POINTS TO PONDER

Our treatment with the Qur'an

Brethren-in-Islam!

Muslim are the only fortunate people in the world today who have with them the Word of God completely preserved, free from interpolation and precisely in the same wording in which it was revealed to the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). And these very Muslims are those unfortunate people in the world who have the Word of God with them and are yet deprived of its blessings and its countless boons. The Qur'an was sent to them that they would read it, understand it and act upon it, and, with its help, would establish on God's earth a state which will function according to the law of God. The Qur'an came to grant them dignity and power.

It came to make them real Vicegerents of God on the earth. And History testifies that when they acted according to its directions, it demonstrated its power making them Imam and leader of the world. But now for them its utility is confined to keeping it in the house in order to drive away demons and ghosts, to inscribe its verses on paper and hang it round the neck or wash it in water and drink it, and read the contents unintelligibly to get some blessing. Now they do not seek guidance from it in the affairs of their life. They do not consult it to know what should be our beliefs, what should be our deeds, how should we conduct transactions, what law should we follow in contracting friendship and making enmity, what are the rights on us of our fellow-beings and of our own selves, what is truth for us and what is falsehood, whom should we obey and whom to disobey, with whom should we maintain relation arid with whom not,  who is our friend and who is our enemy. wherein are honour, well-being and benefit for us and wherein lies disgrace, failure and loss? Muslims have given up ascertaining all these verities from the Qur'an. Now they ask these things from unbelievers, polytheists. misguided and selfish people and from the evil force in their own souls, and follow what these elements advise. Therefore what. invariably happens on ignoring God and following the precepts of others, happened to them too, and they are reaping it today in Hindustan, China, Java, Palestine, Syria, Algeria. Morocco and every where.

As for the Qur'an, it is the fountainhead of supreme good. It will impart whatever and as much beneficence you seek from it. lf you seek from it such, trivial, frivolous and spurious things as scaring away demons and ghosts, cure for cough and fever, success in litigation and securing of job, then you will get only these things. If you seek leadership of the world and rulership of the universe you will get that also. And if you wish to reach the pinnacle of spiritual glory, the Qur'an will take you there also. This is just a question of your own capability that you ask for two drops from the ocean, otherwise the ocean is ready to give you a gift as big as the ocean.

 Gentlemen! The cruel jokes which our brother-Muslims play with the Holy Book of Allah are so ridiculous that if they themselves see anyone else doing such frolics in any other matter, they will laugh at him and even brand him as a lunatic. Tell me if somebody got a prescription written by a doctor and hung it by the neck after wrapping it in a piece of cloth or washed it in water and drank it, then what would you say about it? Will you not laugh at it, and will you not call him a fool? But this very treatment is being meted out before your eyes to the matchless prescription written by the greatest of all doctors for the merciful cure of all your ailments, and nobody laughs at it! No one tries to understand that a prescription is not an article to be hung round the neck or soaked in water and drunk, but that its purpose is to use the medicine as directed by it.

It is imperative to understand and follow Qur'an

Tell me if anyone being ill takes up the study of a book on Medicine thinking that by reading it he will get rid of his disease, what will you say about such a man? Will you not say that he is off his head and so should be sent to a lunatic asylum? But you mete out a similar treatment to the book which the Supreme Healer has sent for the cure of your diseases! You read it and think that just by scanning it all the diseases will disappear, and that it is not necessary to follow the directions given in it, nor is it essential to abstain from things which it pronounces as injurious. Then why do you not pass the same judgment about yourself which you pronounce about that man who considers mere reading of a book on Medicine as an enough cure for a disease?

If you receive a letter in a language you do not know, you run to a man who knows that language to learn its contents. You do not feel at ease until you come to know the contents. This is how you deal with letters of business which may bring you some paltry profit. But the letter sent to you by the Lord of the World describing all the benefits for you in this life and the life Hereafter is carelessly set aside without comprehending it. You do not show any keenness to understand its purport. Is this not a matter of astonishment and surprise?

Result of injustice to Allah's Book

I am not telling these things for amusement. If you ponder over these facts., your heart will testify that the greatest possible injustice in this world is being done to this book of Allah and the oppressors are the very people who assert that they have faith in it and are ready to sacrifice their life for it. No doubt they have faith in it and regard it dearer than life, but the pity is that it is they who do the greatest injustice to it. And the result of perpetrating injustice on Allah's Book is obvious! Please understand the fact thoroughly that Allah's Word is not sent to roan to embroil him into ill fortune, misery and suffering.

"We have not revealed this Qur'an that you should fall into distress."

(Al-Qur'an 20: 1 -2)

The Qur'an is a fountainhead of auspiciousness and good fortune, not a source of viciousness and wretchedness. It is absolutely impossible that a nation be possessor of God's Word and yet wallow in misery in this world, suffer under the yoke of others, be trampled and kicked, have its neck caught in the knot of slavery of others who lead it by the nose like animals in whichever direction they like. A nation meets this doom only when it commits injustice to the Word of God. The doom of Bani Israel is before you. Taurat and Injeel were sent to them and it was said :

"If they had observed the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto them from their Lord, they would surely have been nourished from beneath their feet." (Al-Qur'an 5: 66)

But they did injustice to thee Book of Allah and saw its consequence:-

"And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them and they were visited with wrath from Allah. That was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully. That was for their disobedience and transgression." (Al-Qur’an2:61)

Therefore if a nation possesses God's book and is still humiliated and subjugated, then you take it that it is surely doing injustice to Allah's Word and all this punishment is the result of this injustice. There is no other way to be saved from this wrath of' Allah than to give up doing injustice to it and trying to render it its due. If you do not recoil from this stupendous sin, your condition will never change though you may open colleges in each and every village, all your children may turn out as graduates, and you may become, like the Jews, millionaires through usury.

Who is called a Muslim?

Gentlemen! The foremost thing every Muslim ought to know is : Who is called a Muslim and what is the meaning of a "Muslim"? If a human being fails to know what humanity is and what difference is there between man and animal, he would naturally indulge in beastly acts and would not value his being a man. Similarly, if person does not know what is the true significance of his being a Muslim and how is a Muslim to be distinguished from a non-Muslim, he will behave as a non-Muslim and will not feel the prestige of being a Muslim. Therefore, every Muslim and the child of every Muslim ought to be taught the significance of calling himself a Muslim, what difference takes place in his position as soon as he becomes a Muslim, what responsibility devolves on him and what are the limits of Islam within which a man remains a Muslim and by transgressing which he ceases to be a Muslim, though he may be verbally styling himself as a Muslim.

Meaning of Islam

The meaning of Islam is: Obedience and dutifulness to God. To give over oneself to God is Islam. To relinquish one's freedom and independence in favour of God is Islam to surrender oneself before the authority and sovereignty of God is Islam. One who entrusts all his affairs to God is a Muslim, and one who keeps his affairs in his own hands or entrusts them to someone else than God is not a Muslim. To hand over one's affairs to God means to accept the guidance sent by God through His books as well as His messenger and to refrain from raising the slightest objection to it. Further, it is essential to follow only Qur'an and Prophet's Sunnah in every problem of life. Again, only that person is a Muslim who puts back his own wisdom, worldly customs and everybody's advice except that of God, and consults in every matter God's book and the sayings of the Holy Prophet to know what he should do and what not to do, and accepts without demur whatever guidance he gets from there and rejects whatever guidance he gets from there and rejects whatever he finds opposed to it because he has wholly entrusted himself to God and this very act of total entrustment to God amounts to being a "Muslim".

In contrast to this, a person is certainly not a Muslim who does not depend on the Qur'an and the Holy Prophet's Sunnah but carries out the dictates of his mind or follows the practice descending from his forefathers, or conforms to what is happening in the world without caring to ascertain from the Qur'an and Sunnah as to how to handle his affairs, or if he comes to know the specific instructions of the Qur'an and Sunnah and reacts to it by saying: "It does not appeal to my intellect, so I will not accept it; or my forefathers have been pursuing an opposite course, so I will not follow these instructions, or the practice of the world is opposed to it, so I will follow that practice only". Such a person is a liar if he calls himself a Muslim.

Duties of a Muslim

When you recite the Kalima : La ilaha illallah Mulzammadur Rasulullah, it amounts to your simultaneous affirmation that the only law for you is the Law of God, your sovereign is only God, your ruler is only God, you have to obey only God, and only that thing is true and right for you which is vouchsafed through God's book and His messenger. This means that you relinquished your independence in favour of God as soon as you became a Muslim. Consequently you have forfeited your right to say now: "My opinion is this, the practice in the world is this, the family custom is this, that gentleman and that holy person advises like this". In the face of Allah's Word and His messenger's Sunnah, you cannot put forward such excuses. Now your duty is to judge everything in the light of the Qur'an and Sunnah. Accept what is in conformity with these and throw overboard what goes counter to these, irrespective of its being anybody's order or anybody's practice. It is an exercise in contradiction to call oneself a Muslim on the one hand, and, on the other, gives preference to one's opinion, or worldly custom, or any person's word or action over and above the Qur'an and Sunnah. Just as a blind man cannot say he has eyes, nor can a noseless person claim to have nose, in the same way no such person can call himself a Muslim who refuses to subordinate all the affairs of his life to the dictates of the Qur'an and Sunnah and flaunts his wisdom, or worldly custom, or any human being's saying and practice, in preference to God's injunctions and His messenger's advice.

Whoever does not want to be a Muslim cannot be compelled by anybody to act against his will. He is free to adopt any religion he likes and calls himself by any name he prefers. But having called himself a Muslim, he must fully understand that he can remain a Muslim as long as he is within the bounds of Islam. The bounds of Islam are : to accept the Word of God and His messenger's Sunnah as the criterion of Truth and Justice, and to regard everything opposed to it as false. Whoever remains within these bounds is a Muslim and whoever transgresses them gets expelled from Islam. And if even after this expulsion he considers himself a Muslim and announces that he is a Muslim, he deceives his own self and the world too.

"Whoso judges not by the law which Allah has revealed: Such are disbelievers." (Al-Qur'an 5: 44)

Fundamentals of Islam ■