respectability among the nations which are
currently the leaders of the world. He wanted the Muslims to appropriate
creatively the healthy and beneficial elements from the cumulative treasure
of human experience, and to employ them to serve the higher ends of life
embodied in the Islamic tradition. It is this aspect of Mawlana Mawdudi,
which has attracted many but at the same time repelled many others,
particularly the ultra-conservative and the ultra-westernized elements in
Muslim society.
Towards Understanding Islam
is another of his important books. It is an elementary study of the
basic concepts and principles of I slam. It offers a simple, understandable
and unsophisticated interpretation of the meaning and message of Islam for
the ordinary reader, particularly the young. It is not written in the
browbeating style of theology books, rich in awe-inspiring jargon and legal
quibbling but of little help in bringing the reader into direct contact
with the spirit of the faith.
Towards Understanding
Islam is a religious text with a difference. It offers a
simple exposition of Islam; its approach to life, the articles of its
faith, its worship and prayers, and the scheme of life, which it envisages.
The method of exposition is steeped in the methodology of the Qur'an. It
offers in summary form the essential teachings of Islam. And as the book is
primarily meant for lay readers and students no attempt is made to burden
the mind of the reader with difficult or philosophic dissertations. The
language and style of the author are clear, candid and rational.
Originally written in 1932 in Urdu, under the
title Risalah Dmiyal, the book was intended as a textbook for
students of the higher classes and for the general public. It served an
important need and became a popular Islamic reader. Most of the schools and
colleges of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent adopted it as a textbook in
theology and made its study a part of their curricula. It has been
translated into many of the world's languages, including English, Arabic,
Hindi, Persian, German, French, Italian, Turkish, Portuguese, Swahili,
Indonesian and Japanese. Malayalam, Tamil, Pushto, Bengali, Gujrati and
Sindhi.
The first English translation appeared in
1940 (Translator: Dr. Abdul Ghani) and ran into many editions. In the early
fifties the need for a new translation was felt for more than one reason.
The earlier translation suffered from certain deficiencies. Moreover, the
author re-edited the text in the forties, making substantial alterations
and revisions. I was assigned the task of rendering a new translation based
on the revised text (sixteenth [revised] edition), which I accomplished in
the mid-fifties. Although I kept the earlier translation before me, only a
very few paragraphs were finally embodied in the new translation. Strictly
speaking, I did not venture a literal, word-for-word, translation of the
original text. I tried to follow the original as faithfully as possible,
but departed wherever necessary from a strictly literal rendering in the
interest of a more effective communication of the meaning of the text. The
learned author was kind enough to go through my translation in 1959 and it
was offered to the public with his approval.
During the last two decades many reprints of
the 1959 edition have appeared. As the years went by I came to feel that
the translation needed further improvement. My long stay in the United
Kingdom (1968-78) provided me with an opportunity for further reflection
upon a work done in my student days. Now the Islamic Foundation is
publishing a revised translation. I am grateful to my friend Paul Moorman.
Editor. Middle East Education and a former Foreign
Editor, The Times Higher Educational Supplement,
for his meticulous assistance in revising the present text. I would also
like to place on record the assistance I received from Khwaja Abdul Wahid
and Ansar Azam in preparing my first translation. I cannot but record my
profound debt to Mawlana Mawdudi for the influence his ideas and his noble
example have had on my own life, in all phases of its development so far,
and how impoverished I feel by his departure from our midst towards
life-eternal. May Allah bless his soul and enable his intellectual progeny,
to which I among others feel proud to belong, to continue his mission.
Towards Understanding Islam is one of those books, which
have changed the lives of many and set them along the Islamic path. Over a
million copies of this book have appeared in different languages of the
world. It is a unique privilege to be associated with the production of
this edition of the book.
Institute of Policy Studies,
Islamabad, Pakistan.
1st Muharram, 1400November 20,1979.
KHURSHID AHMAD
Go to Top
Chapter
1
ISLAM — What does it Mean?
The
Nature of Disbelief
The
Blessings of Islam
Every religion of the world has been named
either after its founder or after the community or nation in which it was
born. For instance, Christianity takes its name from its prophet Jesus
Christ; Buddhism from its founder. Gautama Buddha; Zoroastrianism from its
founder Zoroaster; and Judaism the religion of the Jews from the name of
the tribe Judah (of the country of Judea) where it originated. The same is
true of all other religions except Islam, which enjoys the unique
distinction of having no such association with any particular person or
people or country. Nor is it the product of any human mind. It is a
universal religion and its objective is to create and cultivate in man the
quality and attitude of Islam.
Islam, in fact, is an attributive title.
Anyone who possesses this attribute, whatever race, community, country or
group he belongs to, is a Muslim. According to the Qur'an (the Holy Book of
the Muslims), among every people and in all ages there have been good and
righteous people who possessed this attribute — and all of them were and
are Muslims.
Islam is an Arabic word and connotes submission, surrender
and obedience. As a religion, Islam stands for complete submission and
obedience to Allah.1 (1. Another literal meaning
of the word Islam is "peace' and this signifies that one can achieve real
peace of body and mind only through submission and obedience to Allah. Such
a life of obedience brings with it peace of the heart and establishes real
peace in society at large. - Editor.)
Everyone can see that we live in an orderly
universe, where everything is assigned a place in a grand scheme. The moon,
the stars and all the heavenly bodies are knit together in a magnificent
system. They follow unalterable laws and make not even the slightest
deviation from their ordained courses. Similarly, everything in the world,
from the minute whirling electron to the mighty nebulae, invariably follows
its own laws. Matter, energy and life — all obey their laws and grow and
change and live and die in accordance with those laws. Even in the human
world the laws of nature are paramount. Man's birth, growth and life are
all regulated by a set of biological laws. He derives sustenance from
nature in accordance with an unalterable law. All the organs of his body
from the smallest tissues to the heart and the brain, are governed by the
laws prescribed for them. In short, ours is a law-governed universe
and everything in it is following the course that has been ordained for it.
This powerful, all-pervasive law, which
governs all that comprises the universe, from the tiniest specks of dust to
the magnificent galaxies of the heavens, is the law of God, the Creator and
Ruler of the universe. As the whole of creation obeys the law of God, the
whole universe, therefore, literally follows the religion of Islam — for
Islam signifies nothing but obedience and submission to Allah, the Lord of
the Universe. The sun, the moon, the earth and all other heavenly bodies
are thus 'Muslim'. So are the air, water, heat, stones, trees and animals.
Everything in the universe is 'Muslim' for it obeys God by submission to
His laws. Even a man who refuses to believe in God, or offers his worship
to someone other than Allah, has necessarily to be a 'Muslim' as far as his
existence is concerned.
For his entire life, from the embryonic
stage to the body's dissolution into dust after death, every tissue of his
muscles and every limb of his body follow the course prescribed by God's
law. His very tongue, which, on account of his ignorance advocates the
denial of God or professes multiple deities, is in its very nature
'Muslim'. His head which he want only bows to others besides Allah is born
'Muslim'. His heart, which, through his lack of true knowledge, cherishes
love and reverence for others, is 'Muslim' by intuition. These are all
obedient to the Divine Law, and their functions and movements are governed
by the injunctions of that law alone.
Let us now examine the situation from a
different angle. Man is so constituted that there are two distinct spheres
of his activity. One is the sphere in which he finds himself totally
regulated by the Divine Law. Like other creatures, he is completely caught
in the grip of the physical laws of nature and is bound to follow them. But
there is another sphere of his activity. He has been endowed with reason
and intellect. He has the power to think and form judgments, to choose and
reject, to approve and spurn. He is free to adopt whatever course of life
he chooses. He can embrace any faith, and live by any ideology he likes. He
may prepare his own code of conduct or accept one formulated by others.
Unlike other creatures, he has been given freedom of thought, choice and
action. In short, man has been bestowed with free will.
Both these aspects co-exist side by side in
man's life.
In the first he, like all other creatures, is
a born Muslim, invariably obeying the injunctions of God, and is bound to
remain one. As far as the second aspect is concerned, he is free to become
or not to become a Muslim. It is the way a person exercises this freedom,
which divides mankind into two groups: believers and non-believers.
An individual, who chooses to acknowledge his Creator, accepts Him as his
real Master, honestly and scrupulously submits to His laws and injunctions
and follows the code. He has achieved completeness in his Islam by
consciously deciding to obey God in the domain in which he was endowed with
freedom of choice. He is a perfect Muslim: his submission of his entire
self to the will of Allah is Islam and nothing but Islam.
He has now consciously submitted to Him Whom
he had already been unconsciously obeying. He has now willingly offered
obedience to the Master Whom he already owed obedience to involuntarily.
His knowledge is now real for he has acknowledged the Being Who endowed him
with the power to learn and to know. Now his reason and judgement are set
on an even keel — for he has rightly decided to obey the Being Who bestowed
upon him the faculty of thinking and judging. His tongue is also truthful
for it expresses its belief in the Lord who gave it the faculty of speech.
Now the whole of his existence is an embodiment of truth for, in all
spheres of life, he voluntarily as well as involuntarily obeys the laws of
One God — the Lord of the Universe. Now he is at peace with the whole
universe for he worships Him Whom the whole universe worships. Such a man
is God's vice-regent on earth. The whole world is for him and he is for
God.
In contrast to the man described above, there is the man
who, although a born Muslim and unconsciously remaining one throughout his
life, does not exercise his faculties of reason, intellect and intuition to
recognise his Lord and Creator and misuses his freedom of choice by
choosing to deny Him. Such a man becomes an unbeliever — in the
language of Islam a Kafir.
Kufr
literally means 'to cover' or 'to conceal'. The man who denies God is
called Kafir (concealer) because he conceals by his
disbelief' what is inherent in his nature and embalmed in his own soul
— for his nature is instinctively imbued with Islam'. His whole body
functions in obedience to that instinct. Each and every particle of
existence — living or lifeless — functions in accordance with Islam' and is
fulfilling the duty that has been assigned to it. But the vision of this
man has been blurred, his intellect has been befogged, and he is unable to
see the obvious. His own nature has become concealed from his eyes and he
thinks and acts in utter disregard of it. Reality becomes estranged from
him and he gropes in the dark. Such is the nature of
Kufr.
Kufr is a
form of ignorance, or, rather, it is ignorance. What ignorance can
be greater than to be ignorant of God, the Creator and the Lord of the
Universe? A man observes the vast panorama of nature, the superb mechanism
that is ceaselessly working, the grand design that is manifest in every
aspect of creation — he observes this vast machine, but he does not know
anything of its Maker and Director. He knows what a wonderful organism his
body is but is unable to comprehend the Force that brought it into
existence, the Engineer Who designed and produced it, the Creator Who made
the unique living being out of lifeless stuff: carbon, calcium, sodium and
the like. He witnesses a superb plan in the universe — but fails to see the
Planner behind it. He sees great beauty and harmony in its working — but
not the Creator. He observes a wonderful design in nature - but not the
Designer! How can a man, who has so blinded himself to reality, approach
true knowledge? How can one who has made the wrong beginning reach the
right destination? He will fail to find the key to Reality. The Right Path
will remain concealed for him and whatever his endeavours in science and
arts, he will never be able to attain truth and wisdom. He will be groping
in the darkness of ignorance.
Not only that; Kufr is a
tyranny, the worst of all tyrannies. And what is 'tyranny'? It is an unjust
use of force or power. It is when you compel a thing to act unjustly or
against its true nature, its real will and its inherent attitude.
We have seen that all that is in the universe
is obedient to God, the Creator. To obey, to live in accordance with His
Will and His Law or (to put it more precisely) lo be a
Muslim is ingrained in the nature of things. God has given manpower
over these things, but it is incumbent that they should be used for the
fulfillment of His Will and not otherwise. Anyone who
disobeys God and resorts to Kufr perpetrates the greatest injustice,
for he uses his powers of body and mind to rebel against the course of
nature and becomes an instrument in the drama of disobedience. He bows his
head before deities other than God and cherishes in his heart the love,
reverence and fear of other powers in utter disregard of the instinctive
urge of these organs. He uses his own powers and all those things over
which he has authority against the explicit Will of God and thus
establishes a reign of tyranny.
Can there be any greater injustice, tyranny
and cruelty than that exhibited by this man who exploits and misuses
everything under the sun and unscrupulously forces them to a course, which
affronts nature and justice?
Kufr
is not mere tyranny; it is rebellion, ingratitude and infidelity. After all
what is the reality of man? Where do his power and authority come from? Is
he himself the creator of his mind, his heart, his soul and other organs of
his body — or have they been created by God? Has he himself created the
universe and all that is in it—or has it been created by God? Who has
harnessed all the powers and energies for the service of man — man or God?
If everything has been created by God and God alone, then to whom do they
belong? Who is their rightful sovereign? It is God and none else. And if
God is the Creator, the Master and the Sovereign, then who would be a
greater rebel than the man who uses God's creation against His injunctions
— and who makes his mind think against God. harbours in his heart thoughts
against Him, and uses his various faculties against the Sovereign's Will.
If a servant betrays his master you denounce
him as faithless. If an officer becomes disloyal to the state you brand him
as a traitor and renegade. If a person cheats his benefactor you have no
hesitation in condemning him as ungrateful. But such acts cannot begin to
compare to the one, which the disbeliever commits by his Kufr. All
that a man has and all that he uses for the benefit of others is a gift of
God. The greatest obligation that a man owes on this earth is to his
parents. But who has implanted the love of children in the parents' heart?
Who endowed the mother with the will and power to nurture, nourish and feed
her children? Who inspired the parents with the passion to spend everything
in their possession for the well being of their children? A little
reflection would reveal that God is the greatest benefactor of man. He is
his Creator, Lord, Nourisher, Sustainer, as well as King and Sovereign. So
what can be greater betrayal, ingratitude, rebellion and treason than
Kufr, through which a man denies and disobeys his real Lord and
Sovereign?
Do not think that by committing Kufr
man does or can do the least harm to Almighty God. Insignificant speck on
the face of a tiny ball in this limitless universe that man is, what harm
can he do to the Lord of the Universe Whose dominions are so infinitely
vast that we have not yet been able to explore their boundaries even with
the help of the most powerful telescope; Whose power is so great that
myriads of heavenly bodies, like the Earth, the Moon, the Sun and the stars
are, at His bidding, whirling like tiny balls; Whose wealth is so boundless
that He is the sole Master of the whole universe: and Who provides for all
and needs none to provide for Him? Man's revolt against Him can do Him no
harm: on the other hand, by his disobedience, man treads the path of ruin
and disgrace.
The inevitable consequence of this revolt and
denial of reality is a failure in the ultimate ideals of life. Such a rebel
will never find the thread of real knowledge and vision; for knowledge that
fails to reveal its own Creator can reveal no truth. Such a man's intellect
and reason always run astray; for reason which errs about its own Creator
cannot illumine the paths of life.
Such a man will meet with failures in all
the affairs of his life. His morality, his civic and social life, his
struggle for livelihood and his family life, in short, his entire
existence, will be unsatisfactory. He will spread confusion and disorder.
He will, without the least compunction, shed blood, violate other men's
rights and generally act destructively. His perverted thoughts and
ambitions, his blurred vision and distorted scale of values, and his evil
activities will make life bitter for him and for all around him.
Such a man destroys the calm and pose of
life on earth. And in the life hereafter he will be held guilty for the
crimes he committed against his nature. Every organ of his body — his
brain, eyes, nose, hands and feet — will complain against the injustice and
cruelty he had subjected them to. Every tissue of his being will denounce
him before God Who, as the fountain of justice, will punish him as he
deserves. This is the inglorious consequence of Kufr. It leads to
the blind alleys of utter failure, both here and hereafter.
The
Blessings of Islam
These are the evils and disadvantages of
Kufr. Let us now look at some of the blessings of Islam
You find in the world around you and in the
small kingdom of your own self-innumerable manifestations of God's divine
power. This grand universe, which ceaselessly works with matchless order
and in accordance with unalterable laws, is in itself a witness to the fact
that its Designer, Creator and Governor is an Omnipotent, All-Powerful
Being with infinite power, knowledge and resources, a Being of perfect
wisdom. Whom nothing in the universe dares disobey. It is in the very
nature of man, as it is with every other thing in this universe to obey Him
Besides endowing man with the capacity to acquire knowledge, the faculty to
think and reflect, and the ability to distinguish right from wrong. God has
granted him a certain amount of freedom of will and action. In this freedom
lies man's real trial; his knowledge, his wisdom, his power of
discrimination and his freedom of will and action are all being tried and
tested. Man has not been obliged to adopt any particular course, for by
compulsion the very object of the trial would have been defeated. If in an
examination you are compelled to write a certain answer to a question, the
examination will be of no use. Your merit can be properly judged only if
you are allowed to answer the questions freely, according to your own
knowledge and understanding. If your answer is correct you will succeed; if
it is wrong you will fail, and your failure will bar the way to further
progress.
The situation, which man faces, is
similar. God has given him freedom of will and action so that he may choose
whatever attitude in life he likes and considers proper for himself— Islam
or Kufr.
By the correct use of his knowledge and
intellect a man recognises his Creator, reposes belief in Him, and, in
spite of being under no compulsion to do so, chooses the path of obedience
to Him. He understands both his own nature and the laws and realities of
nature itself: despite the power and freedom to adopt any course, he adopts
the way of obedience and loyalty to God, the Creator. He is successful in
his trial because he has used his intellect and all other faculties
properly. He uses his eyes to see the reality, his ears to listen to the
truth and his mind to form right opinions. He puts all his heart and soul
into following the right way he has so chosen. He chooses Truth, sees the
reality, and willingly and joyfully submits to his Lord and Master. He is
intelligent, truthful and dutiful, for he has chosen light over darkness.
Thus he has proved by his conduct that he is not only a seeker after Truth
but is its knower and worshipper as well. Such a man is on the right path,
and is destined to succeed in this world and in the world to come.
Such a man will always choose the right path
in every field of knowledge and action. The man who knows God with all His
attributes knows the beginning as well as the ultimate end of reality. He
can never be led astray, for his first step is on the right path, and he is
sure of the direction and destination of his journey in life. He will
reflect on the secrets of the universe, and will try to fathom the
mysteries of nature, but he will not lose his way in mazes of doubt and
scepticism. His path being illumined with Divine Vision, his every step
will be in the right direction. In science he will endeavour to learn the
laws of nature and uncover the hidden treasures of the earth for the
betterment of humanity. He will try his level best to explore all avenues
of knowledge and power and to harness all that exists on earth and in the
heavens in the interests of mankind.
At every stage of his enquiry his
God-consciousness will save him from making evil and destructive uses of
science and the scientific method. He will never think of himself as the
master of all these objects, boasting to be the conqueror of nature,
arrogating to himself godly and sovereign powers and nourishing the
ambition of subverting the world, subduing the human race and establishing
his supremacy over all and sundry by fair means or foul. Such, an attitude
of revolt and defiance can never be entertained by a Muslim scientist —
only a Kafir scientist can fall prey to such illusions and by
submitting to them expose the entire human race to the danger of total
destruction and annihilation2. (2. The situation,
which confronts modern man today, is similar. Dr. Joad says: "Science has
given us power fit for the gods, and to its use we bring the mentality of
schoolboys and savages." The famous philosopher Bertrand Russell writes:
"Broadly speaking, »e are in the middle of a race between human skill as to
means and human folly as to ends, every increase in the skill required lo
achieve them is to the bad. The human race has survived hitherto owing to
ignorance and incompetence: but, given knowledge and competence combined
with folly, there can be no certainty of survival. Knowledge is power, but
it is power for evil just as much as for good. It follows that unless man
increases in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will be
increase of sorrow." (Impact of Science on Society, pp. 120-121.) Another
leading thinker has put the paradox in these words: "We are taught lo fly
in the air like birds, and to swim in the water like fishes: but how to
lire on the earth we do not know." (Quoted by Joad in Counter Attack From
the East, p. 28.)
A Muslim scientist, on the other hand, will
behave in an altogether different way. The deeper his insight into the
world of science, the stronger will be his faith in God. His head will bow
down before Him in gratitude. His feelings will be that as his Master has
blessed him with greater power and knowledge so he must exert himself for
his own good and for the good of humanity. Instead of arrogance there will
be humility. Instead of power-drunkenness there will be a strong
realisation of the need to serve humanity. His freedom will not be
unbridled. He will be guided by the tenets of morality and Divine
Revelation. Thus science will in his hands, instead of becoming an
instrument of destruction, become an agency for human welfare and moral
regeneration. And this is the way in which he will express his gratitude to
his Master for the gifts and blessings He has bestowed on man.
Similarly, in history, economics, politics,
law and other branches of arts and science, a Muslim will nowhere lag
behind a Kafir in the fields of inquiry and struggle, but their
angles of view and consequently their modus operandi will be
widely different. A Muslim will study every branch of knowledge in its true
perspective. He will strive to arrive at the right conclusions.
In history he will draw correct lessons from
the past experiences of man, and will uncover the true causes of the rise
and fall of civilisations. He will try to benefit from all that was good
and right in the past and will scrupulously avoid all that led to the
decline and fall of nations. In politics his sole objective will be to
strive for the establishment of policies where peace, justice, fraternity
and goodness reign, where man is a brother of man and respects his
humanity, where no exploitation or slavery is rampant, where the rights of
the individual are upheld, and where the powers of the state are considered
as a sacred trust from God and are used for the common welfare of all. In
the field of law, the endeavour of a Muslim will be to make it the true
embodiment of justice and the real protector of the rights of all —
particularly of the weak. He will see that everybody gets his due share and
no injustice or oppression is inflicted on anyone. He will respect the law,
make others respect it, and will see that it is administered equitably.
The life of a Muslim will always be filled
with godliness, piety, righteousness and truthfulness. He will live in the
belief that God alone is the Master of all, that whatever he and other men
possess has been given by God, that the powers he wields are only a trust
from God, that the freedom he has been endowed with is not to be used
indiscriminately, and that it is in his own interest to use it in
accordance with God's Will. He will constantly keep in view that one day he
will have to return to the Lord and submit an account of his entire life.
The sense of accountability will always remain implanted in his mind and he
will never behave irresponsibly.
Think of the moral excellence of the man who
lives with this mental attitude — his will be a life of purity and piety
and love and altruism. He will be a blessing unto mankind. His thinking
will not be polluted with evil thoughts and perverted ambitions. He will
abstain from seeing evil, hearing evil, and doing evil. He will guard his
tongue and will never utter a word of lie. He will earn his living through
just and fair means and will prefer hunger to a food acquired unfairly
through exploitation or injustice. He will never be a party to any form of
oppression or violation of human life and honour. He will never yield to
evil, whatever the cost of defiance. He will be an embodiment of
goodness and nobility and will defend right and truth even at the cost of
his life. Such a man will be a power to be reckoned with. He is bound to
succeed.
He will be highly honoured and respected.
How can humiliation ever visit a person who is not prepared to bow his head
before anyone except God the Almighty, the Sovereign of the universe? No
one can be more powerful than he — for he fears none but God and seeks
blessings from none but Him. What power can make him deviate from the right
path? What wealth can buy his faith? What force can shape his conscience?
What power can compel him to behave, as he does not want to?
He will be the wealthiest. No one in the
world can be richer or more independent than he — for he will live a life
of austerity and contentment. He will be neither a sensualist, nor
indulgent, nor greedy. He will be contented with whatever he earns fairly
and honestly and however much ill-gotten wealth is heaped before him he
will not even look at it. He will have peace and contentment of heart — and
what can be a greater wealth than this?
He will be the most revered, popular and
beloved. No one can be more lovable than he — for he lives a life of
charity and benevolence. He will be just to everyone, discharge his duties
honestly, and work for the good of others. People's hearts will be
naturally drawn towards him.
No one can be more trust worthy than he — for
he will not betray his trust, nor will he stray from righteousness: he will
be true to his word, and straightforward and honest in his dealings. He
will be fair and just in all his affairs, for he is sure that God is
ever-present, ever vigilant. Words fail to describe the credit and good
will, which such a man commands. Can there be anyone who will not trust
him? Such is the life and character of a Muslim.
If you understand the true character of a
Muslim, you will be convinced that he cannot live in humiliation, abasement
or subjugation. He is bound to prevail and no power on earth can overwhelm
him. For Islam, inculcates in him the qualities, which cannot be driven
out.
And after living a respectable and
honourable life on this earth, he will return to his Creator Who will
shower on him the choicest of His blessings — for he will have discharged
his duty ably, fulfilled his mission successfully and emerged from his
trial triumphantly. He is successful in life in this world and in the
hereafter will live in eternal peace, joy and bliss.
This is Islam, the natural religion of man,
the religion that is not associated with any person, people, period or
place. It is the way of nature, the religion of man. In every age,
in every country and among every people, all God-knowing and truth-loving
men have believed and lived this very religion. They were all Muslims,
irrespective of whether they called that way Islam. Whatever its name was,
it signified Islam and nothing but Islam.
Go to Top
Chapter 2
Faith:
What does it Mean?
How to Acquire the Knowledge of
God?
Faith in the Unknown
Islam means obedience to God. And it is
common sense that this obedience cannot be complete unless man knows
certain basic facts of life and places firm faith in them. What are those
facts? And what are the essentials, which a man must know to fashion his
life in accordance with the Divine Way? This we propose to discuss in the
present chapter.
First of all, one should have an unshakable
belief in the existence of God; without this, obedience to Him is clearly
impossible.
Then, one must know the attributes of God.
It is the knowledge of the attributes of God, which enables man to
cultivate the noblest of human qualities and to fashion his life in virtue
and godliness. If a man does not know that there is One and only One God
who is the Creator, the Ruler and the Sustainer of the Universe and there
is none else to share with Him even a shred of Divine power and authority,
he may fall prey to false gods, and offer his homage to them in search of
favours.
But if he knows the divine attribute of
tawhid (Oneness of God), there is no possibility of this. Similarly, if
a man knows that God is Omnipresent and Omniscient and sees, hears and
knows everything that we do in public or private — including our
unexpressed thoughts! — Then how can he afford to be disobedient to God? He
will feel that he is under eternal vigil and will, therefore, behave
accordingly. But he who is not aware of these attributes of God may be led,
because of his ignorance, into disobedience. It is the same with all the
other attributes of God.
The fact is that the qualities and attributes
which a man must possess, if he wants to pursue the way of Islam, can be
cultivated and developed only out of profound knowledge of the attributes
of God. It is the knowledge of God's attributes, which purifies a man's
mind and soul, his beliefs, morals and actions. And a mere cursory
acquaintance with or just an academic knowledge of these attributes is not
sufficient — there must be an unflinching conviction firmly rooted in the
mind and heart of man so that he may remain immune from insidious
doubts and perversions.
Moreover, one must know in detail the
way of living by following which one can seek the
pleasure of God. Unless a man knows the likes and dislikes of God, how can
he choose the one and reject the other? If a man has no knowledge of the
Divine Law, how can he follow it? Thus knowledge of the Divine Law and the
Revealed Code of Life is essential.
But here, again, mere knowledge is not
enough. Man must have full confidence and conviction that // is
the Divine Law and that his salvation lies
in following this code alone. For knowledge without this conviction
will fail to spur man to the Right Path and he may be lost in the blind
alley of disobedience.
Finally, man must also know the consequences
both of belief and obedience and of disbelief and disobedience. He must
know what blessings will be showered upon him if he chooses God's way and
leads a life of purity, virtue and obedience. And he must also know what
consequences follow if he adopts the way of disobedience and revolt. Thus,
knowledge of life after death is absolutely essential for this purpose. Man
must have an unwavering belief in the fact that death does not mean the end
of life; that there will be resurrection and he will be brought to the
highest court of justice, to be presided over by God Himself; that on the
Day of Judgement complete justice will prevail; and that good deeds will be
rewarded and misdeeds punished. Everybody will get his due; there will be
no escape. This is bound to happen. A sense of accountability is essential
for fully-fledged obedience to the Law of God.
A man who has no knowledge of the world to
come many considers obedience and disobedience quite immaterial. He may
think that the obedient and the disobedient will both meet a similar end:
after death, both will be reduced to mere dust. With this attitude of mind,
how can he be expected to submit to all the inconveniences and troubles
that are inextricably associated with the life of active obedience, and
avoid committing those sins which do not apparently bring him any moral or
material loss in this world? With this mental attitude a man cannot
acknowledge and submit to God's Law.
Nor can a man, who lacks firm
belief in the life hereafter and in the Divine Court of
Judgement, remain steadfast in the turbulent waters of life with its
temptation to sin, crime and evil; for doubt and hesitancy rob a man of his
will to action. You can remain consistent in your behaviour only if you are
firm in your beliefs. You can whole-heartedly follow a course only if you
are sure of the benefits that will accrue to you by following it and of the
losses that will engulf you if you disobey it. Thus, a profound knowledge
of the consequences of belief and disbelief and of the life after death is
crucial.
These are the essential facts, which one must
know if one wants to live the life of obedience, that is, Islam.
Faith is what we have described in the
foregoing discussion as 'Knowledge and Belief. The Arabic word lman,
which we have rendered in English as faith, literally means 'to know', 'to
believe' and 'to be convinced beyond the least shadow of doubt'. Faith,
thus, is firm belief arising out of knowledge and conviction. And the man
who knows and reposes unshakable belief in the Unity of God, in His
Attributes, in His Law and the Revealed Guidance, and in the Divine Code of
Reward and Punishment is called Mu'min (faithful). This faith
invariably leads man to a life of obedience and submission to the Will of
God. And one who lives this life of submission is known as
Muslim.
It is therefore clear that without faith
(lman) no man can be a true Muslim. It is the indispensable essential;
rather, the very starting point, without which no beginning can be made.
The relation of Islam to lman is the same as of a tree to its seed.
As a tree cannot sprout forth without its seed, in the same way it is not
possible for a man who has no belief to start with, to become a 'Muslim'.
On the other hand, just as it can happen that, in spite of sowing the seed,
the tree may, for many reasons, not grow, or if it does grow, its
development may be impaired or retarded, in the same way, a man may have
faith, but due to a number of weaknesses, he may not become a true and
staunch Muslim.
From the viewpoint of Islam and lman,
men may be classified into four categories:
1Those who have firm faith — a faith
that makes them whole-heartedly submit to God. They follow the way of God
and devote themselves heart and soul to seeking His pleasure by doing all
that He likes and by avoiding all that He dislikes. In their devotion they
are even more fervent than is the common man in pursuit of wealth and
glory. Such men are true Muslims.
2. Those who do have faith, who believe in
God, His Law and the Day of Judgement, but whose faith is not deep and
strong enough to make them totally submit to God. They are far below the
rank of true Muslims, deserve punishment for their defaults and misdeeds,
but are still Muslims. They are wrongdoers but not rebels. They acknowledge
the Sovereign and His Law and, although they are violating the Law, they
have not revolted against the Sovereign. They admit His supremacy and their
own guilt. Thus they are guilty and deserve punishment, but Muslims they
remain.
3.Those who do not
possess faith at all. These people
refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and are rebels. Even if
their conduct is not bad and even if they are not spreading corruption and
violence, they remain rebels and their apparent good deeds are of little
value. Such men are like outlaws. Sometimes outlaws may act in accordance
with the laws of the land, but this does not make them loyal and obedient
citizens; in the same way the apparent good deeds of those who revolt
against God cannot compensate for the gravity of the real wrongs, revolt
and disobedience.
4 Those
who neither possess faith nor do good deeds. They spread disorder in the
world and perpetrate all kinds of violence and oppression. They are the
worst of the people; for they are both rebels and wrongdoers and criminals.
The above classification of mankind
shows that the real success and salvation of man depends on faith (lman).
The life of obedience (Islam) takes its birth from the seed of
lman. This Islam of a person may be flawless or defective. But without
lman there can be no Islam. Where there is no Iman there is
no Islam. Where there is no Islam there is Kufr. Its form and nature
may vary, but it remains Kufr and nothing but
Kufr.
How
to Acquire Knowledge of God?
Now the question arises of how to acquire
knowledge of and belief in God, His Attributes, His Law and the Day of
Judgement?
We have already referred to the countless
manifestations of God around us and in our own selves, which bear witness
to the fact that there is One and only One Creator and Governor of this
Universe and it is He Who controls and directs it. These manifestations
reflect the divine attributes of the Creator: His great wisdom. His
all-embracing knowledge, His omnipotence, His mercy. His all-sustaining
power — in short His attributes can be traced everywhere in His works. But
man's intellect and capacity for knowledge have erred in observing and
understanding them. Some men have argued that there are two gods, others
have professed belief in a trinity, and still others have succumbed to
polytheism. Some have worshipped nature and others divided the Creator into
the gods of rain, air, fire, life, death and so on.
Similarly, men have put forward many
erroneous notions about life after death; for instance, that man is reduced
to dust after death and will not rise to life again; or that man is subject
to a process of continuous regeneration in this world and is punished or
rewarded in future cycles of life.
Even greater difficulty arises when we come
to the question of a code of living. To formulate a complete and balanced
code that conforms to God's pleasure merely using human reason is an
extremely difficult task. Even if a man is equipped with the highest
faculties of reason and intellect and possesses matchless wisdom and
experience, the chances of his formulating the correct views on existence
are slight. And even if, after a lifetime of reflection, he does in fact
succeed he will still lack the confidence that he has really discovered the
truth and adopted the right path.
The fullest and fairest test of man's wisdom,
reason and knowledge might have been to have left him to his own resources
without any external guidance. But this would have meant that only those
with the determination and ability to find the path of truth would find
salvation. God, therefore, spared His human creatures such a hard test.
Through His Grace and Benevolence He raised for mankind men from among
themselves to whom He imparted the true knowledge of His attributes,
revealed to them His Law and the Right Code of Living, gave them the
knowledge of the meaning and purpose of life and of life after death and
thus showed them the way by which man can achieve success and eternal
bliss.
These chosen men are the Messengers of God —
His Prophets. God has communicated knowledge and wisdom to them by means of
revelation (Wahi), and the book containing the Divine Communications
is called the Book of God, or the Word of God. The test of man's wisdom and
intellect therefore lies in this: does he recognise God's Messengers after
observing their pure and pious lives and carefully studying their noble and
flawless teachings? A man of wisdom and common sense would accept
instructions given by the Messengers of truth. If he denies the Messengers
of God and their teachings, his denial would signify that he was devoid of
the capacity to discover truth and righteousness. He would fail his test.
Such a man will never be able to discover the truth about God and His Law
and life after death.
It is an
everyday experience that when you do not know a thing, you look for
somebody who does know. If you get ill and you cannot treat and cure
yourself, you go to a doctor and follow his instructions without question.
Why? Because he is properly qualified to give medical advice, possesses
experience and has treated and cured a number of patients. Similarly, in
matters of law you accept whatever a legal expert says and act accordingly.
In educational matters you trust in
your teacher. When you want to go to some place and do not know the way,
you ask somebody who knows it, and follow the way he points out. In short,
the course that you adopt in your day-to-day life about matters, which you
do not or cannot know, is that you approach someone who does know about
them, accept his advice and act accordingly. You make every effort to
select the proper person. But from then on you accept his advice
unquestioningly. This kind of belief is called "belief in the unknown"
(Iman-bi'l-ghayb).
Iman-bi'l-ghayb
signifies that you get knowledge of what was not known to you from one who
knows. You do not know God and His real attributes. You are not aware that
His angels are directing the machinery of the whole Universe according to
His orders, and that they surround you on all sides. You have not the
proper knowledge of the way of life through which you can seek the pleasure
of your Creator. And you are in the dark about the life to come. Such
knowledge is given to you by the Prophets, who have had direct contact with
the Divine Being. They are the persons whose sincerity, integrity,
trustworthiness, godliness and absolute purity stand as irrevocable
witnesses to the truth of their claim to knowledge. And above all, the
wisdom and force of their message makes you admit that they speak the truth
and deserve to be believed and followed.
This conviction of yours is Iman-bi'l-ghayb.
Such a truth-discerning and truth-acknowledging attitude is essential for
obedience to God and for acting in accordance with His pleasure; for you
have no other medium than God's Messengers for the achievement of true
knowledge, and without true knowledge you cannot proceed on the path of
Islam. Go
to Top
Chapter 3
Prophethood: Its Nature
and Necessity
Brief History of Prophethood
The Prophethood of Muhammad
Muhammad's
Prophethood: A Rational Vindication
Arabia— The Abyss of Darkness
The Saviour is Born
Diamond in a Heap of Stones
A Revolution Comes
Why all that Enmity?
A Changed Man at Forty—Why?
His All-embracing Message
His Contribution to Human
Thought
The Greatest Revolutionary
The Final Testimony
The Finality of Prophethood
Our
discussion so far has made the following points:
1.The right course for man is to live
in obedience to God, and for such a life of obedience knowledge and faith
are absolutely essential: knowledge of God and His attributes. His likes
and dislikes. His chosen way and the Day of Judgement: and unflinching
faith in this knowledge: this is Iman.
2. God has graciously spared man
the arduous task of acquiring this knowledge through his personal effort
alone. Instead. He has revealed this knowledge to the Prophets He has
chosen from amongst men and commanded them to convey the Will of God to
other human beings and show them the right path. This has saved man from
much great misfortune.
3. The duty of men and women is to recognise
a true Prophet of God, to have faith in him and his teachings and to
scrupulously obey him and follow in his footsteps. This is the road to
salvation.
In this
chapter we shall discuss the nature, history and other aspects of
Prophethood.
God has
most graciously provided man with all that he needs in this Universe.
Generally every new-born child arrives in the world endowed with eyes to
see, ears to hear, a nose to smell and breathe, hands to touch, feet to
walk and a mind to think. All those potentialities, powers and faculties,
that a man needs or can need are most carefully provided and marvellously
set in his tiny body. Every minute requirement is foreseen and provided
for.
It is the same with the world he lives in.
Everything essential for his life is provided: air, light, heat, water and
so on. A child on opening his eyes finds his food in his mother's breast.
His parents love him instinctively and in their hearts has been implanted
an irresistible urge to look after him, to bring him up and to sacrifice
there all for his welfare.
Under the sheltering care of His system of
sustenance the child grows to maturity and at every stage of his life
obtains from nature all that he needs. All the material conditions of
survival and growth are provided for: he finds that the whole Universe is
at his service.
Furthermore, man is blessed with all those
powers, capacities and faculties - physical, mental and moral —, which he
requires in his struggle for life. But God has not distributed these gifts
equally. This would have made men totally independent of each other and
would have excluded mutual care and co-operation. Thus, although mankind as
a whole possesses all that is needed, between men capacities are
distributed unequally and sparingly.
Some possess physical strength and prowess;
others distinguish themselves for their mental talents. Some are born with
a greater aptitude for arts, poetry and philosophy, some possess sharpness
of tongue, others military acumen, commercial intelligence, mathematical
keenness, scientific curiosity, literary observation or philosophical bent.
These special aptitudes make a man distinct and enable him to grasp those
intricacies, which elude the common man. These insights, aptitudes and
talents are the gifts of God. They are innate in the nature of those men
whom God has destined to be thus distinguished. They cannot be acquired
merely by education and training.
Reflection on this disposition of God's gifts
also reveals that man's talents have been distributed in a marvelous way.
Those capacities, which are essential for the general maintenance of human
culture, have been endowed to most people, while extraordinary talents,
which are required only to a limited extent, are given only to a small
number. There are many soldiers; peasants, artisans and workers; but
military generals, scholars, statesmen and intellectuals are comparatively
few. The general rule seems to be: the higher the capacity and greater the
genius, the fewer people who possess them. Supergeniuses, who leave an
indelible mark on human history and whose achievements guide humanity for
centuries, are fewer still.
Here we are faced with another question: do
people just need specialists in the fields of law and politics, science and
mathematics, engineering and mechanics, finance and economics and the like?
Or do they also need men to show them the right path — the way to God and
salvation? There must clearly be someone to tell man the purpose of
creation and the meaning of life itself: what man himself is and why
he has been created: who has provided him with all the powers and
resources and why: what are the proper ends of life and how are they to be
achieved: what are the proper values of life and how they can be attained.
Our reason refuses to accept that God, Who
has provided man with even the smallest of his requirements, would not
provide for this greatest and most vital need. It can never be so. And
it is not so. While God has produced men of
distinction in arts and science. He has also raised men with deep vision,
pure intuition and the highest faculties to know and understand Him, to
them. He revealed the way of godliness, piety and righteousness. He gave
them the knowledge of the aims of life and values of morality and entrusted
them with the duty to communicate Divine Revelation to other human beings.
These men are the Prophets and Messengers of God.
The Prophets distinguish themselves in human
society by their special aptitudes, natural bents of mind and a pious and
meaningful way of life, more or less in the same way as other geniuses in
art and science distinguish themselves by their extraordinary capacities
and natural aptitudes. The genius in man is its own advertisement and
automatically persuades others to recognise and acknowledge it.
Thus, a Prophet's mind grasps problems which
defy other minds; he throws light on subjects which no one else can; he has
insights into such subtle and intricate questions that no one else would
have even understood after years of deep thought and meditation. Reason
accepts whatever he says; the heart feels its truth; and experience of the
world testifies to every word that flows from his mouth. If, however, we
ourselves try to produce the same or a similar work, we inevitably meet
with failure. In all affairs his attitude is that of truthfulness,
straightforwardness and nobility. He never does or utters wrong, nor does
he commit any evil. He always encourages virtue and righteousness, and
practices himself what he preaches to others. Neither his words nor his
deeds are prompted by self-interest. He suffers for the good of others, and
never makes others suffer for his own good.
When it becomes quite clear that a person is
a true Prophet of God, the natural dictate of this realisation is that his
words should be accepted, his instructions followed and his orders obeyed.
It is illogical to accept a man as God's true Prophet and yet not to
believe in what he says and not to follow what he ordains; for your very
acceptance of him as God's Prophet means that you have acknowledged that
what he says is from God and that whatever he does is in accordance with
God's Will and Pleasure. Disobedience of him is disobedience of God — and
disobedience of God leads to ruin.
Therefore, the very acceptance of a Prophet
makes it incumbent on you to follow his instructions unconditionally. You
may not be able fully to grasp the wisdom and usefulness of" this or that-
order, but the very fact that an instruction has emanated from a Prophet is
sufficient guarantee of its truth. One's inability to understand it does
not mean there is something wrong with it. Rather it is our understanding,
which is at fault.
Some men admit the integrity and truthfulness
of a Prophet, but do not put faith (Iman) in him, nor do they follow
him in the affairs of their life. Such men are not only Kafirs, but
imprudent: for not to follow a Prophet after admitting him to be true means
that one knowingly follows untruth. And what folly can be greater than
that!
Some people declare: "We do not need a
Prophet for our guidance and we can ourselves find the way to truth." This,
too, is a wrong view. You have probably learnt geometry, and you know that
between points there can be only one straight line; all other lines must be
crooked or will fail to touch the points in view. The same is the case with
the way to truth, which in the language of Islam, is called the Straight
Path (al-Sira( al-MuslaqJm). This path begins from man and
goes straight up to God, and this path can by definition be one and only
one; all other paths must be aberrations. This Straight Path has been
indicated by the Prophets, and there is and can be no straight path besides
that. The man who ignores that path soon finds himself lost in the maze
created by his own fancy. What can you think of a person who loses his way
and, when a good man shows him the right one, defiantly declares: "I will
not take your guidance nor accept the way you have shown to me, but I will
myself grope in this unknown region and try to reach the object of my
search in my own way?" This, in the presence of the clear guidance of the
Prophets, is sheer stupidity. If everybody tried to start from scratch, it
would be a gross waste of time and energy. We never do so in the sciences
and arts: why here?
If you go a little deeper into the matter, it
will become clear that a person who disbelieves in a true Prophet cannot
find any way, straight or otherwise, to God. This is because a man who
refuses to believe the advice of a truthful man adopts such a perverse
attitude that he ceases to understand the difference between truth and
falsehood and becomes a victim of his own obstinacy, arrogance, bias and
perversity. This refusal may be due to false arrogance, or blind
conservatism and obstinate adherence to the way of one's forefathers, or to
slavery to the lower desires of the self, whose gratification becomes
impossible by submission to the teachings of the Prophets.
On the other hand, if a man is sincere and
truth loving, the road to reality opens up to him. He will find in the
teachings of the Prophets the very echo of his own soul and discover
himself by discovering the Prophets.
Above
all, a true Prophet is raised by God Himself. It is He Who has sent him to
mankind to convey His message to His people. It is His Command that one
should put one's faith in the Prophet and follow him. Thus, one who refuses
to believe in God's Messenger refuses to follow God’s Commandment and
becomes a rebel. There is no denying that one who refuses to acknowledge
the authority of the viceroy of a sovereign actually refuses the authority
of the sovereign himself. This disobedience turns him into a rebel. God is
the Lord of the Universe, the true Sovereign, tl ..- King of Kings, and it
is the bounden duty of every man to acknowledge the authority of His
Messengers and Apostles and to obey them as His accredited Prophets. Anyone
who rejects the Prophets of God is a Kafir, be he a believer in God
or a disbeliever.
Now let
us look at the history of prophethood. Let us see how this long chain
began, how it gradually unfolded itself and finally culminated in the
prophethood of the last of the Prophets, Muhammad (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him).
The human race began from one man:
Adam. It was from him that the family of man grew and the human race
multiplied. All human beings born in this world have descended from that
earliest pair: Adam and Eve1. (1. This is a
very important and revolutionary concept. Its logical outcome is unity of
mankind and the equality of human beings. It is stupid to distinguish and
discriminate between men on grounds of class, colour, race or territory. In
an age when nationalism, narrow racialism and bloodthirsty anti-semitism
have torn the world into shreds, this creed of the unity of mankind is a
powerful ray of hope for the future. – Editor.)
History and religion are agreed on this point. Nor do scientific
investigations into the origin of man show that originally different men
came into being, simultaneously or at different points of time, in
different parts of the world. Most scientists conjecture that one man
would have been brought into existence first and the entire human race
might have descended from that one man.
Adam, the first man on earth, was also the
first Prophet of God. He revealed His religion — Islam — to him and told
him to convey and communicate it to his descendents: to teach them that
Allah is One, the Creator, the Sustainer of the world; that He is the Lord
of the Universe and He alone should be worshipped and obeyed: that to Him
they would have to return one day and to Him alone they should appeal for
help: that they should live righteous lives in accordance with God's
pleasure and that if they did so they would be blessed and if they did not
they would suffer both here and in the hereafter.
Those of Adam's descendants who were
good trod the right path, but those who were bad abandoned their father's
teachings. Some began to worship the sun, the moon and the stars; others
took to the worship of trees, animals and rivers. Some believed that air,
water, fire, health and all the blessings and forces of Nature were each
under the control of a different god and that the favour of each one could
be won by worship. In this way ignorance gave rise to many forms of
polytheism and idolatry, and scores of religions were formulated. This was
the age when Adam's progeny had spread over the globe, and formed different
races and nations. Every nation had created a different religion for
itself, each with rituals of its own. God — the one Lord and Creator of
mankind and the universe — was forgotten. Every kind of evil custom grew;
many evils began to be considered right and many right things were either
ignored or condemned as wrong.2 (2. This view of
the history of religions is diametrically opposed to the so-called
evolutionary view of religion, which regards nature-worship as the first
stage. More modern scientific studies are confirming the view that worship
of one God (Tawhid) was the earliest Form of worship and all other forms
are perversions of that original religion. Those who want to pursue the
topic may refer to Prof. W. Schmidt's valuable research treatise. The
Origin and Growth of Religions, English translation by H. J. Rose (London.
Methuen). — Editor.)
At this stage God began to raise
Prophets among every people. Each one reminded his people of the lesson
they had forgotten. They put an end to idol-worship and the practice of
associating other deities with God (shirk), did away with all
customs of ignorance, taught them the right way of living in accordance
with God's pleasure, and gave them laws to be followed and enforced in
society. God's true Prophets were raised in every land and among every
people. They all possessed one and the same religion — the religion of
Islam.3 (3. There is a common misconception,
mostly among Western writers, that Islam owes its origin to the Prophet
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and some of the writers
even go to the extent of calling him 'the founder of Islam'. This is a
travesty of the truth. Islam has been the religion of all the Prophets of
God and all of them have brought the same message from Him. Prophets have
not been the founders of Islam: they have only been the messengers of it.
Islam consists of the Divine Revelation conveyed to mankind by the truthful
Prophets. — Editor.)
No doubt the methods of teaching and the
legal codes of different Prophets varied in accordance with the needs and
the stage of culture of the people among whom they were raised. The
particular teachings of each Prophet were determined by the kind of evils,
which he was trying to eradicate. When people were in the primitive stages
of society, civilisation and intellectual development, their laws and
regulations were simple; they were modified and improved as the society
evolved and progressed.
Such differences were, however, only
superficial. The fundamental teachings of all the religions were the same,
i.e. belief in the unity of God adherence to a life of piety, goodness and
peace, and belief in life after death with its just mechanism of reward and
punishment.
Man's attitude towards God's Prophets has
been strange. He has ill-treated them and refused to accept their
teachings. Some of the prophets were expelled from their lands; some were
assassinated: some, faced with indifference, preached the whole of their
lives without winning more than a few followers. But despite the
harassment, derision and indignity, to which they were perpetually
subjected, these Apostles of God did not cease to spread their message.
Their patient determination at last succeeded: large groups of people and
nations were converted to their creed.
The false tendencies, born of centuries of
deviation, ignorance and malpractice, now took another form. Though they
accepted their Prophets during their lives and practiced their teachings,
after their deaths they introduced their own distorted ideas into their
religions. They adopted novel methods of worshipping God; some even took to
the worship of their Prophets. They made the Prophets the incarnations of
God or the sons of God; some associated their Prophets with God in His
Divinity.
In short, man's varied attitudes in this
respect were a travesty of his reason and a mockery of himself; he made
idols of those very persons whose holy mission was to smash idols.
By intermixing religion, rituals born of
ignorance, baseless and false anecdotes and man-made laws, men so changed
and perverted the teachings of the Prophets over the centuries that they
became lost in a welter of fictions to the extent that it became impossible
to distinguish the grain from the chaff. Not content with this, they made
up so many stories about their Prophets that real and reliable accounts of
their lives became impossible to discern. Despite all this, the work of the
Prophets was not altogether in vain. Traces of truth survived. The idea of
God and of life after death was assimilated in some form or other. A
few principles of goodness, truthfulness and morality were accepted
throughout the world. The prophets thus prepared the mental attitude
of their respective peoples in such a way that a universal religion could
be safely introduced — a religion which accords with the nature of man,
which embodies all that was good in all other creeds and societies, and
which is acceptable to mankind.
As we have said above, in the beginning
separate Prophets appeared among different nations or groups of people, and
the teaching of each Prophet was meant specially and specifically for his
people. The reason was that at that stage of history, nations were so cut
off from each other geographically that opportunities for mutual
intercourse were non-existent. In such circumstances it was very
difficult to propagate a common World Faith with an accompanying common
system of law.
In addition, the ignorance of the early
nations was so great that it had given different forms to their moral
aberrations and distortions of Faith. It was, therefore, necessary that
different Prophets be raised to preach the Truth to them and win them over
to God~ to gradually eradicate evils and aberrations; to root out ignorance
and teach them the simple, pious and righteous life. God alone knows how
many thousands of years were spent in thus educating man, and developing
him mentally, morally and spiritually.
With the progress and spread of commerce,
industry and the arts, intercourse was established between nations. From
China and Japan, as far as the distant lands of Europe and Africa, regular
routes were opened both by sea and land. Many people learnt the art of
writing; knowledge spread. Ideas began to be communicated from one country
to another and learning and scholarship began to be exchanged. Great
conquerors appeared, extended their conquests far and wide, established
vast empires, and knit many different nations under one political system.
Thus nations came closer and closer to one another, and their differences
became less and less.
It became possible under these circumstances
that one and the same faith, envisaging a comprehensive and all-embracing
way of life, meeting the moral, spiritual, social, cultural, political,
economic and other needs of men and embodying both religious and secular
elements could be sent by God to the whole of mankind. More than two
thousand years ago mankind had reached such a mental awareness that it
seemed to be craving for a universal religion.
Buddhism, though it consisted only of a set
of moral principles and was not a complete system of life emerged from
India, and spread as far as Japan and Mongolia on one side, and Afghanistan
and Bokhara on the other. Its missionaries traveled far and wide in the
world. A few centuries later, Christianity appeared. Although the religion
taught by Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) was pure Islam, his
followers reduced it to a hotch-potch called Christianity, and even this
overtly Israelised religion spread to far-off Persia and Asia Minor and to
the distant climes of Europe and Africa. From these events it is evident
that the conditions of mankind in that age demanded a common religion for
the whole human race. Indeed, when people found no complete and true
religion in existence they began to develop existing religions, however
defective, incomplete and unsatisfying they might have been.
At such a crucial stage of human civilisation,
when the mind of man was itself craving for a world religion, a Prophet was
raised in Arabia for the whole world and for all nations. The religion he
was given to propagate was again Islam — but now in the form of a complete
and fully-fledged system covering all aspects of the life of man. He was
Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him)!
If we cast a glance at the world atlas, we
find that no other country could have been more suitable than Arabia for
the much-needed world religion. It is situated right in the middle of Asia
and Africa, and Europe is not far away. At the time of Muhammad's
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) appearance central Europe was
inhabited by civilised and culturally advanced nations; these people were
about the same distance from Arabia as were the people of India.
Look at the history of that era, too, and you
will find that no other people were more suited to be endowed with this
Prophet than the Arabs. Great nations of the world had long been struggling
for world supremacy as a consequence they had exhausted their resources and
vitality. The Arabs were a fresh and virile people. So-called social
progress had produced bad habits among the advanced nations, while among
the Arabs no such social organisation existed, and they were, therefore,
free from the inactivity, debasement and decadence arising out of luxury
and sensual satiety.
The pagan Arabs of the fifth century had not
been affected by the evil influence of the artificial social systems and
civilisations of the great nations of the world. They possessed all the
good human qualities of a people untouched by the 'social progress' of the
time. They were brave, fearless, generous, faithful to their promises,
lovers of freedom and politically independent — not subject to the hegemony
of any of the imperial powers.
There were not also certain undesirable
aspects of their life as well, as we shall mention later on, but the reason
for this was that for thousands of years no prophet had risen among them,
nor had there appeared a reformer who might have civilised them and purged
their moral life of its impurities. Centuries of free and independent
desert life had bred and nourished extreme ignorance among them. They had,
therefore, become so fixed in their traditions of ignorance that to
humanise them was beyond an ordinary
At the same time, however, if some person of
extraordinary powers were to give them a noble ideal, they would readily
rise to act for the achievement of such an ideal. They would be prepared to
face the hostility of the entire world in the cause of their mission. It
was just such young, forceful and virile person that was needed to
disseminate the teachings of the World Prophet, Muhammad (blessings of
Allah and peace be upon him).
Take also the Arabic language. The more you
study its literature, the more you will be convinced that there is no other
language more suited to express high ideals, to explain the most subtle
aspects of Divine knowledge, and to impress the heart of man and mould it
into submission to God. Small phrases and brief sentences express a whole
world of ideas: they are so powerful that their very sound can move men to
tears and ecstasy. They are so sweet that it is as if honey were being
poured into one's ears; they are so full of harmony tha0t every fiber of
the listener's body is moved by their symphony. It was a rich and powerful
language such as this that was needed for the Qur'an, the Great Word of
God.
It was therefore, a manifestation of God's
great wisdom that He chose Arabia as the birthplace of the World Prophet.
Let us now see how unique and extraordinary was the blessed personality
chosen by God for this mission.
If one
were to close one's eyes and imagine oneself in the world of 1400 years
ago, one would find that it was a world completely different from ours. How
few and far between were the opportunities for the exchange of ideas! How
limited and undeveloped were the means of communication! How meager was
man's knowledge! How narrow his outlook! How enveloped was he in
superstition and wild ideas!
Darkness held sway. There was only a faint
glimmer of learning, hardly strong enough to light up the horizons of human
knowledge. There was neither radio nor telephone, neither television nor
the cinema. Railways and cars and aeroplanes were undreamt of, and printing
presses were unknown. Hand-written books or copyists alone supplied what
little literary material there was to be transmitted from generation to
generation. Education was a luxury, meant only for the most fortunate, and
educational institutions were very few and far between.
The store of human knowledge was scanty,
man's outlook was narrow, and his ideas of men and things were confined to
his limited surroundings. Even a scholar of that age lacked in some
respects the knowledge possessed by a layman of today, and the most
cultured person was less refined than the modern man in the street.
Indeed, humanity was steeped in ignorance and
superstition. Whatever light of learning there was seemed to be fighting a
losing battle against the darkness prevailing all around. People used to
spend a whole lifetime acquiring the modest information, which is now
everybody's heritage. Things, which are classed as ‘myth’ and
‘superstition’ today, were the unquestionable truths of that age. Acts,
which we now regard as barbarous, were then the order of the day. Methods
which appear obnoxious to our moral sense today constituted the very soul
of morality: incredulity had assumed such proportions and had become so
widespread that people refused to consider anything as sublime unless it
appeared in the garb of the supernatural, the uncanny and even the
impossible. They had developed such inferiority complexes that they could
not imagine human beings possessing saintly souls.
In that benighted era, there was a territory
where darkness lay even heavier than elsewhere. The neighbouring countries
of Persia, Byzantium and Egypt possessed a glimmer of civilisation and a
faint light of learning. But Arabia stood isolated, cut off by vast tracts
of desert.
Arab traders travelling great distances,
which took them months, carried their wares to and from these countries,
but they had little chance to find out anything about them. In their own
country, they did not have a single educational institution or library.
No one seemed interested in the cultivation and advancement of knowledge.
The few who were literate were not educated enough to understand the
existing arts and sciences. Although they did possess a highly developed
language capable of expressing the finest shades of human thought in a
remarkable manner, a study of the remnants of their literature reveals how
limited was their knowledge, how low was their standard of culture and
civilisation, how saturated were their minds with superstitions, how
barbarous and ferocious were their thoughts and customs, and how decadent
were their moral standards.
It was a country without a government.
Each tribe considered itself to be an independent sovereign unit. There was
no law except the law of the strongest. Loot, arson and murder of innocent
and weak people were the order of the day. Life, property and honour were
constantly in jeopardy. Tribes were always at daggers drawn with one
another. Any trivial incident was enough to spark off a ferocious war.
Indeed, Bedouins from one tribe thought they had every right to kill people
from other tribes.4 (4. Prof. Joseph Hell writes
in The Arab Civilisation (p. 10); “These struggles destroyed the sense of
national unity and developed an incurable particularism; each tribe deeming
itself sufficient and regarding the rest as its legitimate victims for
murder, robbery and plunder.)
Whatever notions they had of morals, culture
and civilisation were primitive in the extreme. They could hardly
discriminate between pure and impure, lawful and unlawful. Their lives were
barbaric. They reveled in adultery, gambling and drinking. Looting and
murder were part of their everyday existence. They would stand stark naked
before each other without any qualms of conscience. Even their women-folk
would strip nude at the ceremony of circumambulating the Ka'bah. They would
bury their daughters alive lest anyone should become their son-in-law. They
would marry their stepmothers after the death of their fathers. They were
ignorant of even the rudiments of everyday life such as proper eating,
dressing and washing.
As regards their religious beliefs, they
suffered from the same evils, which were playing havoc with the rest of the
world. They worshipped stones, trees, idols, stars and spirits; in short,
everything conceivable except God.
They knew nothing about the teachings of the
Prophets of old. They had an idea that Abraham and Ishmael were their
forefathers, but they knew next to nothing about their religious
preaching’s and about the God Whom they worshipped. The stories of 'Ad and
Thamud were to be found in their folklore, but they contained no traces of
the teachings of the Prophets Hud and Salih. The Jews and Christians had
passed on to them certain legends relating to the Israelite Prophets. They
presented a harrowing picture of those noble souls. Their teachings were
adulterated with the figments of their own imagination and their lives were
tarred black. Some idea of the religious conceptions of those people can
still be got today by looking at those Israelite traditions which Muslim
commentators of the Qur'an have conveyed to us. The picture presented of
the institution of prophethood and of the character of the Israelite
Prophets is the very antithesis of all that those noble followers of truth
stood for.
In such a
dark age and in such a benighted country a man is born. His parents die
when he is very young and a few years later the sad demise of his
grandfather also occurs. Consequently, he is deprived even of that scant
training and upbringing which an Arab child of his time could get. In his
boyhood he tends flocks of sheep and goats in the company of Bedouin boys.
When of age, he takes to commerce. All his associations and all his
dealings are with the Arabs alone, whose condition has just been described.
He is completely illiterate and unschooled.
He never gets a chance to sit in the company of learned men, for such men
were non-existent in Arabia. He does have a few opportunities to go out of
his country, but those journeys are confined to Syria and are nothing more
than the usual business trips undertaken by Arab trade caravans. If he
meets any learned men there, such random meetings are so rare as to play no
part in the forming of his personality. Nor can they be the means of the
acquisition of that profound and vast knowledge which transformed an
unlettered Bedouin into a leader not only of his own country and age but of
the whole world and of all ages to come. These journeys cannot have given
him those conceptions and principles of religion, ethics, culture and
civilisation: they were non-existent in the world of those days. And they
cannot have created that sublime and perfect human character which was
nowhere to be found in those days.
We may now look at the life and work of this
noble man in the context not only of the Arabian society but also of the
entire world as it stood in that period.
He is totally different from the people
among whom he is born and passes his youth and early manhood and attains
finally his full stature. Even his worst enemies never accuse him of
telling a lie. He never uses obscene and abusive language. He has a
charming personality and winning manners with which he captivates the
hearts of those who come into contact with him. In his dealings with people
he always follows the principles of justice and fair play. He remains
engaged in trade and commerce for years, but he never enters into any
dishonest transaction. Those who deal with him in business have full
confidence in his integrity. The entire nation calls him Al-Amin
(the Truthful and the Trustworthy). Even his enemies deposit their valuable
belongings with him for safe custody.
He is the embodiment of modesty in the midst
of a society, which is immodest to the core. Born and bred among a people
who regard drunkenness and gambling as virtues, he never touches alcohol
and never indulges in gambling. His people are uncouth, uncultured and
unclean, but he personifies the highest culture and the most refined
aesthetic outlook.
Surrounded on all sides by cruelty, he
himself has a heart overflowing with the milk of human kindness. He helps
orphans and widows. He is hospitable to travelers. He harms no one; rather,
he suffers hardships for others' sakes. Living among those for whom war is
bread and butter, he is such a lover of peace that his heart melts for them
when they take up arms and cut each other's throats. He stays aloof from
the feuds of his tribe, intervening only to bring about reconciliation.
Brought up in an idolatrous race, he regards nothing in the heavens and the
earth worth worshipping except the One True God. He does not bow before any
created thing and does not partake of the offerings made to idols, even in
his childhood. Instinctively he hates all worship of any creature and being
except God.
In brief, the towering and radiant
personality of this man, in the midst of such a benighted and
dark environment, may be likened to a beacon-light illumining a pitch-dark
night or to a diamond shining in a heap of dead stones.
After
spending a great part of his life in such a pure and civilised manner there
comes a revolution in his being. He has had enough of the darkness and
ignorance around him. He wants to swim clear of the horrible sea of
corruption, immorality, idolatry and disorder, which surround him. He finds
society out of harmony with his soul. He withdraws alone to the hills
spending days and nights in total seclusion and meditation. He fasts so
that his soul and his heart may become still purer and nobler.
He muses and ponders deeply. He is in search
of a light to melt away the encompassing darkness. He wants the power to
bring about the downfall of the corrupt and disorderly world of his day and
lay the foundations of a new and better world.
Suddenly his heart is illuminated with the
Divine Light giving him the power he has yearned for. He comes out of the
confinement of his cave, goes to the people, and addresses them thus:
"The idols which you worship are a sham. Stop
worshipping them from now on. No mortal being, no star, no tree, no stone,
no spirit is worthy of human worship. Therefore bow not your heads in
worship before them. The entire universe with everything that it contains
belongs to God Almighty. He alone is the Creator, the Nourisher, the
Sustainer and consequently, the real Sovereign before Whom all should bow
down and to Whom all should pray and render obedience. Thus worship Him
alone and obey only His commands.
"Loot and plunder, murder and rapine,
injustice and cruelty — all the vices in which you indulge — are crimes in
the eyes of God. Leave your evil ways. He hates them all. Speak the truth.
Be just. Do not kill anyone. Do not rob anyone. Take your lawful share.
Give what is due to others in a just manner.
"You are human beings and all human beings
are equal in the eyes of God. None is born with the slur of shame on his
face: nor has anyone come into the world with the mantle of honour hung
around his neck. He alone is high and honoured who is God fearing and
pious, true in words and deed. Distinctions of birth and race are no
criteria of greatness and honour. One who fears God and does good deeds is
the noblest of human beings. One who does not love God and is steeped in
bad ways is doomed.
'There is an appointed day after your death
when you shall have to appear before your Lord. You shall be called to
account for all your deeds, good or bad, and you shall not be able then to
hide anything. The whole record of your life shall be an open book to Him.
Your fate shall be determined by your good or bad actions. In the court of
the True Judge—the Omniscient God — the question of unfair recommendation
and favouritism does not arise. You will not be able to bribe Him. No
consideration will be given to your pedigree or parentage. True
faith and good deeds alone will
stand you in good stead at that
time. He who has them shall take his abode in the Heaven of eternal
happiness, while he who is devoid of them shall be cast in the fire of
Hell."
This is the message with which he comes. The
ignorant nation turns against him. Abuse and stones are showered on
his august person. Every conceivable torture and cruelty is
perpetrated on him: and this continues not for a day or two but
uninterruptedly for thirteen long, troubled years. At last he is exiled.
But he is not given respite even there. He is tormented in various ways in
his place of refuge. The whole of Arabia is incited against him. He is
persecuted and bounded continuously for fully eight years there. He suffers
it all, but does not budge from the stand he has taken. He is resolute,
firm and inflexible in his purpose.
One might ask: how is it that his nation
became his sworn enemy? Was there any dispute about gold and silver or
other worldly possessions? Was it due to any blood-feud? Did he ask for
anything from them? No! The whole enmity was based on the fact that he had
asked them to worship the One True God and to lead lives of righteousness,
piety and goodness. He had preached against idolatry and the worship of
other beings besides God, and had denounced their wav of life. He had cut
at the roots of priest craft. He had inveighed against all distinctions of
high and low between human beings, and had condemned the prejudices of
tribe and race as sheer ignorance: and he wanted to change the whole
structure society which had been handed down to them from time immemorial.
In their turn, his countrymen told him that
the principles of his mission were hostile to their ancestral traditions
and asked him either to give them up or to bear the worst consequences.
Why did he suffer all those hardships?
His nation offered to accept him as their king and to lay all the riches of
the land at his feet if only he would stop preaching his religion and
spreading his message5. (5. The Prophet
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) had to face tempests of
adversity in the cause of truth. He faced all the opposition and oppression
with a smile. He stood firm. Undeterred by criticism and coercion. When the
natives saw that the threats failed to frighten him and the severest
tribulations heaped upon his person and his followers could not make them
budge, they played another trick - but that too was destined to fail!
A deputation of the leading Quraish called upon the Holy Prophet and tried
to bribe him by offering all the worldly glory they could imagine. They
said: "If you want to possess wealth, we will amass for you as much as you
wish: if you aspire to win honour and power we are prepared to swear
allegiance to you as our overlord and king: if you have a fancy for beauty,
you shall have the hand of the most beautiful maiden of your choice."
But they wanted him to abandon his mission.
The terms were extremely tempting for any human mortal. But they had no
significance for the Great Prophet. His reply fell like a bombshell upon
the deputation: "Pray! I want neither wealth nor power. I have been
commissioned by God to warn mankind. I deliver His message to you. Should
you accept it, you shall have joy in this life and eternal bliss in the
life hereafter: should you reject it, surely God will decide between you
and me." On another occasion he said to his uncle, who, under pressure from
the leaders of Arabia, was trying to persuade him to abandon his mission:
"0 Uncle! Should they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my
left in order to make me renounce this mission, it would not be so. I will
never give it up till it should please God to make it a triumph or I perish
in the attempt." This was the character of the Prophet of Islam! --
Editor.)
But he chose instead to refuse the tempting
offers and to suffer for his cause.
Why? What had he to gain, if those people
became pious and righteous?
Why was it that he cared nothing for riches
and luxury, kingship and glory, and ease and plenty? Was he playing for
some higher material gain so that these blessings sank into insignificance
in comparison with them? Were those gains so tempting that he could elect
to go through fire and sword and bear tortures of the soul and torments of
the body with equanimity for years? One has to ponder these questions
deeply to find the answer.
Can
anyone imagine a higher example of self-sacrifice, fellow-feeling and
humanity than that a man may ruin his own happiness for the good of others,
while those very people for whose betterment he is striving should stone
him, abuse him, banish him and harass him even in his exile, and that, in
spite of all this, he should continue striving for their well-being? Can
anyone who is insincere undergo so much suffering for a false cause? Can
anyone who is dishonest exhibit such determination to stick to his guns in
the face of dangers and tortures of every description when a whole country
rises up in arms against him?
The
faith, perseverance and resolution with which he led his movement to
ultimate success are eloquent proof of the supreme truth of his cause. Had
there been the slightest doubt and uncertainty in his heart, he could never
have been able to brave the storm, which continued unabated for twenty-one
long years.
This is one side of the revolution wrought in
his being. The other is even more wonderful and remarkable.
For forty
years he lived as an Arab among Arabs. During that long period he was not
known as a statesman, a preacher or an orator. No-one had heard him
imparting gems of wisdom and knowledge as he began to do hereafter.
He was never seen discoursing on metaphysics, ethics, law, politics,
economics and sociology. Let alone being a great general, he was not even
known as an ordinary soldier. He had uttered no word about God, the Angels,
the Revealed Books, the early Prophets, and the bygone nations, the Day of
Judgment, Life after Death, Hell and Heaven.
Although he possessed an excellent character
and charming manners, and was highly cultured, there was nothing so
striking about him who could make men expects something great and
revolutionary from him in the future. He was known among his acquaintances
as a sober, calm, gentle, law, abiding citizen of good nature. But when he
came out of the cave with his Message he was transformed.
When he
began preaching his Message the whole of Arabia stood in awe and wonder and
was bewitched by his wonderful eloquence and oratory. It was so impressive
and persuasive that his worst enemies were afraid of hearing it, lest it
should penetrate deep into their hearts or the very marrow of their beings
and convert them from their old religion and culture. It was so unique that
the whole legion of Arab poets, preachers and orators of the highest
caliber failed to match it in beauty of language and splendour of diction
when he threw the challenge to his opponents to produce even a single line
like the ones he was reciting.
Along
with this, he now appeared before his people as a unique philosopher. a
wonderful reformer, a renowned molder of culture and civilisation, an
illustrious politician, a great leader, a judge of the highest eminence and
an incomparable general. This unlettered Bedouin, this desert dweller,
spoke with learning and wisdom, the like of which none had said before and
none could say after him.
He expounded the complex problems of
metaphysics and theology. He delivered speeches on the decline and fall of
nations and empires, supporting his thesis with historical fact. He
reviewed the achievements of the old reformers, passed judgments on the
various religions of the world, and gave verdicts on the differences and
disputes between nations. He taught ethical canons and principles of
culture. He formulated laws of social culture, economic organisation, group
conduct and international relations whose wisdom even eminent thinkers and
scholars can grasp only after life long research and vast experience of men
and things. Their beauties, indeed, unfold themselves progressively as man
advances in theoretical knowledge and practical experience.
This silent and peace-loving trader who had
never even handled a sword before turned suddenly into such a brave soldier
that he was never known to retreat however fierce the battle. He became
such a great general that he conquered the whole of Arabia in nine years,
at a time when the weapons of war were primitive and the means of
communication very poor. His military acumen and his ability to transmit
the skills of war to a motley crowd of Arabs (who had no equipment worth
the name) meant that within a few years he had overthrown the two most
formidable military powers of the day and become the master of the greater
part of the then known world.
This reserved and quiet man who, for fully forty years, never gave any
indication of any political interest or activity, appeared suddenly on the
stage of the world as such a great political reformer and statesman that,
without the aid of the media, he brought together under one banner, one
law, one religion, one culture, one civilisation and one form of government
the scattered inhabitants of a desert of twelve hundred thousand square
miles — a people who were warlike, ignorant, unruly, uncultured and plunged
in internecine tribal warfare6. (6. Sir William
Muir, a staunch critic of Islam, admits in his book. The 1.iff of Muhammad
(p. xciv) "The first peculiarity, then, which attracts our attention is the
subdivision of the Arabs into innumerable bodies . . . each independent of
the others; restless and often at war amongst themselves: and even when
united by blood or by interest, ever ready on some insignificant cause to
separate and give way to an implacable hostility. Thus at the era of Islam
the retrospect of Arabian history exhibits, as in tile kaleidoscope, an
ever-varying slate of combination and repulsion, such as had hitherto
rendered abortive any attempt at a general union . . . The problem had yet
to be solved, by what force these tribes could be subdued, or drawn to one
common center', and it was solved by Mohammed" (emphasis ours).)
He changed their modes of thought,
their customs and their morals. He turned the uncouth into the cultured,
the barbarous into the civilised, the evil-doers and bad characters into
pious God fearing and righteous persons. Their unruly and obstinate natures
were transformed into models of obedience and submission to law and order.
A nation, which had not produced a single great man worth the name for
centuries gave birth, under his influence and guidance, to thousands of
noble souls who went forth to far-off corners of the world to preach and
leach the principles of religion, morals and civilisation7. (7.
It would be instructive to refer here to an important speech of Ja’far ibn
Abi Talib. When the oppression of the Muslims of Makka reached its
height, the Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him)
asked some of them to migrate to the adjoining state of Abyssinia. A group
did so. But the Quraish who, were perpetrating every, conceivable
oppression against the Muslims did not sit by idlv. They pursued the
Muslims and asked King Negus of Abyssinia to forcefully return his
immigrants. In the court of King Negus, Ja’far made a speech, which threw
light on the revolution that the Holy Prophet had brought about. He said:
"O King! We were ignorant people, given to idolatry. We were used to eating
corpses even of dead animals, and to doing all kinds of disgraceful things.
We did not carry out our obligations to our relations, and ill-treated our
neighbours. The strong among us would thrive at the expense of the weak,
till, at last. God raised a Prophet for our reformation. His descent, his
righteousness, his integrity and his piety are well known lo us all. He
called us to the worship of God and exhorted us to give up idolatry and
stone-worship. He enjoined us to speak the truth, to make good our trusts,
to respect ties of kinship, and to do good to our neighbours. He taught us
to shun everything foul and to avoid bloodshed. He forbade all manner of
indecent things: telling lies, misappropriating orphans' belongings, and
bringing false accusation against the chastity of women. So we believed in
him. Followed him, and acted upon his teaching . . .")
He accomplished this feat not through
any worldly lure, oppression or cruelty, but by his humanity, his moral
personality and his teaching. With his noble and gentle behaviour he
befriended even his enemies. He captured the hearts of the people with his
unbounded sympathy and the milk of human kindness. He ruled justly. He did
not deviate from truth and righteousness. He did not oppress even his
deadly enemies who were after his life, who had stoned him, who had turned
him out of his native place, who had set the whole of Arabia against him —
nay, not even those who had chewed the raw liver of his dead uncle in a
frenzy of vengeance8. (8. On the occasion of the
Battle of Uhud, Hinda, the wife of the chief of the pagan Arabs, actually
chewed the raw liver of the Prophet's uncle, Hamza.)
He forgave them all when he triumphed over them. He never took revenge on
anyone.
Although he became the ruler of his
country, he was so selfless and modest that he remained very simple and
sparing in his habits. He lived poorly, as before, in his humble
mud-cottage. He slept on a mattress, wore coarse clothes, ate either the
simplest food of the poor or went without food at all. He used to spend
whole nights standing in prayer before his Lord. He came to the rescue of
the destitute and the penniless9. ( 9. The Prophet
said: "Anyone who dies in debt or leaves behind dependents who are in
danger of becoming destitute should come to me because I am their
guardian." His whole life bears ample testimony to this.)
He felt not the least insult in working like a labourer. Till his last
moments there was not the slightest tinge of royal pomp or hauteur of the
high and mighty in him. Like any ordinary man he would sit and talk with
people and share their joys and sorrows. He would so mingle with the crowd
that a stranger would Find it difficult to single out the leader of the
people and the ruler of the 'nation from the rest of the company.
He never sought any reward or profit
for himself, nor left any property to his heirs. He dedicated his all to
his Millah. He did not ask his adherents to earmark anything for him
or his descendants, so much so that he forbade his progeny to receive the
benefit of poor-tax (Zakah).
The
achievements of this great man do not end here. I arrive at a full
appreciation of his worth one has to view them against the background of
the history of the world as a whole. This reveals that this unlettered
dweller of the desert of Arabia, who was born in the 'dark ages' some 1400
years ago, is the real pioneer of our modern age. He is not only the leader
of those who accept his leadership but also of those who do not, even of
those who denounce him — the only difference being that the latter are
unaware that he is still imperceptibly influencing their thoughts and their
actions and is the governing principle of their lives and the guiding
spirit of the modern times10. (10. Arthur Leonard
says: "Islam, in fact, has done a work. She has left a mark on the pages of
human history, which is so indelible that it can never be effaced . . .
that only when the world grows will be acknowledged in full."'
John Devenport, a leading scientist,
observed: "It must be owned that all the knowledge, whether of physics,
astronomy, philosophy or mathematics, which flourished in Europe from the
10th century, was originally derived from the Arabian schools, and the
Spanish Saracen may be looked upon as the father of European philosophy." —
Quoted by A. Karim in Islam's Contribution to Science and Civilization.
Bertrand Russell, the famous British philosopher, wrote: "The supremacy of
the East was not only military. Science, philosophy, poetry and the arts
all flourished . . . in the Muhammedan world at a time when Europe was sunk
in barbarism. Europeans, with unpardonable insularity, call this period
'The Dark Ages': but it was only in Europe that it was dark — indeed only
in Christian Europe, for Spain, which was Muhammedan had a brilliant
culture." — Pakistan Quarterly, Vol. IV. No. 3. (Emphasis ours).
Robert Briffault, the renowned historian,
acknowledges in his book The Making of Humanity: "It is highly probably
that but for the Arabs, modern European civilisation would never have
assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend all previous
phases of evolution. For although there is not a single aspect of human
growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic culture is not traceable,
nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the genesis of that power which
constitutes the paramount distinctive force of the modern world and the
supreme source of its victory — natural sciences and the scientific spirit
. . . What we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of
inquiry: of new methods of investigation, of (he method of experiment,
observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form
unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into
the
European world by the Arabs."
Stanwood Cobb, founder of the Progressive
Education Association, says: "Islam . . . was the virtual creator of the
Renaissance in Europe." — Quoted by Robert L. Gullick. Jr. in Muhammad the
educator.)
It was he who turned the course of human
thought from superstition- mongering, love for the unnatural and the
inexplicable, and monasticism towards a rational approach, love for
reality, and a pious, balanced worldly life. It was he who in a world,
which regarded only supernatural happenings as miracles and demanded them
for the verification of the truth of a religious mission, urged that
rational proof should be the criterion of truth. It was he who opened the
eyes of those who had been accustomed to look for the signs of God in
natural phenomena.
It was he who, in place of groundless
speculation, led human beings to the path of rational understanding and
sound reasoning on the basis of observation, experiment and research. It
was he who clearly defined the limits and functions of sense perception,
reason and intuition. It was he who brought about a rapprochement
between spiritual and material values. It was he who harmonized Faith and
Knowledge and Action, who, in short, evolved true religiosity on the basis
of the scientific spirit.
It was he who eradicated idolatry,
man-worship and polytheism in all forms so thoroughly and created such a
firm faith in the Unity of God that even those religions, which were based
entirely on superstition and idolatry, were forced to adopt a monotheistic
approach.
It was he who changed the basic concepts of
ethics and spirituality. Those who believed that asceticism and
self-annihilation alone led to moral and spiritual purity — that purity
could only be achieved by running away from life, disregarding all the
desires of the flesh and subjecting the body to all types of tortures — he
showed the path of spiritual evolution, moral emancipation and attainment
of salvation through active participation in the affairs of the world
around them.
It was he
who brought home to man his true
worth; those who acknowledged only a God-incarnate or a son of God as their
moral preceptor or spiritual guide were told that human beings with no
pretensions to Godhead could become vicegerents of God on earth; those who
proclaimed and worshipped powerful personages as their gods were made to
understand that their false lords were mere ordinary human beings and
nothing more. It was he who stressed the point that no person could claim
holiness, authority and overlordship as his birthright and that no one was
born with the stigma of untouchability, slavery or serfdom. It was he and
his teaching, which inspired thoughts of the unity of mankind, equality of
human beings, true democracy and real freedom.
Laws, which he gave, have penetrated
deep into the structures of society, and this process continues up to this
day. The basic principles of economics, which he taught, have ushered in
many a movement in world history and hold out the same promise for the
future. The laws of governance, which he formulated, brought about many
upheavals in political theories and continue to have influence even today.
The fundamental principles of law and justice, which bear the stamp of his
genius, have influenced to a remarkable degree the administration of
justice in the courts of nations. This unlettered Arab was the first person
to formulate a framework of international relations and lay down laws of
war and peace. No one previously had even the rernotest idea that there
could be an ethical code of war and that relations between different
nations could be regulated on the basis of common
humanity11. (1. For details, see Abul A’la Mawdudi’s AI-Jihad fi’l-islam.)
In the cavalcade of world history the sublime
figure of this wonderful person towers so high above all others that they
appear to be dwarfs when contrasted with him None of them possessed a
genius capable of making a deep impression on more than one or two aspects
of human life. Some are brilliant theoreticians but are lacking when it
comes to practical action. Some are men of action but with little
knowledge. Some, are renowned as statesmen only, others are masters of
strategy. Others again have devoted their energies to ethical and spiritual
problems but have ignored economics and politics. In short, one comes
across heroes who are expert in one walk of life only.
His is the only example where all the
excellences have been blended into one personality. He is a philosopher and
a seer as well as a living embodiment of his own teachings. He is a great
statesman as well as a military genius. He is a legislator and also a
teacher of morals. He is a spiritual luminary as well as a religious guide.
His vision penetrates every aspect of life. His orders and commandments
cover a vast field from the regulation of international relations down to
the habits of everyday life like eating, drinking and personal hygiene. On
the foundations of his philosophy he established a civilisation and a
culture without the slightest trace of a flaw, deficiency or
incompleteness. Can anyone point to another example of such a perfect and
all-round personality? Most of the famous personalities of the world are
said to be the products of their environment. But his case is unique. His
environment seems to have played no part in the making of his personality.
At most one might accept in the light of Hegel's philosophy of history or
Marx's historical materialism that the time and environment demanded the
emergence of a leader who could create a nation and build an empire. But
Hegelian or Marxist philosophy cannot explain how such an environment could
produce a man whose mission was to teach the highest morals, to purify
humanity and to wipe out prejudice and superstition, who looked beyond the
artificial compartments of race and nation-state, who laid the foundations
of a moral, spiritual, cultural and political superstructure for the good
of the whole world, who practically, not theoretically, placed business
transactions, civics, politics and international relations on
moral grounds and produced such a balanced synthesis
between worldly life and spiritual advancement that even to this day it is
considered a masterpiece of wisdom and foresight. Can anyone honestly call
such a person a product of the all-pervading darkness of Arabia?
He does not only appear to be independent of
his environment. When we look at his achievements we are irresistibly drawn
to the conclusion that he actually transcends the limitations of time and
space. His vision breaks through all temporal and physical barriers, passes
beyond centuries and millenniums and encompasses within itself the whole of
human history.
He is not one of those whom history has cast
into oblivion, and he is not praised only because he was a good leader in
his own time. He is that unique and incomparable leader of humanity who
marches with time, who is modern in every age and in every era.
Those whom people style 'makers of history'
are only 'creatures of history'. In fact, in the whole of the history of
mankind, he is the unique example of a •maker of history'. One may scan the
lives and circumstances of the great leaders of the world who brought about
revolutions and one will find that on such occasions the forces of
revolution were gathering momentum for the destined upheaval, were taking
their course in certain directions and were only wailing for the right
moment. In harnessing these forces the revolutionary leader played the part
of an actor for whom the stage and the role is set beforehand. On the other
hand, the Prophet is the only person who had to genuinely create a
revolution: he had to mould and produce the kind of men he wanted because
the spirit of revolution and its necessary conditions were non-existent.
He made an indelible impression on the hearts
of thousands of his disciples by his forceful personality and moulded them
to his way of thinking. By his iron will be prepared the ground for
revolution and directed events into the channels he wanted. Can anyone cite
another example of a maker of history of such distinction, another
revolutionary of such brilliance and splendour?
One may
wonder how, in the dark ages 1400 years ago in a benighted region of the
earth like Arabia, an illiterate Arab trader and herdsman came to possess
such light, such knowledge, such power, such capabilities and such finely
developed moral virtues?
One may say that there is nothing peculiar
about his Message, that it is the product of his own mind. If this is so,
then he should have proclaimed himself God. And if he had done so at that
time, the peoples of the earth who did not hesitate in calling Krishna and
Buddha gods and Jesus the Son of God, and who could without compunction
worship such forces of nature as fire, water and air — would have readily
acknowledged him as such.
But he argued just the opposite. For he
proclaimed: I am a human being like yourselves. I have not brought anything
to you of my own accord. It has all been revealed to me by God. Whatever I
possess belongs to Him. This message, the like of which the whole of
humanity is unable to produce, is the message of God. It is not the product
of my own mind. Every word of it has been sent down by Him and all glory to
Him Whose Message it is. All the wonderful achievements, which stand to my
credit in your eyes, all the laws which I have given, all the principles
which I have enunciated and taught — none of them is from me. I find myself
incompetent to produce such things out of my sheer personal ability and
capabilities. I look to Divine Guidance in all matters. Whatever He wills I
do, what He directs I proclaim.
Hearken! What a wonderful and inspiring
example of honesty, integrity, truth and honour those sentiments are! Liars
and hypocrites often try to take all the credit for the deeds of others,
ever, when they can easily be found out. But this great man does not claim
any of these achievements for himself even when no-one could contradict him
as there was no way of establishing the source of his inspiration.
What more proof of perfect honesty of
purpose, uprightness of character and sublimity of soul can there be! Who
else can be more truthful than he who received such unique gifts through a
secret channel and still pointed out their source? All these factors lead
to the irresistible conclusion that such a man was the true Messenger of
God.
Such was our Holy Prophet Muhammad (blessings
of Allah and peace be upon him). He was a prodigy of extraordinary merits,
a paragon of virtue aid goodness, a symbol of truth, a great apostle of God
and His Messenger to the entire world. His life and thought, his
truthfulness and straightforwardness, his piety and goodness, his character
and morals, his ideology and achievements — all stand as unimpeachable
proofs of his Prophethood. Any human being who studies his life and
teachings without bias will testify that he was the true Prophet of God and
the Qur'an — the Book he gave to mankind — the true Book of God. No serious
seeker after truth can come to any other conclusion.
It must also be clearly understood that now,
through Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) alone can we
know the straight path of Islam. The Qur'an and the life-example of
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) are the only reliable
sources that are available to mankind to learn God's Will in its totality.
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) is the Messenger of God
for the whole of mankind and the long chain of Prophets has come to an end
with him. He was the last of the Prophets and all the instructions which it
was God's Will to impart to mankind through direct revelation were sent by
Him through Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and are
enshrined in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Anyone who seeks to become a
sincere Muslim must have faith in God's last Prophet, accept his teachings
and follow the way he has pointed out to man. This is the road to success
and salvation
This brings us to the question of the
finality of the Prophethood of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him).
We have already discussed the nature of
Prophethood and this discussion makes it clear that the advent of a prophet
is not an everyday occurrence. Nor is the presence in person
of the Prophet essential for every land, people and period. The life and
teachings of the Prophet is the beacon to guide a people to the right path,
and as long as his teachings and his guidance are alive he is, as it were,
himself alive.
The real death of a Prophet consists not in
his physical demise but in the ending of the influence of his teachings.
The earlier Prophets have died because their followers have adulterated
their teachings, distorted their instructions, and besmirched their
life-examples by attaching fictitious events to them. Not one of the
earlier books — Torah, Zabur (Psalms of David), Injl (Gospel
of Jesus), for example—exists today in its original text and even the
adherents of these books confess that they do not possess the original
books. The life histories of the earlier Prophets have been so mixed up
with fiction that an accurate and authentic account of their lives has
become impossible. Their lives have become tales and legends and no
trustworthy record is available anywhere. It cannot even be said with
certainty when and where a certain Prophet was born, how he lived and what
code of morality he gave to mankind. Thus, the real death of a Prophet
consists in the death of his teachings.
By this criterion no one can deny that
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and his teachings are
alive. His teachings stand uncorrupted and are incorruptible. The Qur'an —
the book he gave to mankind — exists in its original text, without a word,
syllable or even letter having been changed. The entire account of his life
— his sayings, instructions and actions — is preserved with complete
accuracy. It is as though it all happened yesterday rather than thirteen
centuries ago. The biography of no other human being is so detailed as that
of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam (blessings of Allah and peace be upon
him). In everything affecting our lives we can seek the guidance of
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and the example of his
life. That is why there is no need of
any other Prophet after Muhammad, the
last Prophet (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him).
Furthermore, there are three conditions,
which necessitate the advent of a new Prophet over and above the need to
replace a deceased Prophet. These may be summed up as follows:
1.That the teachings of the earlier Prophets
have been distorted or corrupted or they have died and their revival is
needed.
2.That the teachings of the Prophet who has
passed away were incomplete and it is necessary to amend them, improve on
them or add something to them.
3."That the earlier Prophet was raised
for a particular nation or territory and a Prophet for another nation,
people or country is requiredl2. (12. Another may
be the situation when a Prophet 's raised to help and assist another
Prophet, but as the instances of such Prophets are very few — in the Qur'an
only two such instances are given —and a this kind of Prophethood seems to
be the exception rather than the rule, we have not added this as the fourth
condition. – Author.)
None of these conditions exist today. The
teachings of the last Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him) are alive, have been fully preserved and made immortal. The
guidance he has shown unto mankind is complete and flawless, and is
enshrined in the Holy Qur'an. All the sources of Islam are fully intact and
each and every instruction or action of the Holy Prophet can be ascertained
without the least shadow of doubt.
Secondly, God has completed His
revealed guidance through the Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him) and Islam is a complete religion for mankind. God has
said that, "Today I have perfected your Faith - religion — for you,
and have completed my bounty upon you," and a thorough study of Islam as a
complete way of life proves the truth of these Qur’an words. Islam gives
guidance for life in this world and in the hereafter and nothing essential
for human guidance has been left out. There is no ground for new
Prophethood on the plea of imperfection13. (13.
Some people say that the passage of time itself is a sufficient ground for
the need of new guidance, and a religion, which was revealed some thirteen
centuries ago, must necessarily grow obsolete and become a thing of the
past. The objection is totally unfounded. The reasons may be briefly stated
as follows:
(a) Islam's teachings are eternal,
because they have been revealed by Allah Who knows all the past, present
and future and Who Himself is eternal. It is the human knowledge that is
limited. It is the human eve, which cannot see into the dim vista of the
future, not God Whose knowledge is above all the limitations of time and
space.
(b) Islam is based on human nature, and the
nature of man has remained the same in all times and epochs. All men are
cast in the moulds of the earliest men and fundamental human nature remains
unchanged.
(c) In human life there is a beautiful
balance between permanence and change. Neither is everything permanent, nor
is everything changeable. The fundamental principles, the basic values, do
not invite change. It is the outward forms which change with the passage of
time and which are changed while keeping in view certain principles, which
are to be observed. And Islam has catered for the needs of both permanence
and change. The Qur'an and the Sunnah propounded (he eternal principles of
Islam, while through ljtihad they are applied to every age according to its
own needs. Islam is the only religion, which has established machinery for
the perennial evolution of human society in accordance with the fundamental
principles and permanent values of life.
(d)
Scientifically, the human race is living in the age, which was inaugurated
by the advent of man on earth, and no fundamental evolutionary change has
occurred in this phase of existence. Civilisations have arisen and died,
cultures have grown and withered, empires have emerged and disintegrated.
But the age in the great chain of cosmic evolution remains the same.
Therefore the view that guidance given some centuries back automatically
becomes obsolete with the passage of time is unfounded and superficial.
— Editor.)
Lastly, the Message of Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) was not meant for any particular
people, place or period. He was raised as the World Prophet — the messenger
of truth for the whole of mankind. The Qur'an has commanded Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) to declare: "0 mankind. I am
God's Messenger to all of you." He has been described as "a blessing for
all (the people of) the world" and his approach has been universal and
human. That is why after him there remains no need for new Prophethood and
he, has been described by the Qur'an as Khatam-an-Nabiyyin (the last
of the chain of the true prophets14.) (14.
The Qur'an and the Hadith are very explicit on this point. The Qur'an says:
"Muhammad is the Messenger of God and the last of the Prophets" (xxxiii.
40). The Holy Prophet himself has said: "There will be no prophet after me.
"On another occasion he said: “My relation to the (long chain of the)
Prophets can be understood by the parable of a palace: the palace was most
beautifully built. Everything was complete therein except the place for one
brick. I have filled in that place and now the castle has been completed"
(ride Bukhari and Muslim). —Editor.)
The only source, therefore, for the knowledge
of God and His Way is Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him).
We can know of Islam only through his teachings, which are so complete and
so comprehensive that they can guide men through all ages to come. The
world does not need a new prophet; it needs only such people as have full
faith in Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him), to become the
standard-bearers of his message, propagate it throughout the world, and
endeavour to establish the culture which Muhammad (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him) gave to man. The world needs such men of character as
can translate his teachings into practice and establish a society which is
governed by Divine Law, whose supremacy Muhammad (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him) came to establish.
This is the mission of Muhammad (blessings of
Allah and peace be upon him) and on its success hinges the success of Man.
Go to Top
Chapter
4
Our
discussion so Far can be summarised as follows:
1.Islam consists of submission and obedience
to Allah, the Lord of the Universe. Since the only authentic source of
knowing Him and His Will and Law is the teachings of the true Prophet, we
may define Islam as that religion which stands for complete faith in the
teachings of the Prophet and steadfast obedience to his ways of life.
Consequently, one who ignores the medium of the Prophet and claims to
follow God directly is not a 'Muslim'.
2.In
earlier epochs there had been separate Prophets for different nations, and
the history of Prophethood shows that even in one and the same nation
several Prophets appeared one after the other. In that age Islam was the
name of that religion which was taught to a nation by its own Prophet or
Prophets. Though the nature and substance of Islam was the same in every
age and country, the modes of worship, codes of law and other detailed
rules and regulations of life varied according to local and particular
conditions. It was not, therefore, necessary for any nation to follow
another nation's Prophet and its responsibility was confined to following
the guidance given by its own Prophet.
3.This period of poly-prophetism came to an
end with the advent of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him).
The teachings of Islam were made complete through him; one basic law was
formulated for the whole world and he was made a Prophet for all mankind.
His Prophethood was not meant for any particular nation or country or
period; his message was for all peoples and for all ages. The earlier codes
were abrogated by the advent of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him) who gave the world a complete code of life. This means there will
be no new Prophets and no new religious code until the Last Day. Muhammad's
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings are meant for all the
children of Adam, the entire human race. Now Islam consists in following
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him), that is, acknowledging
his Prophethood, believing in all that he has asked us to believe in,
following him in letter and spirit, and submitting to all his commands and
injunctions, the most fundamental of which is La illaha
illallah "There is no deity but Allah".
This brings us to the question; what has
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) asked us to believe in?
What are the articles of Islamic faith? We shall discuss these articles and
see how simple, how true, how lovable and how valuable they are and to what
high pinnacle they raise the status of Man in this world and the world to
come.
The most
fundamental and the most important teaching of Prophet Muhammad (blessings
of Allah and peace be upon him) is faith in the unity of God. This is
expressed in the primary Kalimah of Islam as "There is no deity but
Allah" (La illaha illallah). This beautiful phrase is
the bedrock of Islam, its foundation and its essence. It is the expression
of this belief, which differentiates a true Muslim from a kafir
(unbeliever), mushrik (one who associates others with God in His
Divinity) or dahriyah (an atheist).
The acceptance or denial of this phrase
produces a world of difference between man and man. The believers in it
become one single community and those who do not believe in it form an
opposing group. For the believers there is unhampered progress and success
in this world and in the hereafter, while failure and ignominy are the
ultimate lot of those who refuse to believe in it.
But the difference between the believers and
the unbelievers does not result from the mere chanting of a few words.
Obviously, the mere utterance of a phrase or two is not in itself
important. The real difference lies in the conscious acceptance of this
doctrine and complete adherence to it in practical life. Mere repetition of
the word 'food' cannot dull hunger; mere chanting of a medical prescription
cannot heal the disease.
In the same way, if the Kalimah is
repeated without any understanding, it cannot work the revolution, which it
is meant to bring about. This can occur only if a person grasps the full
meaning of the doctrine and accepts and follows it in letter and spirit. We
avoid fire because we know that it burns; we keep away from poison because
we know that it can kill. Similarly, if the real meanings of Tawhid
are fully grasped, we avoid, in belief as well as in action, every form of
disbelief, atheism and polytheism. This is the natural consequence of
belief in the Unity of God.
In
Arabic the word Hah means 'one who is worshipped', that is, a being
which on account of its greatness and power is considered worthy to be
worshipped: to be bowed to in humility and submission. Anything or any
being possessing power too great to be comprehended by man is also called
Hah. The concept Hah also includes the possession of infinite
powers and conveys the sense that others are dependent on Hah and
that he is not dependent on anyone else. The word Hah carries, too,
a sense of concealment and mystery. The word Khuda in Persian,
Deva in Hindi and God in English have similar connotations.
Other languages also contain words with a similar meaning1.
(1. For instance, in Greek it is Oeo’s, in Latin Deus,
in Gothic Guth, in German Gott. For reference, see Encyclopedia Britannica
(Chicago. 1956) Vol. X. p. 460. — Editor.)
The word Allah, on the other hand, is
the essential personal name of God. La illaha illallah
literally means, "There is no illah other than the One Great Being
known by the name Allah." It means that in the whole of the
universe, there is absolutely no being worthy to be worshipped other than
Allah, that it is only to Him that heads should bow in submission and
adoration, that He is the only Being possessing all powers, that we are all
in need of His favour, and that we are all obliged to seek His help. He is
concealed from our senses, and our intellect cannot perceive what He is.
Now we know the meaning of these words, let
us look more closely at their real significance.
From the earliest known history of man as
well as from the oldest relics of antiquity that we have been able to
obtain, it appears that in every age man recognised some deity or deities
and worshipped them. Even today every nation, from the most primitive to
the most advanced, believes in and worships some deity. Having a deity and
worshipping him is ingrained in human nature. There is something within
man's soul, which forces him to do so.
But the question is: what is that thing and
why does man feel impelled to do so? The answer to this question can be
discovered if we look at the position of man in this huge universe. Neither
man nor his nature is omnipotent. He is neither self-sufficient nor
self-existing; nor is his powers limitless. In fact, he is weak, frail,
needy and destitute.
He is dependent on a multitude of forces to
maintain his existence, but all of them are not essentially and totally
within his powers. Sometimes they come into his possession in a simple and
natural way, and at times he finds himself deprived of them. There are many
important and valuable things which he endeavours to get, but sometimes he
succeeds in getting them, while sometimes he does not, for it is not
completely in his own power to obtain them. There are many things injurious
to him; accidents destroy his life's work in a single moment; chance brings
his hopes to a sudden end; illness, worries and calamities are always
threatening him and marring his way to happiness. He attempts to get rid of
them, and meets with both success and failure.
There are many things whose greatness and
grandeur overawe him; mountains and rivers, gigantic animals and ferocious
beasts. He experiences earthquakes, storms and other natural disasters. He
observes clouds over his head and sees them becoming thick and dark, with
peals of thunder, flashes of lightning and heavy rain. He sees the sun, the
moon and the stars in their constant motions. He reflects how great,
powerful and grand these bodies are, and, in contrast to them, how frail
and insignificant he himself is!
These vast phenomena, on the one hand, and
the consciousness of his own frailty, on the other, impress him with a deep
sense of his own weakness, humbleness and helplessness. And it is quite
natural that a primitive idea of divinity should coincide with this sense.
He thinks of the hands, which are wielding these great forces. The sense of
their greatness makes him bow in humility. The sense of their powerfulness
makes him seek their help. He tries to please them so that they may be
beneficent to him, and he fears them and tries to escape their wrath so
that they may not destroy him.
In the most primitive stage of ignorance, man
thinks that the great objects of nature whose grandeur and glory are
visible, and which appear to be injurious or beneficent to him, hold in
themselves the real power and authority, and, therefore, are divine. Thus
he worships trees, animals, rivers, mountains, fire, rain, air, heavenly
bodies and numerous other objects. This is the worst form of ignorance.
When his ignorance dissipates to some extent
and some glimmers of light and knowledge appear on his intellectual
horizon, he comes to know that these great and powerful objects are in
themselves as helpless and dependent, or rather; they are still more
dependent and helpless. The biggest and the strongest animal die like a
tiny germ, and loses all his power; great rivers rise and fall and become
dry: the highest mountains are blasted and shattered by man himself: the
productiveness of the earth is not under the earth's control—water makes it
prosperous and lack of water makes it barren, liven water is not
independent. It depends on air, which brings the clouds. Air, too, is
powerless and its usefulness depends on other causes. The moon, the sun,
and the stars are also bound by a powerful law outside whose dictates they
cannot make the slightest movement.
After these considerations man's mind turns
to the possibility of some great mysterious power of divine nature, which
controls the objects he sees and which may be the repository of all
authority. These reflections give rise to belief in mysterious powers
behind natural phenomena, with innumerable gods governing various parts and
aspects of nature such as air, light and water. Material forms or symbols
are constructed to represent them and man begins to worship these forms and
symbols. This, too, is a form of ignorance, and reality remains hidden to
the human eye even at this stage of man's intellectual and cultural
pilgrimage.
As man progresses still further in knowledge
and learning, and as he reflects more and more deeply on the fundamental
problems of existence, he finds an all-powerful law and all-encompassing
control in the universe. What a complete regularity is observed in sunrise
and sunset, in winds and rains, in the motions of stars and the changes of
seasons! With what a wonderful harmony countless different forces are
working jointly. And what a highly effective and supremely wise law it is
according to which all the various causes in the universe are made to work
together at an appointed time to produce an appointed event! Observing this
uniformity, regularity and complete obedience to one great law in all
fields of Nature, even a polytheist finds himself obliged to believe that
there must be a deity greater than all the others, exercising supreme
authority. For, if there were separate, independent deities, the
whole machinery of the universe would be upset.
He calls this greatest deity by different
names, such as Allah, Pemeshwar, God, Khuda-i-Khuda'igan.
But as the darkness of ignorance still persists, he continues worshipping
minor deities along with the Supreme One. He imagines that the Divine
Kingdom of God may not be different from earthly kingdoms. Just as a ruler
has many ministers, trusted associates, governors, and other responsible
officers, so the minor deities are like so many responsible officers under
the Great God Who cannot be approached without winning the favour of the
officers under Him. So they must also be worshipped and appealed to for
help, and should in no case be offended. They are taken as agents through
whom an approach can be made to the Great God.
The more a man increases his knowledge, the
greater becomes his dissatisfaction with the multiplicity of deities. So
the number of minor deities begins to decrease. More enlightened men bring
each one of them under the searchlight of scrutiny and ultimately find that
none of these man-made deities has any divine character; they themselves
are creatures like man, though rather more helpless. They are thus
eliminated one by one until only one God remains.
But the concept of one God still contains
some remnants of the elements of ignorance. Some people imagine that He has
a body as men have, and is in a particular place. Some believe that God
came down to earth in human form; others think that God, after settling the
affairs of the universe, retired and is now resting. Some believe that it
is necessary to approach God through the media of saints and spirits, and
that nothing can be achieved without their intercession. Some imagine God
to have a certain form or image, and they believe it necessary to keep that
image before them for the purposes of worship.
Such distorted notions of godhead have
persisted and lingered, and many of them are prevalent among different
people even today.
Tawhid
is the highest conception of godhead, the knowledge of which God has
sent mankind in all ages through His Prophets. It was this knowledge with
which, in the beginning, Adam was sent down to earth; it was the same
knowledge that was revealed to Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus (God's
blessings be upon them all). It was this knowledge, which Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) brought to mankind. It is
Knowledge, pure and absolute, without the least shade of ignorance. Man
became guilty of shirk, idol-worship and kufr only because he
turned away from the teachings of the Prophets and depended on his own
faulty reasoning, false perceptions or biased interpretations. Tawhid
dispels all the clouds of ignorance and illuminates the horizon with the
light of reality. Let us see what significant realities the concept of
Tawhid — this little phrase: la illaha illallah
embraces: what truth it conveys and what beliefs it fosters.
First, we are faced with the question of the
universe. We are face to face with a grand, limitless universe. Man's mind
cannot discern it’s beginning or visualise its end. It has been moving
along its chartered course from time immemorial and is continuing its
journey in the vast vista of the future. Creatures beyond number have
appeared in it — and go on appearing every day. It is so bewildering that a
thinking mind finds itself wonderstruck. Man is unable to understand and
grasp its reality by his unaided vision. He cannot believe that all this
has appeared just by chance or accident. The universe is not a fortuitous
mass of matter. It is not a jumble of un co-coordinated objects.
It is not a conglomeration of chaotic and meaningless things. All this
cannot be without a Creator, a Designer, a Controller, a Governor.
But who can create and control this majestic
universe? Only He can do so, Who is Master of all; Who is Infinite and
Eternal; Who is All-Powerful, All-Wise, Omnipotent and Omniscient; Who is
All-Knowing and All-Seeing. He must have supreme authority over all that
exists in the universe. He must possess limitless powers, must be Lord of
the universe and all that it contains, must be free from every flaw and
weakness and none may have the power to interfere with His work. Only such
a Being can be the Creator, the Controller and the Governor of the
universe.
Second, it is essential that all these divine
attributes and powers must be vested in One Being: it is impossible for two
or more personalities having equal powers and attributes to co-exist. They
are bound to collide. Therefore, there must be one and only one Supreme
Being having control over all others. You cannot think of two governors for
the same province or two supreme commanders of the army! Similarly, the
distribution of these powers among different deities, so that, for
instance, one of them is all-knowledge, the other all-providence and still
another life-giver — and each having an independent domain — is also
unthinkable. The universe is an indivisible whole and each one of such
deities will be dependent upon others in the execution of his task. Lack of
co-ordination is bound to occur. And if this happened, the world would fall
to pieces. These attributes are also un transferable. It is not possible
that a certain attribute might be present in a certain deity at one time
and at another time be found in another deity. A divine being who is
incapable of remaining alive himself cannot give life to others. The one
who cannot protect his, own divine power cannot be suited to govern the
vast limitless universe.
The more you reflect on the problem, the
firmer must your conviction be that all these divine powers and attributes
must exist in one and the same Being alone. Thus, polytheism is a form of
ignorance that cannot stand rational scrutiny. It is a practical
impossibility. The facts of life and nature do not fit in with it. They
automatically bring men to Reality, that is Tawhid, the Unity of
God.
Now, keeping in mind this concept of God,
look closely at this vast universe. Exert yourself to the utmost and say if
you find among all the objects that you see, among all the things that you
perceive, among all that you can think, feel or imagine — all that your
knowledge can comprehend — anyone possessing, these attributes. The sun,
the moon, the stars, animals, birds or fishes, matter, money, any man or a
group of men — does any of them possess these attributes? Most certainly
not! For everything in the universe is created, controlled and regulated,
is dependent on others, is mortal and transitory; its slightest movements
are controlled by an inexorable law from which there can be no deviation.
Their helpless condition proves that the attire of divinity cannot fit
their body. They do not possess the slightest trace of divinity and have
absolutely nothing to do with it. It is a travesty of truth and a
folly of the highest magnitude to attribute divine status to them.
This is the meaning of La
ilaha, (i.e. there is no god) no human and material object possesses
the divine power and authority deserving worship and obedience.
But this is not the end of our quest. We have
found that divinity is not vested in any material or human element of the
universe, and that none of them possesses even the slightest trace of it.
This leads us to the conclusion that there is a Supreme Being, over and
above all that our eyes see in the universe. Who possesses Divine
attributes? Who is the Will behind all phenomena, the Creator of this grand
universe, the Controller of its superb Law, the Governor of its serene
rhythm, the Administrator of all its workings: He is Allah, the Lord of the
Universe and no one and nothing is associated in His Divinity. This is what
illallah (but Allah) means.
This knowledge is superior to all other kinds
of knowledge and the greater you exert yourself; the deeper will be your
conviction that this is the starting-point of all knowledge. In every field
of inquiry — be it that of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, biology,
zoology, economics, politics, sociology or the humanities, you will find
that the deeper you probe, the clearer become the indications of the truth
of La illaha illallah. It is this concept, which opens
up the doors of inquiry and investigation and illumines the pathways of
knowledge with the light of reality. And if you deny or disregard this
reality, you will find that at every step you meet disillusionment, for the
denial of this primary truth robs everything in the universe of its meaning
and significance.
Now let
us study the effects, which the belief in La illaha illallah has on the
life of a man, and see why he should always make a success of life and why
one who denies it becomes a failure in life, both here and in the
hereafter.
1.A believer in this Kalimah can never
be narrow in outlook. He believes in a God, Who is the Creator of the
heavens and the earth, the Master of the East and the West and Sustainer of
the entire universe. After this belief he does not regard anything in the
world as a stranger to himself. He looks on everything in the universe as
belonging to the same Lord he himself belongs to. His sympathy, love and
service are not confined to any particular sphere or group. His vision is
enlarged, his intellectual horizon widens, and his outlook becomes as
liberal and as boundless as is the Kingdom of God. How can this width
of vision and breadth of mind be achieved by an atheist, a polytheist or
one who believes in a deity supposed to possess limited and defective
powers like a man?
2.This
belief produces in man the highest degree of self-respect and self-esteem.
The believer knows that Allah alone is the Possessor of all power, and that
none besides Him can benefit or harm a person, or provide for his needs, or
give and take away life or wield authority or influence. This conviction
makes him indifferent to and independent and fearless of, all powers other
than those of God. He never bows his head in homage to any of God's
creatures, nor does he stretch out his hand before anyone else. He is not
overawed by anybody's greatness. This attitude of mind cannot be produced
by any other belief. For it is necessary that those who associate other
beings with God or who deny God, should bow in homage to some creatures,
regard them able to benefit or harm them, fear them and place their hopes
in them.
3.Along
with self-respect this belief also generates in man a sense of modesty and
humbleness. It makes him unostentatious and unpretending. A believer
never becomes proud, haughty or arrogant. The boisterous pride of power,
wealth and worth can have no room in his heart, because he knows that
whatever he possesses has been given to him by God, and that God can take
away just as He can give. In contrast to this, an unbeliever, when he
achieves some worldly merit, becomes proud and conceited because he
believes that his merit is due to his own worth. In the same way pride and
self-conceit are a necessary outcome and concomitant of shirk
(association of others with God in His divinity), because a mushrik
believes that he has a particular relation with the deities which does not
exist between them and other people.
4.This
belief makes man virtuous and upright. He has the conviction that there is
no other means of success and salvation for him except purity of soul and
righteousness of behaviour. He has perfect faith in God Who is above all
need, is related to none and is absolutely just. This belief creates in him
the consciousness that, unless he lives rightly and acts justly, he cannot
succeed. No influence or underhand activity can save him from ruin. As
against this, the kafirs and the mushriks always live on
false hopes. Some of them believe that God's son has atoned for their sins;
some think that they are God's favorites, and will not be punished; others
believe that their saints will intercede with God on their behalf; while
others make offerings to their deities and believe that by so bribing the
deities they acquire a license to do whatever they like. Such false beliefs
keep them enmeshed in sin and evil deeds; depending on their deities, they
do not bother about their souls and living pure and good lives. As to
atheists, they do not believe that there is any Being having power over
them, to Whom they should be responsible for their good or bad actions;
therefore they consider themselves independent to act in whatever wav they
like. Their own fancies become their gods and they live like slaves of
their wishes and desires.
5.The
believer never becomes despondent. He has a firm faith in God, Who is
Master of all the treasures of the earth and the heavens, Whose grace and
bounty have no limit and Whose powers are infinite. This faith imparts to
his heart extraordinary consolation, fills it with satisfaction and keeps
it filled with hope. Although he may meet with rejection from all sides in
this world, faith in and dependence on God never leave him, and on their
strength he goes on struggling. Such profound confidence can result from no
other belief than belief in one God. Mushriks. Kafirs, and
atheists have small hearts; they depend on limited powers: therefore in
times of trouble they are soon overwhelmed by despair and frequently, they
commit suicide2. (2. To have an idea of what a
harrowing situation this despair of heart can create, the reader is
referred to the thought-provoking -study of modern life by Mr. Colin
Wilson: The Outsider (11th impression. London 1957). The testimony of Prof.
Joad is also very explicit on this point. He writes about the West: "For
the first time in history here is coming to maturity a generation of men
and women who have no religion, and feel no need for one. They are content
to ignore it. Also they are very unhappy, and the suicide rain
abnormal high." (C. E. M. Joad, The Present and Future of Religion,
quoted by Sir Arnold Lunn, and yet so New. London. 1958. p. 228). As to the
world of [slam. let the views of a non-Muslim historian not in any way
sympathetic to Islam, be read with profit: "In this uncompromising
monotheism, with its simple, enthusiastic faith in the supreme rule of a
transcendent being, lies the chief strength of Islam. Its adherent enjoy a
onsciousness of contentment and resignation unknown among followers of most
creeds. “Suicide is Rare in Muslim Lands” (Philip K. Hitti, History of the
Arabs, 1951, p.129))
6. This belief produces in man a very strong
degree of determination, patient perseverance and trust in God. When he
makes up his mind and devotes his resources to fulfilling the Divine
Commands in order to secure God's pleasure, he is sure that he has the
support and backing of the Lord of the universe. This certainty makes him
firm and strong like a mountain, and no amount of difficulties, impediments
and opposition can make him give up his resolution. Shirk, kufr
and atheism have no such make.
7. This declaration inspires bravery in man.
There are two things which make a man cowardly: (i) fear of death and love
of safety, and (ii) the idea that there is someone else besides God who can
take away life and that man, by adopting certain devices, can ward off
death. Belief in La illaha illallah purges the mind of both
these ideas. The first idea goes out of his mind because he knows that his
life and his property and everything else really belong to God, and he
becomes ready to sacrifice his all for His pleasure. He gets rid of the
second idea because he knows that no weapon, no man or animal has the power
of taking away his life; God alone has the power to do so. A time has been
ordained for him. And all the forces of the world combined cannot take away
anyone’s life before that time. It is for this reason that no one is braver
than the one who has faith in God. Nothing can daunt him: not even the
strongest tempest of adversity and the mightiest of armies. Where can the
mushriks, the kafirs and the atheists get such great
determination, force and power from? They hold life the dearest thing in
the world: they believe that death is brought about by the enemy and can be
warded off by running away from him!
8. The belief in La ilaha
illallah creates an attitude of peace and contentment, purges the mind
of jealousy, envy and greed and keeps away the temptations of resorting to
base and unfair means for achieving success. The believer understands that
wealth is in God's hands, and He apportions it out, as He likes; that
honour, power, reputation and authority — everything — is subjected to His
will and He bestows them as He will; and that man's duty is only to
endeavour and to struggle fairly. He knows that success and failure depend
on God's grace: if He wills to give, no power in the world can prevent Him
from so doing: and if He does not will it, no power can force Him to. On
the other hand, the mushriks, the kafirs and the atheists
consider success and failure as dependent on their own efforts and the help
or opposition of earthly powers. Therefore, they always remain slaves to
cupidity and envy. They never hesitate to turn to bribery, flattery,
conspiracy and other kinds of base and unfair means to achieve their ends.
Jealousy and envy of others' success eat them away, and they will stop at
nothing to bring about the
9. The most important effect of La
ilaha illallah is that it makes man obey and observe God's
Law. One who has belief in it is sure that God knows everything hidden or
open and is nearer to him than his own jugular vein. If he commits a sin in
a secluded corner and in the darkness of night. He knows it; He even knows
our thoughts and intentions, bad or good. We can hide from everyone, but we
cannot hide anything from God; we can evade everyone, but it is impossible
to evade God's grip. The firmer a man's belief in this respect, the more
observant will he be of God's commands; he will shun what God has forbidden
and he will carry out His behests even in solitude and in darkness, because
he knows that God's 'police' never leaves him alone, and he dreads the
Court whose warrant he can never avoid. It is for this reason that the
first and the most important conditions for being a Muslim is to have faith
in La illaha illallah. 'Muslim', as you have already been
told, means one 'obedient to God' and obedience to God is impossible unless
one firmly believes in La ilaha illallah.
In the teachings of Muhammad (blessings of
Allah and peace be upon him) faith in One God is the most important and
fundamental principle. It is the bedrock of Islam and the mainspring of its
power. All other beliefs, commands and laws of Islam stand firm on
this foundation. All of them receive strength from this source. Take it
away, and there is nothing left of Islam.
The
Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) has further
instructed us to have faith in the existence of God's angels. This is the
second article of Islamic faith and is very important; because it absolves
the concept of Tawhid from all impurities and frees it from the
danger of every conceivable shadow of shirk (polytheism). The
polytheists have associated two kinds of creatures with God:
(a) Those which have material existence and
are perceptible to the human eye, such as the sun, moon, stars, fire,
water, animals, great men.
(b) Those who have no material existence and
are not perceptible to the human eye: the unseen beings who are believed to
be engaged in the administration of the universe; for instance, one
controls the air, another imparts light, another brings rains, and so on
and so forth.
The alleged deities of the first kind have
material existence and are before man's eye. The falsity of their claim has
been fully exposed by the Kalimah — La ilaha
illallah. This is sufficient to dispose of the idea that they enjoy any
share in divinity or deserve any reverence at all. The second kind of
things, being immaterial, are hidden from the human eye and are mysterious;
the polytheists are more inclined to pin their faith in them. They consider
them to be deities, gods and God's children. They make their images and
render offerings to them. In order to purify belief in the Unity of God,
and to clear it from the admixture of this second kind of unseen creatures,
this particular article of faith has been expounded.
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him) has informed us that these imperceptible spiritual beings, whom
people believe to be deities of gods or God's children, are really His
angels. They have no share in God's divinity; they cannot deviate from His
commands even by the slightest fraction of an inch. God employs them to
administer His Kingdom, and they carry out His orders exactly and
accurately. They have no authority to do anything of their own accord; they
cannot present to God any scheme conceived by themselves, they are not even
authorized to intercede with God for any man.
To worship them and to solicit their help is
degrading and debasing for man. For, on the very first day of man's
creation, God had made them prostrate themselves before Adam, granted to
him greater knowledge than they possessed and bestowed on Adam His own
vicegerency on this earth in preference to them.3 (3. See Al-Quran,
ii.34 and vii.11.) What debasement can, therefore, be greater for man
than prostrating himself before those who had prostrated themselves before
him!
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him) forbade us to worship angels, and to associate them with God in
His divinity. He also informed us that they were the chosen creatures of
God, free from sin, from their very nature unable to disobey God, and ever
engaged in carrying out His orders. Moreover, he informed us that these
angels of God surround us from all sides, are attached to us, and are
always in our company. They observe and note all our actions, good or bad.
They preserve a complete record of every man's life. After death, when we
shall be brought before God, they will present a full report of our
life's-work on earth, wherein we shall find everything correctly recorded,
not a single movement left out, however insignificant and however carefully
concealed it may be.
We have
not been informed of the intrinsic nature of the angels. Only some of their
virtues or attributes have been mentioned to us, and we have been asked to
believe in their existence. We have no other means of knowing their nature,
their attributes and their qualities. It would therefore, be sheer folly on
our part to attribute any form or quality to them of our own accord. We
must believe in them exactly as we have been asked to do. To deny their
existence is kufr for, first, we have no reason for such a denial,
and, second, our denial of them would be tantamount to attributing untruth
to Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). We believe in their
existence only because God's true Messenger has informed us of it.
The third
article of faith which Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him)
has commanded us to believe is faith in the Books of God; Books which He
has sent down to mankind through His Prophets.
God had revealed His Books to His Prophets
before Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and these books
were sent down in the same way as He sent down the Qur'an to Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). We have been informed of the
names of some of these books: Books of Abraham, the Torah of Moses.
Zabur (Psalms) of David, and the lnjil (Gospel) of Jesus Christ.
We have not been informed of the names of Books, which were given to other
Prophets. Therefore with regard to other existing religious books, we are
not in a position to say with, certainty whether they were originally
revealed books or not.
But we tacitly believe that whatever Books
were sent down by God are alt true.
Of the Books we have been told, the Books of
Abraham are extinct and not traceable in existing world literature. David's
Zabur, the Torah and the Injil exist with the Jews and the
Christians, but the Qur'an informs us that people have changed and added to
these books, and God's words have been mixed up with texts of their own
making. This corruption and pollution of the Books has been so large and so
evident that even the Jews and the Christians themselves admit that they do
not possess their original texts, and have only their translations, which
have been altered over many centuries and are still being changed. On
studying these Books we find many passages and accounts, which evidently
cannot be from God. God's words and those of man are mixed together in
these books, and we have no means of knowing which portions are from God
and which from man.
We have been commanded to believe in
previously revealed Books only in the sense of admitting that, before the
Qur'an, God had also sent down books through His Prophets, that they were
all from one and the same God, the same God Who sent the Qur'an and that
the sending of the Qur'an as a Divine Book is not a new and strange event,
but only confirms, restates and completes those divine instructions which
people had mutilated or lost in antiquity4. (4.
Even a cursory study of the first books of the Old Testament and the four
Gospels of the New Testament reveals that they are the productions of men
and in these writings some parts of the original Psalms of David and the
Gospels of Christ have been incorporated. The first five books of the Old
Testament do not constitute the original Torah, but parts of the Torah have
been mixed up with other narrative written by human beings and the original
guidance of the. Lord is lost. Similarly, the four Gospels of Christ are
not the original Gospels as they came from the Prophet Christ (peace be
upon him). They are in fact, the life histories of Christ compiled by four
different persons on the basis of knowledge and hearsay, and certain parts
of the original Gospel also fell into them. But the original and the
fictitious, the Divine and the human, are so intermingled that the grain
cannot be separated from the chaff. The fact is that the original Word of
God is preserved neither with the Jews nor with the Christians. The Qur'an,
on the other hand, is fully preserved and not a syllable has been changed
or left out of it.)
The Qur'an is the last of the Divine Books
sent down by God and there are some very pertinent differences between it
and the previous Books. These differences may briefly be stated as follows:
1.The original texts of most of the former
Divine Books were lost altogether, and only their translations exist today.
The Qur'an, on the other hand, exists exactly as it was revealed to the
Prophet: not a word — nay, not a syllable of it — has been changed. It is
available in its original text and the Word of God has been preserved for
all time.
2.In the former Divine Books man mixed his
words with God's, but in the Qur'an we find only the words of God — and in
their pristine purity. This is admitted even by the opponents of Islam.
3.In respect of no other sacred Book
possessed by different peoples can it be said on
the basis of authentic historical evidence
that it really belongs to the same Prophet to whom it is
attributed. In the case of some of them it is not even known in what age
and to which Prophet they were revealed. As for the Qur'an, the evidence
that it was revealed to Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him)
is so voluminous, so convincing, so strong and so compelling that even the
fiercest critics of Islam cannot cast doubt on it. This evidence is so
detailed that even the occasion and place of the revelation of many verses
and injunctions of the Qur'an can be known with certainty.
4.The former Divine Books were sent down in
languages, which died long ago. No nation or community now speaks those
languages and there are only a few people who claim to understand them.
Thus, even if the Books existed today in their original and unadulterated
form, it would be virtually impossible in our age to correctly understand
and interpret their injunctions and put them into practice in their
required form. The language of the Qur'an, on the other hand is a living
language; millions of people speak it, and millions more know and
understand it. It is being taught and learnt in nearly every university of
the world; every man can learn it, and he who has not time to learn it can
find men everywhere who know this language and can explain to him the
meaning of the Qur'an.
5.Each one of the existing sacred Books found
among different nations of the world has been addressed to a particular
people. Each one contains a number of commands which seem to have been
meant for a particular period of history and which meet the needs of that
age only. They are neither needed today, nor can they now be smoothly and
properly put into practice. It is evident from this that these Books were
particularly meant for that particular people and not for the world.
Furthermore, they were not sent to be followed permanently by even the
people they were intended for; they were meant to be acted upon only for a
certain period. In contrast to this the Qur'an is addressed to all mankind;
not a single injunction of it can be suspected as having been addressed to
a particular people. In the same manner, all the commands and injunctions
in the Qur'an can be acted upon at any place and in any age. This proves
that the Qur'an is meant for the whole world, and is an eternal code for
human life.
6.There is no denying the fact that the
previous divine Books also enshrined good and virtue; they also taught the
principles of morality and truthfulness and presented the mode of living,
which was to God's pleasure. But none of them was comprehensive enough to
embrace all that is necessary for a virtuous human life. Some of them
excelled in one respect others in some other. It is the Qur'an and the
Qur'an alone which enshrined not only all that was good in the former Books
but also perfects the way of Allah and presents it in its entirety and
outlines that code of life which comprehends all that Is necessary for man
on this earth.
7.On account of man's interpolations, many
things have been inserted in those Books, which are against reality,
revolting to reason and an affront to every instinct of justice. There are
things, which are cruel and unjust, and vitiate man's beliefs and actions.
Furthermore, things have unfortunately been inserted that are obscene,
indecent and highly immoral. The Qur'an is free of all such rubbish. It
contains nothing against reason, and nothing that can be proved wrong. None
of its injunctions is unjust; nothing in it is misleading. Of indecency and
immorality not a trace can be found. From the beginning to the end the Book
is full of wisdom and truth. It contains the best of philosophy and the
choicest of law for human civilisation. It points out the right path and
guides man to success and salvation.
It is on account of these special features
of the Qur'an that all the peoples of the world have been directed to have
faith in it, to give up all other Books and to follow it alone.
The study of the difference between the
Qur'an and other divine Books makes one easily understand that the natures
of faith in the Qur’an and of belief in the former Books are not similar.
Faith in the earlier divine Books
should be limited to the confirmation that they were all from God, were
true and were sent down to fulfill, in their time, the same purpose for
which the Qur'an has been sent. On the other hand, belief in the Qur'an
should be of the nature that it is purely and
absolutely God's own words, that it is
perfectly true, that every word of it
is preserved, that everything mentioned
therein is right, that it is the
bounden duly of man lo carry out
in his life each and every
command of it and that whatever be against
it must be rejected.
In the
last chapter we explained that God's Messengers had been raised among every
people, and that they all brought essentially that same religion — Islam —
which the Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him)
propagated. In this respect all the Messengers of God stand on a par with
each other. If a man belies any one of them, he, as it were, belies all,
and if a man affirms and believes in one of them, he must and ought to
affirm all. The reason is simple. Suppose ten men make one and the same
statement; if you admit one of them to be true, you ipso facto admit
the remaining nine as true, and if you belie any one of them, by
implication you belie all of them. It is for this reason that in Islam it
is necessary to have implicit faith in all the Prophets of God. One who
does not believe in a particular Prophet would be a Kafir, though he
may profess faith in all the other Prophets.
Tradition has it that the total number of
Prophets sent to different peoples at different times is 124,000. If you
consider the life of the world since it was first inhabited and the number
of different peoples and nations that have been on it, this number will not
appear too great. We have to positively believe in those of the Prophets
whose names have been mentioned in the Qur'an. Regarding the rest, we are
instructed to believe that all the Prophets sent by God for the guidance of
mankind were true.
Thus we believe in all the Prophets raised in
India, China, Persia, Egypt, Africa, Europe and other countries of the
world, but we are not in a position to be definite about a particular
person outside the list of Prophets named in the Qur'an, whether or not he
was a Prophet, for we have not been told anything definite about him. Nor
are we permitted to say anything against the holy men of other religions.
It is quite possible that some of them might have been God's Prophets, and
their followers corrupted their teachings after their demise, just as the
followers of Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them) have done. Therefore,
whenever we express any opinion about them, it should be about the tenets
and rituals of their religions; as for the founders of those religions, we
will remain scrupulously silent, lest we should become guilty of
irreverence towards a Prophet.
All the Prophets of God have been deputed by
Him to teach the same straight path of Islam'. In this sense there is
no difference between Muhammad and other Prophets (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon them all), and we have been ordered to believe in all of them
alike. But in spite of this equality, there are the following three
differences between them:
1.The Prophets of the past came to
certain people for certain periods of time, while Muhammad (blessings of
Allah and peace be upon him) has been sent for the whole world and for all
time to come5. (5 This point has been discussed in
detail in Chapter Three.)
2.The teachings of those Prophets have either
disappeared altogether from the world, or whatever of them remains is
intermingled with many erroneous and fictitious statements. For this
reason, even if anyone wishes to follow their teachings, he cannot do so.
In contrast to this, the teachings of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him), his biography, his discourses, his way of living, his
morals, habits and virtues, in short, all the details of his life and work,
are preserved. Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him),
therefore, is the only one of the whole line of Prophets who is a living
personality, and in whose footsteps it is-possible to follow correctly and
confidently.
3.The guidance imparted through the Prophets
of the past was not complete. Every Prophet was followed by another
who effected alterations and additions in the teachings and injunctions of
his predecessors and, in this way, the chain of reform and progress
continued. That is why the teachings of the earlier Prophets, after the
lapse of time, were lost in oblivion. Obviously there was no need to
preserve earlier teachings when amended and improved guidance had taken
their place. At last the most perfect code of guidance was imparted to
mankind through Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and all
previous codes were automatically abrogated, for it is futile and imprudent
to follow an incomplete code when the complete code exists. He who follows
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) follows all the
Prophets, for whatever was good and eternally workable in their teachings
has been embodied in his teachings. Whoever, therefore, rejects and refuses
to follow Muhammad's (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings,
and chooses to follow some other Prophet, only deprives himself of that
vast amount of useful and valuable instruction and guidance which is
embodied in Muhammad's (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him)
teachings, which never existed in the books of the earlier Prophets and
which was revealed only through the Last of the Prophets.
This is why it is incumbent on each and every
human being to have faith in Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon
him) and follow him alone. To become a true Muslim (a follower of the
Prophet's way of life) it is necessary to have complete faith in Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and to affirm that:
(a) He is a
true Prophet of God;
(b) His teachings are
absolutely perfect, free from any defect or error; and
(c) He is the
Last Prophet of God. After him no Prophet will appear among any people till
the Day of Judgement, nor is any such personage going to appear in whom it
would be essential for a Muslim to believe.
The fifth article of Islamic Faith is belief
in life after death. The Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him) has directed us to believe in resurrection after death and in the
Day of Judgement. The essential ingredients of this belief, as taught to us
by him, are as follows:
That the life of this world and of all that
is in it will come to an end on an appointed day. Everything will be
annihilated. That day is called Qiyamah, i.e. the Last Day.
That all the human being's who have lived in
the world since its inception will then be restored to life and will be
presented before God Who will sit in judgement on that day. This is called
Hashr (Resurrection).
That the entire record of every man and woman
— of all their doings and misdoings — will be presented before God for
final judgement.
That one who excels in goodness will be
rewarded; one whose evils and wrongs outweigh his good deeds will be
punished.
That those who emerge successful in this
judgement will go to Paradise and the doors of eternal bliss will be opened
to them; those who are condemned and deserve punishment will be sent to
Hell — the abode of fire and torture.
Belief in
life after death has always been an integral part of the teachings of the
Prophets. Every Prophet asked his followers to believe in it, in the same
way as the last of the Prophets, Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him), has asked us to do. This has always been an essential condition
of being a Muslim. All Prophets have categorically declared that one who
does not believe in it, or casts doubts on it, is a Kafir. This is
so because denial of life after death makes all other beliefs meaningless.
This denial also destroys the very sanction for a good life and man is
driven to a life of ignorance and disbelief. A little reflection makes this
quite clear.
In your everyday life, whenever you are asked
to do anything, you immediately think: what is the use of doing it and what
harm is involved in not doing it? This is in the very nature of man. He
instinctively regards a useless action as totally unnecessary. You will
never be willing to waste your time and energy in useless and unproductive
jobs. Similarly, you will not be very eager to avoid a thing that is
harmless. And the general rule is that the deeper your conviction about the
utility of a thing, the firmer will be your response to it; and the more
doubtful you are about its efficacy, the more wavering will be your
attitude. After all, why does a child put his hand into fire? Because he is
not sure that fire burns. Why does he evade study? Because he does not
fully grasp the importance and benefits of education and does not believe
in what his elders try to impress on his mind.
Now think of the man who does not believe in
the Day of Judgement. Will he not consider belief in God and a life in
accordance with His code of no consequence? What value will he attach to a
life in pursuit «f His pleasure? To him neither obedience to God is of any
advantage, nor disobedience to Him of any harm. How, then, can it be
possible for him to scrupulously follow the injunctions of God, His
Prophet, and His Book? What incentive will there be for him to undergo
trials and sacrifices and to avoid worldly pleasures? And if a man does not
follow the code of God and lives according to his own likes and dislikes,
of what use is his belief in the existence of God, if indeed he has any
such belief? That is not all. If you reflect still deeper, you will come to
the conclusion that belief in life after death is the most decisive factor
in the life of a man. Its acceptance or rejection determines the very
course of his life and behaviour.
A man who has in view success or failure in
this world alone will be concerned with immediate benefits and ills. He
will not be prepared to undertake any good act if he has no hope of gaining
thereby some worldly interest, nor will he be keen to avoid any wrong act
if it is not injurious to his interests in this world.
But a man who believes in the next world as
well and is convinced of the final consequences of his acts will look on
all worldly gains and losses as temporary and transitory and will not put
his eternal bliss at stake for a passing gain. He will look on things in
their wider perspective and always keep the permanent benefit or harm in
view. He will do the good, however costly it may be to him in terms of
worldly gains, or however injurious it may be to his immediate interests:
and he will avoid the wrong, however tempting it may look. He will judge
things from the viewpoint of their eternal consequences and not according
to his whims and caprices.
Thus there is a radical difference between
the beliefs, approaches and lives of the two persons. One's idea of a good
act is limited to whether in this brief temporary life it will bring gain
in the shape of money, property, public applause and similar other things
which give him position, power, reputation and worldly happiness. Such
things become his objectives in life. Fulfillment of his own wishes and
self-aggrandizement become the be-all and end-all of his life. And he does
not draw back even from cruel and unjust means to achieve his ends.
Similarly, his conception of a wrong act is one, which may involve a risk
or injury to his interests in this world such as loss of property and life,
harming of health, blackening of reputation or some other unpleasant
consequence.
In contrast to this man, the believer's
concept of good and evil will be quite different. To him all that pleases
God is good and all that invokes His displeasure and wrath is evil. A good
act, according to him, will remain good even if it brings no benefit to him
in this world, or even entails loss of some worldly possession or injury to
his -personal interests. He will be confident that God will reward him in
the eternal life and will be the real success. Similarly, he will not fall
prey to evil deeds merely for some worldly gain, for he knows that even if
he escapes punishment in his short worldly life, in the end he will be the
loser because he will not be able to escape punishment from the court of
God. He does not believe in the relativity of morals but sticks to the
absolute standards revealed by God and lives according to them irrespective
of gain or injury in this world.
Thus it
is the belief or disbelief in life after death, which makes man adopt
different courses in life. For one who does not believe in the Day of
Judgement it is absolutely impossible to fashion his life as suggested by
Islam.
Islam says "In the way of God give charity
(zakah) to the poor." His answer is: "No zakah will lessen my
wealth: I will, instead, take interest on my money," And in its collection
he will not hesitate to take everything belonging to the debtors however
poor or hungry they may be. Islam says: "Always speak the truth and shun
lying, though you may gain ever so much by lying and lose ever so much by
speaking the truth." But his reply will be "Well, what shall I do with a
truth which is of no use to me here, and which instead brings loss to me;
and why should I avoid lying where it can bring benefit to me without any
risk, even that of a bad name?" He visits a lonely place and finds a
precious metal lying there; in such a situation Islam says: "This is not
your property, do not take it," but he would say: "This is a thing I have
come by without any cost or trouble; why should I not have it? There is no
one to see me pick this up, no one who might report it to the police or
give evidence against me in a court of law, or give me a bad name among the
people. Why should I not make use of this valuable?" Someone secretly keeps
a deposit with this man, and eventually he dies. Islam says: "Be honest
with the property deposited with you and give it over to the heirs of the
deceased." He says: "Why? There is no evidence of his property being with
me; his children also have no knowledge of it. When I can appropriate it
without any difficulty, without any fear of legal claim, or stain on my
reputation, why should I not do so?"
In short, at every step in life, Islam will
direct him to walk in a certain direction and adopt a certain attitude and
course of behaviour; but he will go in the opposite direction. For Islam
measures and values everything from the viewpoint of its eternal
consequence; while such a person always has in view only the immediate and
earthly outcome. Now, you can understand why a man cannot be a Muslim
without belief in the Day of Judgement. To be a Muslim is d very great
thing; the fact is that one cannot even become a good man without this
belief, for the denial of the Day of Judgement degrades man from humanity
to a place even lower than that of the lowest of animals.
So far we have discussed the need and
importance of belief in the Day of Judgement. Now let us consider how far
the constituents of the belief are rationally understandable. The fact is
that whatever Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) has told
us about life after death is clearly borne out by reason. Although our
belief in that Day is based on our implicit trust in the Messenger of God,
rational reflection not only confirms this belief but also reveals that
Muhammad's (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) teachings in this
respect are much more reasonable and understandable than any other
viewpoint about life after death.
The following viewpoints are found about
life after death:
1.Some people say that there is nothing left
of man after death, and that after this life-ending event there is no other
life. According to these people, belief in life after death has no reality.
They say it is scientifically impossible. This is the view of the atheists
who also claim to be scientific in their approach and bring in Western
science to support their arguments.
2.Other people maintain that man, in order to
bear the consequences of his deeds, is repeatedly regenerated in this
world. If he lives a bad life, he will assume in the next generation the
shape of some animal, such as a dog or a cat, or some tree or some lower
kind of man. If his acts have been good, he will be reborn as a man into a
higher class. This viewpoint is found in some Eastern religions.
3.There is a third viewpoint which calls for
belie!' in the Day of Judgement, the Resurrection, man's presence in the
Divine Court, and the meting out of reward and punishment. This is the
common belief of all the Prophets.
Now let us consider these viewpoints one by
one.
The first group, which arrogates to itself
the authority and support of science, alleges that there is no life after
death. They say that they have never seen anybody coming back from the
dead. After death a man is reduced to dust; therefore, death is the end of
life and there is no life after death. But consider this reasoning: is this
really a scientific argument? Is the claim really founded on reason? If
they have not seen a single case of revival after death, they can only say
that they do not know what will
happen after death. But, instead of remaining within this
limit, they declare that nothing will happen after
death, at the same time alleging that they speak out of knowledge!
In fact they merely generalize on ignorance. Science tells us nothing —
negative or positive — in this respect and their assertion that life after
death has no existence is totally unfounded. Their claim is not dissimilar
to the claim of an ignoramus who has not seen an aeroplane and on that
'knowledge' proclaims that aeroplanes do not exist at all! Because somebody
has not seen a thing, it does not mean that that thing does not exist. No
man, not even the whole of humanity, if it has not seen a thing, can claim
that such a thing does not, or car-not, exist. This claim is out and out
unscientific. No reasonable man can give it any weight.
Now look at the beliefs of the second group.
According to them, a human being is a human being because in his previous
animal form he had done good deeds; and an animal is an animal because
previously as a human being he had behaved badly. In other words, to be a
man or an animal is the consequence of one's deeds in one's former form.
One may well ask "Which of them existed first, man or animal?" If they say
man preceded animal, then they will have to accept that he must have been
an animal before that, and was given a human form for its good deeds. If
they say it was animal they will have to concede that there must have been
before that a man who was transformed into an animal for his bad deeds.
This leads to a vicious circle; the advocates of this belief cannot settle
on any form for the first creature, for every generation implies a
preceding generation so that the succeeding generation may be considered as
the consequence of the former. This is simply absurd.
Now consider the third viewpoint. Its first
proposition is: that "this world will one day come to an end. God will
destroy and annihilate the universe, and in its place will evolve another
higher and far superior cosmos."
This
statement is undeniably true. No doubt can be cast on it. The more we
reflect on the nature of the cosmos, the more clearly it is proved that the
existing system is not permanent and everlasting: all the forces working in
it are limited in their nature, and will one day be exhausted. That is why
the scientists agree that one day the sun will become cold and will give up
all its energy, stars will collide with one another and the whole system of
the universe will be upset and destroyed. Moreover, if evolution is true in
the case of the constituents of this universe, why may it not be true for
the whole of it? To think of the universe becoming totally non-existent is
more improbable than that it will pass into another evolutionary stage, and
another, much-improved order of things will emerge.
The second proposition of this belief is that
"man will again be given life". Is it impossible? If so, how did the
present life of man become possible? It is evident that God Who
created man in this world can do so in the next. Not only is it a
possibility, it is also a positive necessity, as will be shown later.
The third proposition is that "the record of
all the actions of man in this world is preserved and will be presented on
the Day of Resurrection". The proof of the truth of this proposition is
provided today by science itself. The sounds, which we make, produce slight
waves in the air and die out. It has been discovered that the sound leaves
its impression on its surrounding objects and can be reproduced. Gramophone
records are made on this principle. From this it can be understood that the
record of every movement of man is being impressed on everything, which
comes into contact with the waves produced by the movements. This shows
that the record of all our deeds is completely preserved and can be
reproduced.
The fourth proposition is that "on the Day of
Resurrection. God will hold His Court and, with just judgement, reward or
punish man for his good and bad deeds". What is unreasonable about this?
Reason itself demands that God should hold His court and pronounce
judgement. We see men doing good deeds and gaining nothing in this world.
We see other men doing bad deeds and not suffering for it. Not only this,
we see thousands of cases of good acts bringing trouble on the doer, and of
bad deeds resulting in the happiness and gratification of the guilty
person. When we notice these events happening every day, our reason and
sense of justice demand that a time must come when the man who does good
must be rewarded and the one who does evil must be punished. If you have a
tin of petrol and a match- box, you can set fire to the house of your
opponent, and apparently escape every consequence. Does this mean
that such an offence has no consequences at all? Certainly not! It means
only that its physical outcome has appeared, and the moral outcome is
hidden. Do you really think it reasonable that it should never appear? If
you say it should, the question is, where? Certainly not in this world,
where only the physical consequences of actions manifest themselves fully,
and rational and moral consequences do not become apparent.
Results and consequences of this higher
category can appear only if there comes into existence another order of
things wherein rational and moral laws reign supreme and occupy the
governing position and where the physical laws are made subject to them.
That is the next world, which, as we have said before, is the next
evolutionary stage of the universe. It is evolutionary in the sense that it
will be governed by moral rather than by physical laws. The rational
consequences of man's actions, which are hidden wholly or partly in this
world, will then appear. Man's stature will be determined by his rational
and moral worth judged in accordance with his conduct in this life of test
and trial. There you will not find a worthy man serving under a fool, or a
morally superior man in a position inferior to a wretch, as is the case in
this world.
The last proposition of this belief is the
existence of Paradise and Hell, which is also not impossible. If God can
make the sun, the moon, the stars and the earth, why should He not be able
to make Paradise and Hell? When He holds His Court, and pronounces just
judgments, rewarding the meritorious and punishing the guilty, there must
be a place where the meritorious may enjoy their reward — honour, happiness
and gratification of all kinds — and another place where the condemned may
feel debasement, pain and misery.
After considering all these questions, no
reasonable person can escape the conclusion that belief in life after death
is highly acceptable to reason and commonsense, and that there is nothing
in it, which can be said to be unreasonable or impossible. Moreover,
when a true Prophet like Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon
him) has stated this to be a fact, and it involves nothing but what is good
for us, wisdom lies in believing in it implicitly and not in rejecting it
without any sound reasons.
The above are the five articles of faith,
which form the foundation for the superstructure of Islam. Their gist is
contained in the short sentence known as Kalimah-tayyibah. When you
declare La illaha illallah (there is no deity but
Allah), you give up all false deities, and profess that you are a creature
of the One God; and when you add to these words Muhammad-ur-Rasulullah
(Muhammad is Allah's Messenger) you confirm and admit the Prophethood of
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). With the admission of
his Prophethood it becomes obligatory that you should believe in the divine
nature and attributes of God, in His angels, in His Revealed Books and in
life after death, and earnestly follow that method of obeying God and
worshipping Him which the Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be
upon him) has asked us to follow. That way lies the road to success and
salvation,
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The earlier discussion has made it clear that
the Prophet Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) has
enjoined us to believe in five articles of faith:
1. Belief in one God Who has absolutely no
associate with Him in His divinity.
2. Belief in God's Angels;
3. Belief in God's Books, and in the Holy
Qur'an as His Last Book.
4. Belief in God's Prophets, and in Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) as His Last and Final Messenger:
and Belief in life after death.
These five articles make up the bedrock of
Islam. One who believes in them enters the fold of Islam and becomes a
member of the Muslim community. But one does not become a complete Muslim
by mere vocal profession alone. To become a complete Muslim one has to
fully carry out in practice the instructions given by Muhammad (blessings
of Allah and peace be upon him) as ordained by God.
For belief in God makes practical obedience
to Him incumbent; and it is obedience to God, which constitutes the
religion of Islam. By this belief you profess that Allah, the one God,
alone is your God, and this means that He is your Creator and you are His
creature; that He is your Master and you are His slave; that He is your
Ruler and you are His subject. Having acknowledged Him as your Master and
Ruler, if you refuse to obey Him you become a self-admitted rebel. Along
with faith in God, you believe that the Qur'an is God's Book. This means
that you have admitted all the contents of the Qur'an to be from God. Thus
it becomes your bounden duty to accept and obey whatever is contained in
it. Along with that, you have admitted Muhammad (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him) to be God's Messenger, which means that you have
admitted that each and every one of his orders and prohibitions are from
God. After this admission, obedience to him becomes your duty. You will
therefore be a fully-fledged Muslim only when your practice is consistent
with your profession.
Now let us see what code of conduct
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) has taught as ordained
by God Almighty. The first and foremost things in this respect are the
lbadah — the primary duties which must
be observed by each and every
person professing to belong to
the Muslim
community.
lbadah is an Arabic word derived
from 'Abd (a slave) and it means submission. Allah is your Master
and you are His slave and whatever a slave does in obedience to and for the
pleasure of his Master is 'lbadah. The Islamic concept of 'lbadah
is very wide. If you free your speech from filth, falsehood, malice and
abuse and speak the truth and talk goodly things, and do all this only
because God has so ordained, they constitute 'lbadah, however
secular they may appear. If you obey the law of God in letter and spirit in
your commercial and economic affairs and abide by it in your dealings with
your parents, relatives, friends and all those who come into contact with
you, all these activities of yours are also 'lbadah. If you help the
poor and the destitute, give food to the hungry and serve the afflicted and
do all this not for any personal gain but only to seek the pleasure of God,
this is all 'lbadah. Even your economic activities — the activities
you undertake to earn your living and to feed your dependants — are 'lbadah
if you remain honest and truthful in them, and observe the law of God.
In short, all your activities are 'lbadah
if they are in accordance with the law of God and your ultimate objective
is to seek the pleasure of God. Thus, whenever you do good or avoid evil
for tear of God, in whatever sphere of life and field of activity, you are
discharging your Islamic obligations. This is the true significance of 'lbadah,
that is, 'total submission to the pleasure of Allah, the moulding into the
patterns of Islam one's entire life, leaving out not even the most
insignificant part.
To help achieve this aim, a set of formal
lbadah (worships) has been drawn lip as a course of training. The more
assiduously we follow the training, the better equipped we are to harmonies
ideals and practices. The 'lbadah are thus the pillars on which the
edifice of Islam rests.
Salah is
the most fundamental and the most important of these obligations. Salah
are the prescribed daily prayers, which consist in repeating and refreshing
five times a day the belief in which you repose your faith.
You get up early in the morning, cleanse
yourself, and present yourself before your Lord for prayer. The various
poses that you assume during your prayers are the very embodiment of the
spirit of submission; the various recitals remind you of your commitments
to your God. You seek His guidance and ask Him again and again to enable
you to avoid His Wrath and follow His Chosen Path. You read out from the
Book of the Lord and express witness to the truth of the Prophets and also
refresh your belief in the Day of Judgement and enliven in your memory the
fact that you have to appear before your Lord and give an account of your
entire life.
This is how your day starts. After a few
hours the muezzin calls you to prayers and you again submit to your
God and refresh your covenant with Him. You dissociate yourself from your
worldly engagements for a few moments and seek audience before God. This
once again brings to the fore of your mind your real role in life. After
this rededication you revert to your occupations before presenting yourself
to the Lord again a few hours later. This again acts as a reminder to you,
and you once more refocuses your attention on the stipulations of your
Faith. When the sun sets and the darkness of the night begins to shroud
you, you once more submit yourself to God in prayers so that you may not
forget your duties and obligations in the midst of the approaching shadows
of the night. After a few hours you again appear before your Lord for your
last prayer of the day. Thus before going to bed you once again refresh
your faith and prostrate yourself before your God. And this is how you
complete your day. The frequency and timings of the prayers never let you
lose sight of the object and mission of life in the maze of worldly
activities.
It is easy to understand how daily prayers
strengthen the foundations of your faith, prepare you for the observance of
a life of virtue and obedience to God, and refresh that belief from which
springs courage, sincerity, purposefulness, purity of heart, advancement of
the soul and enrichment of morals.
Now see how this is achieved. You perform
ablution in the way prescribed by the Holy Prophet (blessings of Allah and
peace be upon him). You also say your prayers according to the instructions
of the Prophet. Why do you do so? Simply because you believe in the
Prophethood of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and deem
it your bounden duty to follow him ungrudgingly.
Why do you not intentionally misrecite the
Qur'an? Is it not because you regard the Book as the Word of God and deem
it a sin to deviate from even a letter? In prayers you recite many things
quietly and if you do not recite them or make any deviation from them there
is no one to check you. But you never do so intentionally. Why? Because you
believe that God is ever watchful, is listening to all that you recite and
is aware of things both open and hidden. What makes you say your prayers at
places where there is no one to ask you to offer them or even to see you
offering them? Is it not because of your belief that God is always looking
at you? What makes you leave some important business and hurry towards the
mosque for prayers? What makes you break your sweet sleep in the early
hours of the morning, come to the mosque in the heat of noon and leave your
evening entertainment for the sake of prayers? Is it anything other than
your sense of duty — your realisation that you must fulfill your
responsibility to the Lord, come what may? And why are you afraid of any
mistake in your prayer? Because your heart is filled with the fear of God
and you know that you have to appear before Him on the Day of Judgement and
give an account of your entire life.
Now look! Can there be a better course of
moral and spiritual training than prayers? It is this training which makes
a man a perfect Muslim. It reminds him of his covenant with God, refreshes
his faith in Him and keeps the belief in the Day of Judgement alive and
ever-present before his mind's eye. It makes him follow the Prophet and
trains him in the observance of his duties. This is indeed a strict
training for matching one's practice to one's ideals.
Obviously, if a man's consciousness of his
duties towards his Creator is so acute that he prizes it above all worldly
gains and keeps refreshing it through prayers, he will be honest in all his
dealings for, otherwise, he will be inviting the displeasure of God which
he has all along striven to avoid. He will abide by the law of God in all
aspects of his life in the same way as he follows it in the five prayers
every day. This man can be relied on in other fields of activity as well,
for if the shadows of sin or deceit approach him, he will try to avoid
them. If even after such training, a man disobeys the law of God, it can
only be because of some intrinsic depravity of his self.
Then, again, you must say your prayers in
congregation and especially so the Friday prayers. This creates among
Muslims a bond of love and mutual understanding. It arouses in them a sense
of collective unity and fosters among them national fraternity. Prayers are
also a symbol of equality, for the poor and the rich, the low and the high,
the rulers and the ruled, the educated and the unlettered, the black and
the white; all stand in a row and prostrate themselves before their Lord.
Prayers also inculcate a strong sense of discipline and obedience to an
elected leader. In short, prayers train people in all those virtues, which
make possible the development of a rich individual and collective life.
These are a few of the myriads of
benefits we can derive from our daily prayers1. (1. For a detailed
discussion of the nature and significance of salah, see Maulana
Mawdudi’s book: Islami lbaadat Par Tahqiqi Nazar (A
Treatise on Islamic Worship). — Editor.
If we refuse to avail ourselves of them we and only we
are the losers. Shirking the prayers can only mean one of two things.
Either we do not recognise prayers as our duty or we recognise them as our
duty and still shirk them. In the first case, our claim to faith is a
shameless lie, for if we refuse to take orders, we no longer acknowledge
God's Authority. In the second case, if we recognise His Authority and
still flout His Commands, we are the most unreliable of the creatures that
ever trod the earth. For if we can do this to the highest authority in the
universe, what guarantee is there that we shall not do the same in our
dealings with fellow human beings? And if double-dealing dominates a
society, terrible discord will be the certain outcome!
What prayers seek to do five times a day
fasting in the month of Ramadan (the ninth month of the lunar year) does
once a year. During this period we eat not a grain of food nor drink a drop
of water from dawn to dusk, no matter how delicious the dish or how hungry
or thirsty we feel. What is it that makes us voluntarily undergo such
rigours? It is nothing but faith in God and the fear of Him and the Day of
Judgement. Each and every moment during our fast we suppress our passions
and desires and proclaim, by so doing, the supremacy of the Law of God.
This consciousness of duty and spirit of patience that incessant fasting
for a whole month inculcates in us help us strengthen our faith. Rigour and
discipline during this month bring us face to face with the realities of
life and help us make our life, during the rest of the year, a life of true
subservience to His Will.
From yet another point of view fasting has an
immense impact on society, for all the Muslims irrespective of their status
must fast during the same month. This emphasises the essential equality of
men and thus goes a long way towards creating in them sentiments of love
and brotherhood. During Ramadan evil conceals itself while good comes to
the fore and the whole atmosphere is filled with piety and purity.
This discipline has been imposed on us for
our own advantage. Those who do not fulfill this primary duty cannot be
relied on to discharge their other duties. But the worst are those who
during this holy month do not hesitate to eat or drink in public. They show
by their conduct that they care nothing for the commands of Allah in Whom
they profess their belief as Creator and Sustainer. Not only this, they
also show that they are not loyal members of the Muslim community — rather,
they have nothing to do with it. Only the worst can be expected of such
hypocrites.
The third obligation is Zakah.
Every Muslim whose finances are above a certain specified minimum must pay
2 ½ per cent of his cash balance annually2 (2. Zakah is not merely
on the cash balance. It is also charged on gold, silver, merchandise,
cattle and other valuables. The rate of zakah for all these
commodities can be found in the books on fiqh and is not given here
for the sake of economy of space.) to a deserving fellow-being, a new
convert to Islam, a traveller or a person with debts3. (3. It should be
noted that the Holy Prophet has forbidden his own kith and kin to take
Zakah. Though it is obligatory on the Hashimites to pay Zakah,
they cannot receive it even if they are poor and needy. If anybody wants to
help a poor Hashimite, he may give him a gift. He cannot be helped out of Zakah.)
This is the minimum. The more you pay, the greater the reward that Allah
will bestow on you.
The money that we pay as Zakah is not
something Allah needs or receives. He is above any want and desire. He, in
His benign Mercy, promises us manifold rewards if we help our brethren. But
there is one basic condition for being thus rewarded: when we pay in the
name of Allah, we shall neither expect nor demand any worldly gains from
the beneficiaries nor aim at becoming known as philanthropists.
Zakah is
as basic to Islam as other forms of lbadah: Salah (prayer)
and Sawm (fasting). Its fundamental importance lies in the fact that
it fosters in us the quality of sacrifice and rids us of selfishness and
plutolatry. Islam accepts within its fold only those who are ready to give
away in God's way some of their hard-earned wealth willingly and without
any temporal or personal gain. It has nothing to do with misers. A true
Muslim will, when the call comes, sacrifice all his belongings in the way
of Allah, for Zakah has already trained him to do so.
Muslim society has much to gain from the
institution of Zakah. It is the bounden duty of every well-to-do
Muslim to help his lowly placed, poor brethren. His wealth is not to be
spent solely for his own comfort and luxury — there are rightful claimants
on his wealth, and they are the nation's widows and orphans, the poor and
the invalid; those who have the ability but lack the means to get useful
employment and those who have the talent but not the money to acquire
knowledge and become useful members of the community. He who does not
recognise the call on his wealth of such members of his own community is
indeed cruel. For there could be no greater cruelty than to fill one's own
coffers while others die of hunger or suffer the agonies of unemployment.
Islam is a sworn enemy of selfishness, greed and acquisitiveness.
Disbelievers, devoid of sentiments of universal love, know only how to
preserve wealth and to add to it by lending it out on interest. Islam's
teachings are the antithesis of this attitude. Here one shares ones wealth
with others and helps them stand on their own Feet and become productive
members of society.
Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Makka,
is the fourth basic lbadah.
Makka today stands at the site of a small
house that the Prophet Abraham (God's blessings be upon him) built for the
worship of Allah. Allah rewarded him by calling it His own House and by
making it the center towards which all must face when saying prayers. He
also made it obligatory on those who can afford it to visit this place at
least once in a lifetime. This visit is not merely a courtesy call. This
pilgrimage has its rites and conditions to be fulfilled which inculcate in
us piety and goodness. When we undertake the pilgrimage, we are required to
suppress our passions, refrain from bloodshed and be pure in word and deed.
God promises rewards for our sincerity and submissiveness.
The pilgrimage is, in a way, the biggest of
all 'lbadah. For unless a man really loves God he would never
undertake such a long journey leaving all his near and dear ones behind
him. And this pilgrimage is unlike any other journey. Here his thoughts are
concentrated on Allah, his very being vibrates with the spirit of intense
devotion. When he reaches the holy place, he finds the atmosphere filled
with piety and godliness; he visits places, which bear witness to the glory
of Islam, and all this leaves an indelible impression on his mind, which he
carries to his last breath.
Then there are, as in other lbadah,
many benefits that Muslims can derive from this pilgrimage. Makka is the
center towards which Muslims must converge once a year, meet and discuss
topics of common interest, and in general create and refresh in themselves
the faith that all Muslims are equal and deserve the love and sympathy of
others, irrespective of their geographical or cultural origin. Thus the
pilgrimage unites the Muslims of the world into one international
fraternity.
Although the defence of Islam is not a
fundamental tenet its need and importance have been repeatedly emphasized
in the Qur'an and the Hadith. It is in essence a test of our
sincerity and truthfulness as believers in Islam. If we do not defend one
whom we call our friend against intrigues or open assaults from his foes,
or are guided in our actions towards him solely by selfishness, we are
indeed false friends. Similarly, if we profess belief in Islam, we must
jealously guard and uphold the prestige of Islam. The sole guide in our
conduct must be the interest of Muslims at large and the service of Islam,
in the face of which all our personal considerations must take a back seat.
Jihad is part of this overall
defence of Islam. Jihad means to struggle to the utmost of one's
capacity. A man who exerts himself physically or mentally or spends his
wealth in the way of Allah is indeed
engaged in Jihad. But in the language of the Shari'ah this
word is used particularly for a war that is waged solely in the name of
Allah against those who practise oppression as enemies of Islam.
This supreme sacrifice of life devolves on
all Muslims. If, however, a section of Muslims offer themselves for the
Jihad, the community as a whole is absolved of its responsibility. But
if none comes forward, everybody is guilty. This concession vanishes for
the citizens of an Islamic State when it is attacked by a non-Muslim power.
In that case everybody must come forward for the Jihad. If the
country attacked has not enough strength to fight back, then it is the
religious duly of the neighbouring Muslim countries to help her: if even
they fail, then the Muslims of the whole world must fight the common enemy.
In all such cases, Jihad is as much a primary duty of the Muslims
concerned as are the daily prayers or fasting. One who shirks it is a
sinner. His very claim to being a Muslim is doubtful. He is a hypocrite
whose lbadah and prayers are a sham, a worthless, hollow show of
devotion.
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Chapter 6
So far we have been dealing with Din or
Faith. We now come to a discussion of the Shari'ah of the Prophet
Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). But let us first be
clear about the difference between Din and
Shari'ah.
In the foregoing chapters we said that all
the Prophets who have appeared from time to time propagated Islam, that is
a belief in God with all His attributes, faith in the Day of Judgement and
faith in the Prophets and the Books; they asked people to live a life of
obedience and submission to their Lord. This is what constitutes al-Din
and it was common to the teachings of all the Prophets.
Apart from this Din there is the
Shari'ah, the detailed code of conduct or the canons comprising ways
and modes of worship, standards of morals and life and laws that allow and
proscribe that judge between right and wrong. Such canon law has undergone
amendments from time to time and though each Prophet had the same Din,
he brought with him a different Shari'ah to suit the conditions of
his own people and time. This process ended with the advent of Muhammad,
the last Prophet (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him), who brought
with him the final code which was to apply to all mankind for all times to
come. Din has undergone no change, but all the previous Shari’ahs
stand abrogated because of the comprehensive Shari'ah that Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) brought with him. This is the
climax of the great process of training that was started at the dawn of the
human era.
We draw upon two major sources to learn about
the Shari’ah of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him),
the Qur'an and the Hadith. The Qur'an is a divine revelation — each
and every word of it is from Allah. The Hadith is a collection of
the instructions issued or the memoirs of the last Prophet's conduct and
behaviour, as preserved by those who were present in his company or those
to whom these were handed down by the first witnesses. These were later
sifted and collected by divines and compiled in the form of books among
which the collections made by Malik, Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud,
Nasa'i and lbn Majah are considered to be the most authentic.
Fiqh
Detailed law derived from the Qur'an
and the Hadith covering the myriads of problems that arise in the
course of man's life have been compiled by some of the leading legislators
of the past. The Muslims should forever be grateful to those men of
learning and vision who devoted their lives to gaining a mastery of the
Qur'an and the Hadith, and who made it easy for every Muslim to
fashion his everyday affairs according lo the requirements of the
Shari'ah. It is due to them alone that Muslims all over the world can
follow the Shari'ah easily even though their attainments in religion
are never such that they could themselves give a correct and authentic
interpretation of the Qur'an or the Hadith.
Although in the beginning many
religious leaders applied themselves to the task, only four major schools
of thought remain. They are: (1. The periods and
present position of the respective Fiqhs are as follows: Abu Hanifa Nu'man
bin Thabit was burn in 80 A.H. (699 A.D.) and died in 150 A.H. (767 A.D.).
There are approximately 340 million followers of this Fiqh, mostly
concentrated in Turkey, Pakistan, Bharat, Afghanistan, Transjordan,
Indo-China, China and Soviet Russia. Malik bin Anas Asbahi was born in 93
A.H. (714 A.D.) and died in 179 A.H. (798 A.D.). There are approximately 45
million followers of this Fiqh, mainly concentrated in Morocco, Algeria,
Tunis, Sudan, Kuwait and Bahrain. Muhammad bin ldris al-Shafi was born in
150 A.H. (767 A.D.) and died in 240 A.H. (854 A.D.). He has approximately
100 million followers concentrated mainly in Palestine. Lebanon. Egypt.
Iraq. Saudi Arabia. Yemen and Indonesia. Ahmad bin Hanbal was born in 164
A.H. (780 A.D.) and died in 241 A.H. (855 A.D.). There are some 3 million
followers of this Fiqh, mainly concentrated in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and
Syria)
|
Hanafi |
This is the Fiqh
compiled by Abu Hanifa Nu’man bin Thabit with the assistance and
co-operation of Abu Yusuf Muhammad, Zufar and others, all of whom had
high religious attainments to their credit. This is known as the Hanafi
School of Fiqh. |
|
Fiqh Maliki |
This Fiqh was derived
by Malik bin Anas Asbahi. |
|
Fiqh
Shafi i |
Founded by Muhammad bin
ldris al-Shafi'i. |
|
Fiqh
Hanbali |
Founded by Ahmad bin
Hanbal. |
All of these were given their final form within two hundred
years of the time of the Prophet. The differences that appear in the four
schools are but the natural outcome of the fact that truth is many-sided.
When different persons employ themselves in interpreting a given event,
they come out with different explanations according to their own lights.
What gives these various schools of thought the authenticity that is
associated with them is the unimpeachable integrity of their respective
founders and the authenticity of the method they adopted. That is why all
Muslims, whatever school they may belong to, regard all the four schools of
thought as correct and true. Even so one can normally follow only one of
them in one's life (there is the group of Ahl-d-lfadith who believe
that those who have the required knowledge and learning should directly
approach the Qur'an and the Hadith for guidance and those who are
not bestowed with such knowledge and faculties should follow whichever
school they like in any particular matter. (2.
Another major school of' thought is that of the Shi’ah who have founded
their own Fiqh. - Editor)
Fiqh deals with observable
conduct, the fulfilling of a duty to the letter. That concerning itself
with the spirit of conduct is known as Tasawwuf. For example, when
we say our prayers. Fiqh will judge us only by the fulfillment of
the outward requirements such as ablution, facing towards the Ka'bah and
the timing and the number of Raka'ahs. Tasa'wufill judge our
prayers by our concentration and devotion and by their effect on our morals
and manners. An lbadah devoid of spirit, though correct in
procedure, is like a man handsome in appearance but lacking in character
and an 'lbadah full of spirit but defective in execution is like a
man noble in character but deformed in appearance.
The above example makes clear the relation
between Fiqh and Tasawwuf. But it is to the misfortune of the
Muslims that as they sank in knowledge and character with the passage of
time, they also succumbed to the misguided philosophies of nations which
were then dominant, partook of them and patched Islam with their perverted
dogmas.
They polluted the pure spring of Islamic
Tasawwuf with absurdities that could not be justified by any stretch of
the imagination on the basis of the Qur'an and the Hadith. Gradually
a section of Muslims appeared who thought and proclaimed themselves immune
to and above the requirements of the Shari'ah. These people are
totally ignorant of Islam, for Islam cannot admit of Tasawwuf that
takes liberties with the Shari'ah. No Sufi has the right to
transgress the limits of the Shari'ah or treat lightly primary
obligations (Fara'id) such as daily prayers, fasting. Zakah
and the Hajj. Tasawwuf, in the true sense, is an intense love of
Allah and Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and such love
require a strict obedience to their commands as embodied in the Book of God
and the Sunnah of His Prophet. Anyone who deviates from the divine
commands makes a false claim of his love for Allah and His Apostle.
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Chapter
7
Our discussion of the fundamentals of Islam
will remain incomplete if we do not cast a glance over the law of Islam,
study its basic principles, and try to visualise the type of man and
society, which Islam wants to produce. In this last chapter we propose to
undertake a study of the principles of the Shari'ah so that our
picture of Islam may become complete and we may be able to appreciate the
superiority of the Islamic way of life.
Man has been endowed with countless powers
and faculties and Providence has been very bountiful to him in this
respect. He possesses intellect and wisdom, will and volition, faculties of
sight, speech, taste, touch and hearing, powers of hand and feet, passions
of love, fear, anger and so on. These faculties have been bestowed on him
because they are indispensable to him. His very life and success depend on
the proper use of these powers for the fulfillment of his needs and
requirements. These God-given powers are meant for his service and unless
they are used in full measure life cannot become worth living.
God has also provided man with all those
means and resources to make his natural faculties function and to achieve
the fulfillment of his needs. The human body has been so made that it has
become man's greatest instrument in his struggle for the fulfillment of his
life's goal. Then there is the world in which man lives. His environment
and surroundings contain resources of every description: resources, which
he uses as a means for the achievement of his ends. Nature and all that
belongs to it have been harnessed for him and he can make every conceivable
use of them. And there are other men of his, own kind, so that they may
co-operate with each other in the construction of a better and prosperous
life.
These powers and resources have been
conferred so that they may be used for the good of others. They have been
created for your good and are not meant to harm and destroy you. The proper
use of these powers is that which makes them beneficial to you; and even if
there be some harm, it must not exceed the unavoidable minimum. That alone
is the proper utilisation of these powers. Every other use, which
results in waste or destruction, is wrong, unreasonable and unjustified.
For instance, if you do something that causes you harm or injury, that
would be a mistake, pure and simple. If your actions harm others and make
you a nuisance to them, that would be sheer folly and an utter misuse of
God-given powers. If you waste resources, spoil them for nothing or destroy
them that too is a gross mistake. Such activities are flagrantly
unreasonable, for it is human reason which suggests that destruction and
injury must be avoided and the path of gain and profit be pursued. And if
any harm be countenanced, it must be only in such cases where it is
unavoidable and where it is bound to yield a greater benefit. Any deviation
from this is self-evidently wrong.
Keeping this basic consideration in view,
when we look at human beings, we find that there are two kinds of people:
first, those who knowingly misuse their powers and resources and
through this misuse waste the resources, injure their own vital interests,
and cause harm to other people; and, second, those who are sincere
and earnest but err because of ignorance. Those who intentionally misuse
their powers are wicked and evil and deserve to feel the full weight of the
law. Those who err because of ignorance need proper knowledge and guidance
so that they see the Right Path and make the best use of their powers and
resources. And the code of behaviour — the Shari'ah —, which
God has revealed to man, meets this very need.
The Shari'ah stipulates the law of God
and provides guidance for the regulation of life in the best interests of
man. Its objective is to show the best way to man and provide him
with the ways and means to fulfill his needs in the most successful and
most beneficial way. The law of God is out and out for your benefit. There
is nothing in it which tends to waste your powers, or to suppress your
natural needs and desires, or to kill your moral urges and emotions. It
does not plead for asceticism. It does not say: abandon the world, give up
all ease and comfort of life, leave your homes and wander about on plains
and mountains and in jungles without bread or cloth, putting yourself to
inconvenience and self-annihilation. This viewpoint has no relevance to the
law of Islam a law that has been formulated by God Who has created this
world for the benefit of mankind.
The Shari'ah has been revealed by that
very God Who has harnessed everything for man. He would hardly want to ruin
His creation. He has not given man any power that is useless or
unnecessary, nor has He created anything in the heavens and the earth which
may not be of service to man. It is His explicit Will that the universe —
this grand workshop with its multifarious activities — should go on
functioning smoothly and graciously so that man — the prize of creation —
should make the best and most productive use of all his powers and
resources, of everything that has been harnessed for him on earth and in
the high heavens. He should use them in such a way that he and his fellow
human beings may reap handsome prizes from them and should never,
intentionally or unintentionally, be of any harm to God's creation. The
Shari'ah is meant to guide the steps of man in this respect. It forbids
all that is harmful to man, and allows or ordains all that is useful and
beneficial to him.
The fundamental principle of the Law is
that man has the right, and in some cases the bounden duty, to fulfill all
his genuine needs and desires and make every conceivable effort to promote
his interests and achieve success and happiness — but (and it is an
important 'but') he should do all this in such a way that not only are the
interests of other people not jeopardized and no harm is caused to their
strivings towards the fulfillment of their rights and duties, but there
should be all possible social cohesion, mutual assistance and co-operation
among human beings in the achievement of their objectives. In respect of
those things in which good and evil, gain and loss are inextricably mixed
up, the tenet of this law is to choose a little harm for the sake of
greater benefit and sacrifice a little benefit, so avoiding a greater harm.
This is the basic approach of the Shari'ah.
Man's knowledge is limited. Every man
in every age does not, by himself, know what is good and what is evil, what
is beneficial and what is harmful to him. The sources of human knowledge
are too limited to provide him with the unalloyed truth. That is why God
has spared man the risks of trial and error and revealed to him the Law,
which is the right and complete code of life for the entire human race. (1.
It would be instructive to refer here to an example. Look at the colour
problem. The world has not yet been able to adopt a rational and human
approach towards coloured people. Biology, for a time, was used to sanction
colour discrimination. In the United States for the last two centuries the
courts upheld the differentiation. Thousands of human beings were coerced,
gagged and tortured for the "crime' that their skin was black. Separate
laws were administered to the whites and the blacks. They' could not even
study under the same roof in the same school or college. It was only on May
1". 1954 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that colour discrimination in
universities was unjust and against the principle of equality of man. After
committing heinous blunders for centuries man came to the view that such
discriminations are unjust and should be abolished. But even now there are
many who have not realized (he truth of this assertion and still stand for
segregation, for instance, the Government of the Union of South Africa and
the Western population of the African continent. Even in the United States
a large number of 'civilised' people have not as yet accepted
desegregation. This is how the human mind has dealt with this problem. The
Shari'ah, on the other hand, declared this discrimination unjust from the
very first day. It showed the right path, the noble course and saved man
from error and blunder. The Ho1y Qur'an says: "We have made all the
children of Adam. i.e. all human beings, respectable and dignified." The
Qur'an again declares: "0 ye people! Surely we have created you of a male
and a female and made you tribes and families so that ye may identify each
other. Surely the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is one who is most
pious, most mindful of his duly. "Similarly, the Holy Prophet says: "0
people, verily your Lord is one and your Father is one. All of you belong
lo Adam, and Adam was made of clay. There is no superiority for an Arab
over a non-Arab nor for a non-Arab over an Arab: nor for a white-coloured\over
a black-coloured nor for a black-skinned over a white-skinned, except in
piety. Verily the noblest among you is he who is the most pious" (vide
Oration of the Prophet on the occasion of the Farewell Pilgrimage). This is
the clear truth, which the Shari'ah told to man more than thirteen
centuries ago, but unguided reason has succeeded only in touching the
fringe of it after centuries of waste, losses and blunders, after
subjecting hundreds of thousands of people to indiscriminate segregation
and after degrading men and corrupting human society. The Shari'ah gives
the simplest and the shortest approach to reality and its disregard leads
to utter waste and failure. – Editor.)
The merits and the truths of this code are
becoming more and more clear to man with the passage of time and of
knowledge. Even today some people do not appreciate all the merits of this
code, but further progress of knowledge will throw new light on them and
bring their superiority into even clearer perspective. The world is
willy-nilly drifting towards the Divine Code— many of those people who
refused to accept it are now, after centuries of groupings and trials and
errors, being obliged to adopt some of the provisions of this law. Those
who denied the truth of the revelation and pinned their faith on unguided
human reason, after committing blunders and courting bitter experience, are
adopting in one way or another the injunctions of Shari'ah. But
after what loss! And even then not in their entirety! On the other hand,
there are people who repose faith in God's Prophets, accept their word and
adopt the Shari’ah with full knowledge and understanding. They may
not be aware of all the merits of a certain instruction, but on the whole
they accept a code which is the outcome of true knowledge and which saves
them from the evils and blunders of ignorance and of trial and error. Such
people are on the right path and are bound to succeed.
The scheme of life, which Islam envisages,
consists of a set of rights and obligations, and every human being,
everyone who accepts this religion, is enjoined to live up to them. Broadly
speaking, the law of Islam imposes four kinds of rights and obligations on
every man: (i) the rights of God which every man is obliged to fulfill:
(ii) his own rights upon his own self: (iii) the rights of other people
over him; and (iv) the rights of those powers and resources which God has
placed in his service and has empowered him to use for his benefit.
These rights and obligations constitute the
corner stone of Islam and it is the bounden duty of every true Muslim to
understand them and they them carefully. The Shari'ah discusses
clearly each and every kind of right and deals with it in detail. It also
throws light on the ways and means through which the obligations can be
discharged — so that all of them may be simultaneously implemented and none
of them violated or trampled underfoot.
Now we shall briefly discuss these rights and
obligations so that an idea of the Islamic way of life and its fundamental
values may be formed.
1. The
Rights of God
First of all we must study the ground
on which Islam bases the relationship of man to his Creator. The primary
and foremost right of God is that man should have faith in Him alone. He
should acknowledge His authority and associate none with Him. This is
epitomized in the Kalimah: La illaha illallah (there
is no god but Allah). 2 (2. This point has
already been discussed in detail in Chapter Four.)
The second right of God on us is that
man should accept wholeheartedly and follow His guidance (Hidayah) —
the code He has revealed for man— and should seek His pleasure with both
mind and soul. We fulfill the dictates of this right by placing belief in
God's Prophet and by accepting his guidance and leadership.3 (3.
This has been" discussed in Chapter Three.)
The third right of God on us is that we
should obey Him honestly and unreservedly. We fulfill the needs of this
right by following God's Law as contained in the Qur'an and the
Sunnah.4 (4. See Chapter four.)
The fourth right of God on us is to
worship Him. This is rendered by offering prayers and other lbadah
as described earlier. 5 (5. See Chapter Five.)
These rights and obligations precede
all other rights and as such they are discharged even at the cost of some
sacrifice of other rights and duties. For instance, in offering prayers and
keeping fasts man has to sacrifice many of his personal rights. He has to
get up early in the morning for his prayers and in so doing sacrifices his
sleep and rest. During the day he often puts off important work and gives
up his recreation to worship his Creator. In the month of Ramadan
(the month of fasts) he experiences hunger and inconvenience solely to
please his Lord. By paying Zakah he loses his wealth and
demonstrates that the love of God is above everything else. In the
pilgrimage he sacrifices wealth and takes on a difficult journey. And in
Jihad he sacrifices money, material and all that he has —
even his own life.
Similarly, in the discharge of these
obligations one has to sacrifice some of the ordinary rights of others and
thus injure one's own interests at large. A servant has to leave his work
to worship his Lord. A businessman has to stop his business to undertake
the Pilgrimage to Makka. In Jihad a man takes away life and gives it
away solely in the cause of Allah. In the same way, in rendering God's
rights one has to sacrifice many of those things which man has in his
control, like animals, wealth, etc. But God has so formulated the
Shari'ah that harmony and equilibrium are established in the different
fields of life and the sacrifice of others' rights is reduced to the barest
minimum.
This is achieved by the limits prescribed by
God. He has allowed us every facility in the fulfillment of the obligation
of Salah. If you cannot get water for ablution, or you are sick, you
can perform tayammum (dry ablution). If you are on a journey, you
can cut short the Salah. If you are ill and cannot stand in the
prayer, you can offer it while sitting or lying. The recitation of the
prayer is so manageable that they can be shortened or lengthened as one may
wish; at times of rest and ease we may recite a long chapter of the Qur'an,
at busy times we may recite a few verses only. The instruction is that in
the congregational prayers and in those prayers, which occur during
business hours, the recitation should be short. God is pleased with the
optional devotions (Nawafil), but He disapproves our denying
ourselves sleep and rest and the sacrifice of the rights of our children
and of the household. Islam wants us to strike a balance between the
various activities of life.
It is similar with fasts. In the whole
year there is only one month of obligatory fasting. If you are travelling
or ill you can omit it and observe it at some other convenient time of the
year. Women are exempted from fasting when they are pregnant and during
their menstrual or suckling periods. The fast should end at the appointed
time and any delay is disapproved of. Permission is given to eat and drink
from sunset to dawn. Optional fasts are highly valued and God is pleased at
them. but He does not like you to keep fasts continuously and make yourself
too weak to do your ordinary business satisfactorily.
Similarly, look at the case of Zakah;
the minimum rate has been fixed by God and man has been left free to give
as much more as he likes in the cause of Allah. If one gives Zakah,
one fulfils one's duty, but if one spends more in charity, one seeks more
and more of God's pleasure. But He does not like us to sacrifice all our
belongings in charity or to deny our relatives and ourselves those rights
and comforts, which they should enjoy. He does not want us to impoverish
ourselves. We are commanded to be moderate in charity.
Then look at the pilgrimage. It is obligatory
only for those who can afford the journey and who a physically fit to bear
its hardships. Then it is obligatory to perform it only once in one's life,
in any convenient year. If there is a war or any other situation «which
threatens life, it can be postponed. Moreover, parental permission has been
made an essential condition, so that aged parents may not suffer in one's
absence. All these things clearly show what importance God has Himself
given to the rights of others vis-a-vis His own rights.
The greatest sacrifice for God is made in
Jihad, for in it a man sacrifices not only his own life and property in
His cause but destroys those of others also. But, as already stated, one of
the Islamic principles is that we should suffer a lesser loss to save
ourselves from a greater loss. How can the loss of some lives -- even if
the number runs into thousands — be compared to the calamity that may
befall mankind as a result of the victory of evil over good and of
aggressive atheism over the religion of God. That would be a far greater
loss and calamity, for as a result of it not only would the religion of God
be under dire threat, the world would also become the abode of evil and
perversion, and life would be disrupted both from within and without.
In order to escape this greater evil God has,
therefore, commanded us to sacrifice our lives and property for His
pleasure. But at the same time He has forbidden unnecessary bloodshed,
injuring the aged, women, children, the sick and the wounded. His order is
to fight only against those who rise to fight. He enjoins us not to cause
unnecessary destruction even in the enemy's lands, and to deal fairly and
honorably with the defeated. We are instructed to observe the agreements
made with the enemy and to stop fighting when they do so or when they stop
their aggressive and anti-Islamic activities.
Thus Islam allows only for the minimum
essential sacrifice of life, property and other people's rights in the
discharging of God's rights. It is eager to establish a balance between the
different demands of man and adjust different rights and obligations so
that life is enriched with the choicest of merits and achievements.
Next come man's personal rights, that is, the
rights of one's own self.
The fact is that man is more cruel and unjust
to himself than to any other being. On the face of it this may seem
astonishing: how can a man be unjust to himself, particularly when we find
that he loves himself most? How can he be his own enemy? It seems
unintelligible. But deeper reflection shows that it contains a large grain
of truth.
The greatest weakness of man is that when he
feels an overpowering desire, instead of resisting it, he succumbs to it,
and in its gratification knowingly causes great harm to himself. There is
the man who drinks: he cannot stop his craving for it and does it at the
cost of money, health, reputation and everything that he has. Another
person is so fond of eating that in his eating excesses he damages his
health and endangers his life. Another person becomes a slave to his sexual
appetites and ruins himself in overindulgence. Still another becomes
enamored of spiritual elevations: he suppresses his genuine desires,
refuses to satisfy the physical needs, controls his appetite, does away
with clothes, leaves his home and retires into mountains and jungles. He
believes that the world is not meant for him and abhors it in all its forms
and manifestations.
These are a few of the instances of man's
tendency to go to extremes. One comes across such instances of
maladjustment and disequilibrium in one's everyday life and there is no
need to multiply them here.
Islam stands for human welfare and its avowed
objective is to establish balance in life. That is why the Shari'ah
clearly declares that your own self also has certain rights upon you. A
fundamental principle of it is: "there are rights upon you of your own
person."
The Shari'ah forbids the use of all
those things, which are injurious to man's physical, mental or moral
existence. It forbids the consumption of blood, intoxicating drugs, flesh
of the pig, beasts of prey, poisonous and unclean animals and carcasses;
for all these have undesirable effects on the physical, moral, intellectual
and spiritual life of man. While forbidding these things, Islam enjoins man
to use all clean, healthy and useful things and asks him not to deprive his
body of clean food, for man's body, too, has a right on him. The law of
Islam forbids nudity and orders man to wear decent and dignified dress. It
exhorts him to work for a living and strongly disapproves of him remaining
idle and jobless. The spirit of the Shari'ah is that man should use
for his comfort and welfare the powers God has bestowed on him and the
resources that He has spread on the earth and in the heavens. Islam does
not believe in the suppression of sexual desire; it enjoins man to control
and regulate it and seek its fulfillment in marriage. It forbids him to
resort to self-persecution and total self-denial and permits him, indeed,
bids him, to enjoy the rightful comforts and pleasures of life and remain
pious and steadfast in the midst of life and its problems.
To seek spiritual elevation, moral purity,
nearness to God and salvation in the life to come, it is not necessary to
abandon this world. Instead, the trial of man lies in this world and he
should remain in its midst and follow the way of Allah in it. The road to
success lies in following the Divine Law in the midst of life's
complexities, not outside it.
Islam forbids suicide and impresses on man
that life belongs to God. It is a trust, which God has bestowed for a
certain period of time so that you may make the best use of it—it is not
meant to be harmed or destroyed in a frivolous way.
This is how Islam instills in the mind of man
that his own person, his own self, possesses certain rights and it is his
obligation to discharge them as best he can, in the ways that have been
suggested by the Shari'ah. This is how he can be true to his own
self.
On the one hand the Shari’ah
has enjoined man to fulfill his personal rights and be just to his own
self, and on the other, it has asked him to seek their fulfillment in such
a way that the rights of other people are not violated. The Shari'ah
has tried to strike a balance between the rights of man and the rights of
society so that no conflict arises and there is co-operation in
establishing the law of God.
Islam has strictly forbidden the telling of a
lie in any shape or form, for lies sully the liar, harm other people and
become a source of menace to society. It has totally forbidden theft,
bribery, forgery, cheating, the levying of interest and usury, for whatever
man gains by these means is obtained by causing loss and injury to others.
Backbiting tale telling and slander have been forbidden. Gambling, lottery,
speculation and all games of chance have been prohibited, for in all of
them one-person gains at the expense of thousands of losers.
All those forms of exploitative commerce have
been prohibited in which one party alone is to be the loser. Monopoly,
hoarding, black marketing, holding of land from cultivation and all other
forms of individual and social aggrandizement have been prohibited. Murder,
blood spilling and spreading of mischief, disorder and destruction have
been made crimes, for no one has a right to take away the life or property
of other people merely for his personal gain or gratification.
Adultery, fornication and unnatural sexual
indulgence have been strictly prohibited for they not only vitiate the
morality and impair the health of the perpetrator but also spread
corruption and immorality in society, cause venereal disease, damage both
public health and the morals of the coming generations, upset relations
between man and man and split the very fabric of the cultural and social
structure of the community. Islam seeks to eliminate, root and branch, such
crimes.
All these limitations and restrictions have
been imposed by the law of Islam to prevent a man encroaching on the rights
of others. Islam does not want a man to become so selfish and self-centered
that for the attainment of a few desires of the mind and body he
unashamedly assails the rights of others and violates morality. The law of
Islam so regulates life that the welfare of one and all may be achieved.
But for the attainment of human welfare and cultural advancement, negative
restrictions alone are not sufficient. In a peaceful and prosperous society
people should not only not violate the rights of others and injure their
interests but should positively co-operate with each other and establish
mutual relations and social institutions that contribute towards the
welfare of all and the establishment of an ideal human society. The
Shari'ah has guided us in this respect as well. We therefore propose to
give here a brief summary of those injunctions of Islamic law, which throw
light on this aspect of life and society. Family is the first cradle of
man. It is here that the primary character-traits of man are set. As such
it is not only the cradle of man but also the cradle of civilisation.
Therefore, let us first consider the injunctions of the Shari'ah
relating to the family.
A family consists of the husband, the wife
and their children. The Islamic injunctions abort the family are very
explicit. They assign to man the responsibility for earning and providing
the necessities of life for his wife and children and for protecting them
from all the vicissitudes of life. To the woman it assigns the duty of
managing the household, training and bringing up children in the best
possible way, and providing her husband and children with the greatest
possible comfort and contentment. The duty of the children is to respect
and obey their parents, and, when they are grown up, to serve them and
provide for their needs. To make the household a well-managed and
well-disciplined institution, Islam has adopted the following two measures:
a) The husband has been given the position of
head of the family. No institution can work smoothly unless it has a chief
administrator. You cannot think of a school without a headmaster or a city
without an administrator. If there is nobody to control an institution,
chaos results. If everybody in the family goes his own way, nothing but
confusion will prevail. If the husband goes one way and the wife another,
the future of the children will be ruined. There must be someone as the
head of the family so that discipline may be maintained. Islam gives this
position to the husband and in this way makes the family a well-disciplined
primary unit of civilisation and a model for society at large.
b) The head of the family has
responsibilities. It is his duty to work, and do all those tasks, which are
performed outside the household. Woman has been freed from all activities
outside the household so that she may devote herself fully to duties in the
home and in the rearing of her children — the future guardians of the
nation. Women have been ordered to remain in their houses and discharge the
responsibilities assigned to them. Islam does not want to tax them doubly:
to bring up their children and maintain the household, as well as to earn a
living and do outdoor jobs would be a clear injustice. Islam, therefore,
effects a functional division of labour between the sexes6. (6. After
tasting the bitter consequences of destroying this functional distribution,
even some Western thinkers are talking in terms of women going back to
their homes. Here are the views of two leading thinkers: Dr. Fulton J.
Sheen writes in Communism and the Conscience
of the West: "The disturbance of family life in America is more
desperate than at any other period in our history. The family is the
barometer of the nation. What the average home is that is America: if the
average home is living on credit, spending money lavishly, running into
debt, then America will be a nation which will pile national debt on
national debt until the day of the Great Collapse. If the average husband
and wife are not faithful to their marriage vows, then America will not
insist on fidelity to the Islamic Charter and the Four Freedoms. If there
is a deliberate frustration of the fruits of love, then the notion will
develop economic policies of growing undue cotton, throwing coffee into the
sea and frustrating nature for the sake of economic prices. If the husband
and wife live only for themselves and not for each other, if they fail to
see that their individual happiness is conditional on mutuality, then we
shall have a country where capital and labour fight like husband and wife,
both making social life barren and economic peace impossible. If the
husband or wife permits outside solicitations to woo one away from the
other, then we shall become a nation where alien philosophies will
infiltrate, as Communism sweeps away that basic loyalty which was known as
patriotism. If husband and wife live as if there is no God, then America
shall have bureaucrats' pleading for atheism as a national policy
repudiating the Declaration of Independence and denying that all our rights
and liberties come to us from God. It is the home, which decides the
nation. What happens in the family will happen later in the Congress,
the White House and the Supreme Court. Every, country gets the kind of
Government it deserves. As we live in the house, so shall the nation live”
Professor Cyril Joad goes to the extent of clearly saying that: "I believe
the world would be a happier place if women were content to look after
their homes and their children, even if some slight lowering of the
standards of living were involved thereby." (Variety, December 1.
1952.)
But this does not mean that the woman is not
allowed to leave the house at all. She is, when necessary. The law has
specified the home as her special field of work and has stressed that she
should attend to the improvement of home life. Whenever she has to go out,
certain formalities should be observed.
It is a general rule that the sphere of the
family widens through blood relations and marriage connections. To bind
together the members of the family into a unity, to keep their mutual
relations close and healthy, and to make each one of them a source of
support, strength and contentment to the other, the law of Islam has
formulated certain basic laws and rules, which embody the wisdom of the
ages. They may be summed up as follows:
2.
Marriage between those persons
who have naturally and circumstantially
the closest association and affiliations with each other has been
prohibited. Marriage is forbidden between: mother and son, father and
daughter, step-father and step-daughter, step-mother and step-son, brother
and sister, foster-brother and foster-sister, paternal uncle and his niece,
aunt (father's or mother's sister) and her nephew, maternal uncle and his
niece, mother-in-law and her son-in-law, and father-in-law and his
daughter-in-law. This prohibition strengthens the bonds of the family and
makes relations between these relatives absolutely pure and unalloyed: and
they can mix with each other without any restraint and with sincere
affection.
3. Beyond
the limits of the forbidden marriage relations given above, matrimonial
relations can be effected between the members of kindred families,
so that such relationship may bind them still closer. Marriage connections
between two families, which are freely associated with each other, and
which therefore know each other's habits, customs and traditions, are
generally successful. Therefore the Shari'ah has not only permitted
them but also encouraged and preferred relations with kindred families to
those of entirely strange families (though this is not forbidden).
4. In a
group of kindred families, there usually co-exist the rich and the poor,
the prosperous and the destitute. The Islamic principle is that a man's
relatives have the greatest right on him. Respect for the tie between
relatives is technically called Shah-al-rahm. Muslims are enjoined
to respect this bond in every possible way. To be disloyal to one's
relatives and to be negligent of their rights is a great sin and God has
disapproved of it. If a relative becomes poor, or is beset by some trouble,
it is the duty of his rich and prosperous relatives to help him. Special
regard for the rights of relatives has been enjoined in Zakah and
other charities.
5.The law
of inheritance is so formulated in Islam that property left by the deceased
cannot be concentrated in one place. It is distributed in such a way that
all near relatives get their share. Son, daughter, wife, husband, father,
mother, brother and sister are the nearest relatives and they get the first
priority. If such near relatives do not exist, shares are given to the next
nearest relatives. After the death of a man therefore, his wealth is
distributed amongst his kith and kin and a fatal blow is struck against the
capitalistic concentration of wealth. This law of Islam is of unique
excellence, and other societies are now taking similar action. But the sad
irony is that Muslims themselves are not fully aware of its revolutionary
potentialities and some of them, through ignorance, are even avoiding it in
practice. In several parts of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent daughters are
being deprived of their share of inheritance: this is a palpable injustice
and a flagrant violation of the Qur’ans injunctions.
After the family and its connections come
man's relations with his friends, neighbours, dwellers of his own locality,
village or city and persons with whom he comes into constant contact. Islam
recognises these relations and enjoins a Muslim to treat them all honestly,
truthfully, equitably and courteously. It bids believers to respect others'
feelings, to avoid indecent and abusive language, to help each other, to
attend to the sick, to support the destitute, to assist the needy and the
crippled, to sympathize with the trouble-stricken, to look after orphans
and widows, to feed the hungry, to clothe the under-clad and to help the
unemployed in seeking employment.
Islam says that if God has bestowed upon you
wealth and riches, do not squander it on luxurious frivolities. It has
prohibited the use of gold and silver vessels, the wearing of costly silk
dresses, and the wasting of money on useless ventures and extravagant
luxuries. This injunction of the Shari'ah is based on the principle
that no man should be allowed to squander on himself wealth that could
maintain thousands of human beings. It is cruel and unjust that money which
can be used to feed teeming, starving humanity should be frittered away in
useless ostentation. Islam does not want to deprive a man of his wealth and
belongings. What one has earned or inherited is beyond doubt his, own
property. Islam recognises his right and allows him to enjoy it and make
the best use of it. It also suggests that if you arc wealthy, you should
have better dress and good accommodation and a decent living. But Islam
insists that the human element should not be lost sight of.
What Islam totally disapproves of is
conceited self-centeredness, which neglects the welfare and well-being of
others and gives birth to an exaggerated individualism. It wants society as
a whole to prosper, and not merely a few individuals. It instills in the
minds of its followers social consciousness and suggests that they live a
simple and frugal life, that they avoid excesses and, while fulfilling
their own needs, keep in mind the needs and requirements of their kith and
kin, their near and distant relatives, their friends and associates, their
neighbours and fellow-citizens7. (7. The Qur’an says: "In their
wealth the needy, the beggar, and the destitute have their due." (l119).
–Editor) This is what
Islam wants to achieve.
So far we have discussed the nature of man's
relations with his close relatives and friends. Now let us look at the
wider perspective and see what kind of community Islam wants to establish.
Everyone who embraces Islam not only enters the fold of the religion but
also becomes a member of the Islamic community. The Shari'ah has
formulated certain rules of behaviour for this as well. These rules oblige
Muslims to help each other, to approve good and forbid evil, and to see
that no wrong enters their society. Some of the injunctions of the law of
Islam, in this respect, are as follows:
1.To preserve the moral life of the nation
and to safeguard the evolution of society on healthy lines, free mingling
of the sexes has been prohibited.
Islam effects a functional distribution between the sexes and sets
different spheres of activity for both of them. Women should in the main
devote themselves to household duties in their homes and men should attend
to their jobs in the socio-economic spheres. Outside the pale of the
nearest relations between whom marriage is forbidden men and women have
been asked not to mix freely with each other and if they do have to have
contact with each other they should do so with purdah. When women
have to go out of their homes, they should wear simple dress and be
properly veiled. They should also cover their faces and hands as a normal
course. Only in genuine necessity can they unveil, and they must re-cover
as soon as possible.
Along with this, men have been asked to keep
down their eyes and not to look at women. And if someone accidentally looks
upon some woman, he should turn away his eyes. To try to see them is wrong
and to try to seek their acquaintance is worse. It is the duty of both men
and women to look after their personal morality and purge their souls of
all impurities. Marriage is the proper form of sexual relationship and no
one should attempt to overstep this limit or even think of any sexual
license; the very thought and imagination of man should be purified from
such perverse ideas.
2.For the same purpose it has been enjoined
that proper dress should always be worn. No man should expose his body from
the knees to the navel, nor should a woman expose any part of her body
except her face and hands to any person other than her husband, however
closely related to her he might be. This is technically called satr
(cover) and to keep these parts covered is the religious duty of every man
and woman. Through this directive Islam aims to cultivate in its followers
a deep sense of modesty and purity and to suppress all forms of immodesty
and moral deviation.
3.Islam does not approve of pastimes,
entertainments and recreations, which tend to stimulate sensual passions
and vitiate the canons of morality. They are a sheer waste of time, money
and energy, and destroy the moral fiber of society. Recreation in itself is
certainly a necessity. It acts as a spur to activity and quickens the
spirit of life and adventure. It is as important to life as water and air;
one particularly requires rest and recreation after hard work. But it must
be recreation, which refreshes the mind and enlivens the spirit, and must
not depress the spirit and deprave the passions. Absurd and wasteful
entertainments wherein thousands of people witness depraving scenes of
crime and immorality are the very antithesis of healthy recreation.
Although they may be gratifying to the senses, their effect upon the minds
and morals is horrifying. They can have no place in an Islamic society and
culture. \
4.To safeguard the unity and solidarity of
the nation and to achieve the welfare and well being of the Muslim
community, believers have been enjoined to avoid mutual hostility, social
dissensions and sectarianism of all kinds. They have been exhorted to
settle their differences and disputes in accordance with the principles
laid down in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and if the parties fail to
reach a settlement, instead of fighting and quarrelling amongst themselves,
they should bury their differences in the name of Allah and leave the
decision to Him. In matters of common national welfare they should help
each other, obey their leaders, and avoid wasting their energies in
bickering over trivial things. Such feuds and schisms are a disgrace to the
Muslim community and a potential source of national weakness. They must be
shunned at all costs.
5.Islam regards knowledge and science as the
common heritage of mankind and Muslims have absolute liberty to learn them
and their practical uses from whatever source they can. But as far as the
question of culture and the way of life is concerned, it forbids them to
imitate the modes of living of other peoples. The psychology of imitation
suggests that it springs from a sense of inferiority and abasement and its
net result is the cultivation of a defeatist mentality. Cultural aping of
others has disastrous consequences on a nation; an; it destroys its inner
vitality, blurs its vision, befogs its critical faculties, breeds an
inferiority complex and gradually but assuredly saps all the springs of
culture and sounds its death-knell.
This is why the Holy Prophet (blessings of
Allah and peace be upon him) has positively and forcefully forbidden
Muslims to assume the culture and mode of life of non-Muslims. The strength
of a nation does not lie in its dress, etiquette or fine arts; its power
and growth owe themselves to right knowledge, science, discipline,
organisation and energy for action. If you want to learn from others, take
lessons from their will to action and social discipline, avail yourselves
of their knowledge and technical accomplishments but do not lean towards
those arts and crafts which breed cultural slavery and national
inferiority. Muslims have been enjoined to guard against such influence.
Now we come to the relationship of Muslims
with non-Muslims. In dealing with them, believers have been
instructed not to be intolerant or narrow-minded. They have been commanded
not to abuse or speak ill of their religious leaders or saints, nor to say
anything insulting about their religion. They have been instructed not to
seek disputes with them unnecessarily but to live in peace and amity. If
the non-Muslims observe peace and conciliatory attitudes towards Muslims,
and do not violate their territories and other rights, they also should
keep congenial and friendly relations with them and deal with them fairly
and justly.
It is the very dictate of our religion that
we possess greater human sympathy and politeness than any other people, and
behave in most noble and modest ways. Bad manners, ill behaviour,
oppression and narrow-mindedness are against the very spirit of Islam. A
Muslim is loom in the world to become a living symbol of goodness, nobility
and humanity. He should win the hearts of people by his character and
example. Then alone he can become a true ambassador of Islam.
Now we come to the last kind of rights. God
has honoured man with authority over His countless creatures. Everything
has been harnessed for him. He has been endowed with the power to subdue
them and make them serve his objectives. This superior position gives man
authority over them and he enjoys the right to use them as he likes. But
that does not mean that God has given him unbridled liberty. Islam says
that all creation has certain rights on man. They are: he should not waste
them on fruitless ventures nor should he unnecessarily hurt them or harm
them. When he uses them for his service he should cause them the least
possible harm, and should employ the best and the least injurious methods
of using them.
The law of Islam embodies many injunctions
about these rights. For instance, we are allowed to slaughter animals for
food but have been forbidden to kill them merely for fun or sport. To
slaughter them, the method of dhabh (slaughtering) has been fixed,
the best possible method of obtaining meat from animals. Other methods are
either more painful or spoil the meat and deprive it of some of its useful
properties. Similarly, killing an animal by causing continuous pain and
injury is considered abominable in Islam. Islam allows the killing of
dangerous and venomous animals and of beasts of prey only because it values
man's life more than theirs. But here, too, it does not allow their killing
by resort to prolonged painful methods.
Regarding the beasts of burden and
animals used for riding and transport, Islam distinctly forbids man to keep
them hungry, to put intolerable burdens on them and to beat them cruelly.
To catch birds and imprison them in cages without any special purpose is
considered abominable. Islam does not approve even of the useless cutting
of trees and bushes. Man can use their fruits and other produce, but he has
not the right to destroy them. Vegetables, after all, possess life. Nor
does Islam allow waste among even lifeless things; so much so that it
disapproves of the wasteful flow of too much water. Its avowed purpose is
to avoid waste in every conceivable form and to make the best use of all
resources — living and lifeless.
Shari’ah —
he
Universal and Eternal
Law
In the foregoing pages we have given a very
brief resume of the law of Islam — the law which Prophet Muhammad
(blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) delivered to mankind for all
times to come. This law admits of no difference between man and man except
in faith and religion. Those religious and social systems and political and
cultural ideologies which differentiate between men on grounds of race,
country or colour can never become universal creeds or world ideologies for
the simple reason that someone belonging to a certain race cannot be
transformed into another race, one born in a certain country cannot tear
his identity from that place, nor can the whole world condense into one
country; the color of a Negro, a Chinese and a white man cannot be changed.
Such ideologies and social systems must remain confined to one race,
country or community. They are bound to be narrow, limited and
nationalistic. Islam on the other hand, is a universal ideology. Any person
who declares belief in La ilaha illallah Muhammad-ur-Rasulullah
(there is no other god worthy of worship than Allah, and Muhammad is His
Prophet) enters the pale of Islam and entitles himself to the same rights
as those of other Muslims. Islam makes no discrimination on the basis of
race, country, colour, language or the like. Its appeal is to the whole of
humanity.
Its law is also eternal. It is not
based on the customs or traditions of and particular people and is not
meant for any particular period of human history. It is based on the same
principles of nature on which man has been created. And as that nature
remains the same in all periods and under all circumstances, law based on
it is applicable to every period and under all circumstances. This
universal and eternal religion is Islam.
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