Fundamentals of Islam by Al-Mawdudi:
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Fundamentals of Islam
by Al-Mawdudi
Chapter One: THE MEANING OF ISLAM
* Islam - What Does it Mean?
* The Nature of Disbelief
* The Blessings of Islam
Chapter Two: FAITH AND OBEDIENCE
* Faith - what Does it Mean?
* How to Acquire Knowledge
of God?
* Faith in the Unknown
Chapter Three: THE PROPHETHOOD
* 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 Savior 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
Chapter Four: THE ARTICLES OF FAITH
* Tawhid:Faith in the Unity
of God
* Belief in God's Angels
* Faith in the Books of God
* Faith in God's Prophets
* Belief in Life After Death
Chapter Five: PRAYER AND WORSHIP
* The Spirit of ‘Ibadah or
Worship
* Salah
* Fasting
* Zakah
* Hajj or Pilgrimage
* Defense of Islam
Chapter Six: DIN AND SHARI'AH
*
* Distinction Between Din
and Shari'ah The Sources of Shari'ah
Chapter Seven: THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
SHARI'AH
* The Shari'ah - Its Nature
and Purport
* The Shari`ah - Rights and
Obligations
* 1. The Rights of God
* 2. The Rights of One's Own
Self
* 3. The Rights of Other Men
* 4. The Rights of All
Creatures
* Shari'ah - The Universal
and Eternal Law
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Chapter
One
THE MEANING 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 - What Does it
Mean?
Islam is an Arabic word and connotes submission, surrender and
obedience. As a religion, Islam stands for complete submission and
obedience to Allah.
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 follows 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 wantonly 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 judgements 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-gerent on earth. The
whole world is for him and he is for God.
The Nature of
Disbelief
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
recognize 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 of 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, 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 planin 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) to be a Muslim is ingrained in the nature of
things. God has given man power 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, harbors 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 recognizes 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 anfreedom 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 choose
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
skepticism. His path being illumined with Divine Vision, his every step
will be in the right direction. In science he will endeavor 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 inquiry 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 annihilation.
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
realization 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
civilizations. 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 endeavor 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 of violation of human life and honor. 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 honored 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 most wealthy. 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 trustworthy 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 goodwill 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 honorable life on this earth, he
wreturn 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 which 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.
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Chapter Two
FAITH AND OBEDIENCE
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 a
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 it 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 consider 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 behavior 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 - what Does it
Mean?
Faith is what we have described in the foregoing discussion as
‘Knowledge and Belief’. The Arabic word Iman, 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 (Iman) 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
Iman 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 Iman, men may be classified into four
categories:
1. Those 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 woof 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 of faith (Iman). The life of obedience (Islam)
takes its birth from the seed of Iman. This Islam of a person may be
flawless or defective. But without Iman there can be no Islam. Where
there is no lman 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 manifestation 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 recognize 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.
Faith in the Unknown
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 m 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.
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Chapter Three
THE 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 recognize 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.
Prophethood: Its
Nature and Necessity
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 marvelously set in his tiny body. Every minute
requirements 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 their 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. Super-geniuses, 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 life? 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 recognize 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. Reasons 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 realization 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
willfail to touch the pointin view. The same is the case with the way
to truth, which in the language of Islam, is called the Straight Path
(al-Sirat al-Mustaqim).
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, the 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.
Brief History of
Prophethood
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 Eve.
History and religion are agreed on this points. 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 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 religious 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.
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.
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,
civilization 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 attitudes 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, thwork of the
Prophets was not altogether 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 as 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 specially 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 hotchpotch 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 civilization, 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)!
The Prophethood of
Muhammad
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
civilized 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 organization 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 civilizations 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 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 civilized 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
humanize them was beyond an ordinary man.
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 a young, forceful and virile people 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 that 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 birth-place of the World Prophet. Let us now see how
unique and extraordinary was the blessed personality chosen by God for
this mission.
Muhammad's
Prophethood: A Rational Vindication
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 airplanes were undreamed of, and printing presses
were unknown. Handwritten books or copyists alone supplied what little
literary material thwas to be transmitted from generation to
generation. Educawas 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.
Arabia - The Abyss
of Darkness
In that benighted era, there was a territory where darkness lay even
heavier than elsewhere. The neighboring countries of Persia, Byzantium
and Egypt possessed a glimmer of civilization 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 civilization, 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 was
the order of the day. Life, property and honor 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.
Whatever notions they had of morals, culture and civilization 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 step-mothers 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 fore-fathers, but they knew
next to nothing about their religious preachings 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.
The Savior is Born
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 civilization: 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.
Diamond in a Heap of
Stones
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 cuteach other's throats. He stays aloof from the feuds
of his tribe, intervening oto 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.
A Revolution Comes
After spending a great part of his life in such a pure and civilized
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 the 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 honor hung around his neck. He
alone is high and honored who is God fearing and pious, true in words
and deed. Distinctions of birth and race are no criteria of greatness
and honor. 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 favoritism 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 hounded
continuously for full 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.
Why all that Enmity?
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 way of life. He had cut at
the roots of priestcraft. 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 engage the whole
structure of 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 message. 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 is 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
A Changed Man at
Forty - Why?
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, the bygone
nations, the Day of Judgement, 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 which
could make men expect 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 inawe and
wonder and was bewitched by his wonderful eloquence and oratory. It was
so impressive and persuthat 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 splendor of diction when he threw the challenge to his opponents to
produce even a single line like the ones he was reciting.
His All-embracing
Message
Along with this, he now appeared before his people as a unique
philosopher, a wonderful reformer, a renowned molder of culture and
civilization, 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 judgements 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 organization,
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 trade 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 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 civilization 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 warfare.
He changed their modes of thought, their customs and their morals. He
turned the uncouth into the cultured, the barbarous into the civilized,
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 teach the
principles of religion, morals and civilization.
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 behavior 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 vengeance. 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
penniless. He felt not the least insult in working like a laborer. 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).
His Contribution to
Human Thought
The achievements of this great man do not end here. To 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 times.
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 wmere 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 continues 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 remotest idea
that there could be an ethical code of war and that relations between
different nations could be regulated on the basis of common humanity.
The Greatest
Revolutionary
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 civilization 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 in 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 waiting for the
right moment. In harnessing these forces the revolutionary leader
played the path 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 nonexistent.
He made an indelible impression on the hearts of thousands of his
disciples by his forceful personality and molded 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 splendor?
The Final Testimony
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 that 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. l 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 honor those sentiments are! Liars and hypocrites often try to
take all the credit for the deeds of others, even 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 they
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 viand
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.
The Finality of
Prophethood
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
are 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), Injil (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 every thing 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
required.
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'anic 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 imperfection.
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: “O 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 Prophets).
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 endeavor 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.
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Chapter Four
THE ARTICLES OF FAITH
Our discussion so far can be summarized 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 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 ilaha 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.
Tawhid: Faith in the
Unity of God
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 ilaha illa alIah). 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.
The Meaning of the Kalimah
In Arabic the word ilah 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 ilah. The concept ilah also includes the possession of infinite
powers and conveys the sense that others are dependent on ilah and that
he is not dependent on any one else. The word ilah 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 meaning.
The word Allah, on the other hand, is the essential personal name of
God. La ilaha illallah literally means "There is no ilah 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
we have been able to obtain, it appears that in every age man
recognized 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 are
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 are 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 the himself is!
These vast phenomena, on the one hand, and the consciousness his own
frailty, on theother, 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
beneficient to him, and he fears them and tries to escape their wrath
so that he may not be destroyed by them.
In the most primitive state of ignorance, man thinks, that the great
objects of nature whose grandeur and glory are visible, and which
appear to be injurious or beneficient 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 dies 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. Even 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,
Permeshwar, 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 ilaha 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 its
beginning or visualize 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. lt is so bewildering that a thinking mind
finds itself wonder-struck. 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 uncoordinated 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 them is all-knowledge, the other all-prand 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 untransferable. 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 ilaha 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.
Effects of Tawhid on Human Life
Now let us study the effects which the belief in La ilaha illaIlah 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 behavior. 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 way 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 lehim, and on their strength he goes on struggling. Suchprofound
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 suicide.
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 effect.
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
ilaha 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 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 illalIah 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 honor, 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 endeavor 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 downfall of a successful rival.
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 best 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 ilaha illalIah. ‘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 iilallah.
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.
Belief in God's
Angels
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 kind 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. 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 in their existence. We have no other means of
knowing their nature, theiattributes 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.
Faith in the Books
of God
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 Injil (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
all 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 antiquity.
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 no 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 civilization. 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 nature 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 fulfil, 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 God's own words, that it is perfectly true, that every word
of it is preserved, that everything mtherein is right, that it is the
bounden duty of man to carry out in his life and every command of it
and that whatever be against it must be rejected.
Faith in God's
Prophets
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 come.
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.
Belief in Life After
Death
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 beings 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
misdoing- 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.
The Need of this Belief
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 to avoid a thing
that is harmless. And the general rule is that the deeper your
conviction about the utility of a thing, the fiwill 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 of 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 behavior.
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, powers, 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 beck 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 he "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 behavior;
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 a 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.
Life After Death: A rational Vindication
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 belief in the Day of
Judgement, 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 letus 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 airplane and on that ‘Knowledge’ proclaims that airplanes 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
cannot, 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 toll, 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 judgements,
rewarding the meritorious and punishing the guilty, there must be a
place where the meritorious may enjoy their reward -honor, 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 started
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 ilaha 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 M) 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 shbelieve in the divine nature and attributes of God, in His
angels, in 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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Chapter Five
PRAYER AND WORSHIP
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
5. 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 ‘Ibadah - the primary
duties which must be observed by each and every person professing to
belong to the Muslim community.
The Spirit of
‘Ibadah or Worship
‘Ibadah 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
‘Ibadah. The Islamic concept of ‘Ibadah 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 ‘Ibadah, 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 ‘Ibadah. 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 ‘Ibadah. Even your economic activities -the activities you
undertake to earn your living and to feed your dependants- are ‘Ibadah
if you remain honest and truthful in them, and observe the law of God.
In short, all your activities are ‘Ibadah 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 fear of God, in
whatever sphere of life and field of activity, you are discharging your
Islamic obligations. This is the true significance of ‘Ibadah, that is,
total submission to the pleasure of Allah, the molding 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 ‘Ibadah
(worships) has been drawn up as a course of training. The more
assiduously we follow the training, the better equipped we are to
harmonize ideals and practices. The ‘Ibadah are thus the pillars on
which the edifice of Islam rests.
Salah
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 refocus 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 prayer? Is it anything other than your sense of duty - your
realization that you must fulfil 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 thebetter 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 myriad of benefits we can derive from our daily
prayers. 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 recognize prayers as our duty or we recognize 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 recognize 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!
Fasting
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 rigors? 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. Rigor 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 emphasizes 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 fulfil 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.
Zakah
The third obligation is Zakah. Every Muslim whose finances are above a
certain specified minimum must pay 2.5 per cent of his cash balance
annually to a deserving fellow-being, a new convert to Islam, a
traveler or a person with debts. 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 ‘Ibadah: 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.
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 recognize 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 one's
wealth with others and helps them stand on their own feet and become
productive members of society.
Hajj or Pilgrimage
Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Makkah, is the fourth basic ‘Ibadah.
Makkah 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 ‘Ibadah. 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 witneto 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 ‘Ibadah, many benefits that Muslims can
derive from this pilgrimage. Makkah 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.
Defense of Islam
Although the defense 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
Jihad is part of this overall defense of Islam. Jihad means to struggle
to the utmost of one's capacity. A man who exerts himself physical 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 practice 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 duty of the
neighboring Muslim countries to help her; of 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 ‘Ibadah
and prayers are a sham, a worthless, however show of devotion.
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Chapter Six
DIN AND SHARI'AH
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.
Distinction 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.
The Sources of
Shari'ah
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 behavior, 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 Ibn Majah are considered to be the most authentic.
Fiqh
Detailed law derived from the Qur'an and the Hadith covering the myriad
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
to 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. Fiqh Hanafi: This is the Fiqh compiled by Abu Hanifa Nu'man bin
Thabit with the assistance and cooperation of Abu Yusuf Mahammad, Zufar
and others, all of whom had high religious attainments to their credit.
This is known as the Hanafi School of Fiqh.
2. Fiqh Maliki: This Fiqh was derived by Malik bin Anas Asbahi.
3. Fiqh Shafi'i: Founded by Muhammad bin Idris al-Shafi'i.
4. 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-Al-Hadith 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.)
Tasawwuf
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. Tasawwuf
will judge our prayers by our concentration and devotion and by their
effect on our morals and manners. An ‘Ibadah devoid of spirit, though
correct in procedure, is like a man handsome in appearance but lacking
in character and an ‘Ibadah 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 to 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, Zahah 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 requires 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 Seven
THE PRINCIPLES OF
THE SHARI'AH
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 visualize 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.
The Shari'ah - Its
Nature and Purport
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 cooperate 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 utilization 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 behavior -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 interest of man. Its objective is to
show the best way to man and provide him with the ways and means to
fulfil 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 view point 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 fulfil 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 cooperation among
human beings in the achievement of their objectives. In respect of
those things in which good and evil, gain and loss are inextricable
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.
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 groping 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 die 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 Shari`ah -
Rights and Obligations
The schemeof life which Islconsists 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 fulfil; (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 obey
them carefully. The Shari'ah discussed 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 ilaha illallah (there is no god but Allah).
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 fulfil the
dictates of this right by placing belief in God's Prophet and by
accepting his guidance and leadership.
The third right of God on us is that we should obey Him honestly and
unreservedly. We fulfil the needs of this right by following God's Law
as contained in the Qur'an and the Sunnah.
The fourth right of God on us is to worship Him. This is rendered by
offering prayers and other ‘Ibadah as described earlier.
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 Makkah. 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 time
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 ourselves and our relatives 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 are 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.
2. The Rights of
One's Own Self
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
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 over-indulgence. Still another becomes
enamoured 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; 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.
3. The Rights of
Other Men
On the one hand the Shari'ah has enjoined man to fulfil 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 cooperation 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.
Back-biting, 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 market
trading, 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 cooperate 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 civilization. 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 about 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 head of the family so that discipline may be maintained.
givthis position to the husband and in this way makes the family a
well-disciplined primary unit of civilization 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 sexes.
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:
1. Marriage between those persons who have naturally and
circumstantially the closest association and affiliations with each
other have 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.
2. 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).
3. In a group of kindred families, there usually co-exists 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 Silah-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.
4. 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 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'an injunctions.
After the family and its connections come man's relations with his
friends, neighbors, dwellers of his own locality, village or city, and
persons with whom he comes into constant contact. Islam recognizes
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 unclad
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 recognizes his right and allows him to enjoy it and
make the best use of it. It also suggests that if you are 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-centered, 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
neighbors and fellow-citizens. 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 behavior 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 prudence. When women have to go out of their homes, they
should wear simple dress and be properly veiled. Only in genuine
necessity can thunveil, and they must re-cover as soon as possible.
Along with this, men been asketo 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 in 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, entertainment 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 entertainment 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 dissension and sectarianism
of all kinds. They have been exhorted to settle their differences and
disputes in accordance with the principles laid down in the Our'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 sources 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 results is the cultivation of a defeatist
mentality. Cultural aping of others has disastrous consequences on a
nation; 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-bell.
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, organization 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-behavior, oppression and
narrow-mindedness are against the very spirit of Islam. A Muslim is
born 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.
4. The Rights of All
Creatures
Now we come to the last kind of rights. God has honored 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 - The
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 color can never become universal creeds or world ideologies for the
simple reason that belonging ta 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-Rasuluullah
(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, color, 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 any 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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Source:
http://www.al-islam.com. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Islamic
Affairs, Endowments, Da‘wah and Guidance
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