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Every man who is living in this world is nearer to death than life. In this respect he is virtually on the verge of coming face to face with his Day of Reckoning. But man is so reckless that he does not pay heed to any sort of reminder from God, whether given through a prophet or anyone else. He ignores the advice of the preacher of truth and dismisses it as something uttered by ‘a mere man’. When in Makkah the Prophet Muhammad started calling upon people to God by means of the Quran. The divine discourse enshrined therein moved people’s hearts. This became a serious matter for the Makkan leaders, because this jeopardized their leadership. The Quran urged people to accept the unity of God, whereas the great leaders of Makkah had maintained their supremacy on the basis of polytheism. In order to divert the attention of the people, they started spreading the notion that the effectiveness of the Prophet Muhammad’s message did not derive from its being the word of God; the force behind it was not that of Truth but of magic. It was all mere human rhetoric and was in no way to be considred a divine discourse. Albeit taking the name of God, those who indulged in such talk did not firmly believe that God was seeing and hearing them. Had they had real faith in God’s being all-knowing, that is, His being One who knows the unseen—they would never have uttered such insincere words.

The messenger of truth always presents the truth on the strength of sound arguments. When the Prophet’s opponents felt that they could not counter his arguments with their own arguments, they tried to dissuade the people from treading the path of truth by levelling different types of false allegations, such as saying that this (the divine discourse in the Quran) was mere poetry, that it was literary magic, that these were the senseless ramblings of a madman, that it was all self-devised, etc. Since the Prophet Muhammad did not perform any miracles before the people of Makkah, they cast aspersions on his prophethood by raising the issue of why he had not brought any miracle from God, like the other prophets in the past. Throughout the history of religion, experience has shown that those who do not accept the truth on the presentation of sound arguments, refuse to accept it even after seeing a miracle. Therefore, it is essential for the well wishing of the people that admonition on the strength of arguments be continued, instead of concluding the process of preaching by performing a miracle, because the rejection of a miracle invites the wrath of God. Consequently, the next stage can only be the destruction of the deniers.

Those who refused to accept the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad on the grounds that he was a human being like them, were told that if they were sincere and serious in their objection, they should not find it difficult to come to a correct understanding of the truth. The People of the Book, believers in past prophets, could be asked whether these prophets had been human beings or not. If they (the prophets of the past) were human beings, they had no reason to reject the present Prophet solely on the grounds that he was born of human parents, just like any ordinary human being. The history of former prophets reveals that the people’s acceptance or rejection of them was not an ordinary type of acceptance or rejection, in that it led to distinctly different results for the two groups. The acceptors enjoyed salvation, while the rejectors were destroyed. Therefore, this is a matter in which one has to be extremely sincere and serious.

The Book of God is not a mere book in the ordinary sense of the word. It is in fact a reminder. It is to remind man that the creation of mankind in the present world was not an accident. It took place in accordance with a divine plan, by which man was to be given temporary freedom for the purpose of putting him to the test, and thereafter rewarding him according to his deeds in this world. A partial manifestation of this fact has been given time and again in the shape of the destruction of transgressing communities. Its full manifestation will take place on the Day of Reckoning, when all past and present human beings will be re-created and gathered together in God’s court. As long as man possesses material means of support, he is not prepared to come out of his slumber of carelessness. But when the process of God’s reckoning starts, all the material props on the strength of which the individual dared to ignore the call for Truth, will appear to be so burdensome that he would like to get rid of them. And it is only when he has to part company with his props that his eyes are opened. However, the opening of his eyes at that juncture will be of no avail, because at that time all things will have lost their power. Thereafter, only God and not the false deities—will have the power to help.

Those who are not serious about the divine call, consider the present world as a plaything of God which has no purpose except temporal entertainment. But judging by the immense wisdom and meaningfulness underlying the working of the present world, it would appear to be impossible that the Creator of this world could be a being who has created it merely for the sake of diversion. In the present world, there is the special creation of God, namely, human beings, who by their very nature, have the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. The existence in the world of such creatures, who can use their discretion and decide upon one path as that of truth and another as that of untruth, coupled with the frequent struggle between Truth and untruth, are all indications of the fact that a time is going to come when it will finally be clear as to what is really Truth and what is Untruth. And whoever sides with the Truth will attain success and whoever does not will be doomed to failure.

Every object on the earth and in the skies is God’s creation. Everything behaves as has been divinely ordained. In the entire universe, it is only man who is arrogant and disobedient. Those who do not believe in God indulge in arrogance and disobedience on the plea that there is nobody to rule over them, and they are free to do as they like. Those who believe in God also indulge in arrogance and disobedience, but they offer a different explanation for this behaviour. They take some particular individuals other than God as intermediaries and recommenders. They assume them to be closer to God and presume that if from time to time they are paid homage and obeisance, they will intercede with God for their salvation. Some assume angels to be the intermediaries, while others attribute such qualities to other human beings. But all such theories are totally baseless. If one has such a deep insight as to have a clear vision of Reality at the universal level, he will see that those beings (who are supposed to have divine attributes) are themselves awe-struck by God’s majesty and kneel down before Him. Ironically, it is in their name that man has adopted an attitude of arrogance and disobedience in the world.

The earth is not isolated from the rest of creation; it is inseparably bound with the cosmos. The existence of life on the earth and its flourishing and growth are possible only when it maintains total harmony with the rest of the universe. This balanced and harmonious interaction between the earth and the sky proves that the control of the earth and the sky rests in the hands of one single Being. Had it been with two beings, there would certainly have been frequent clashes between them and consequently the preservation of the existing life on earth would not have been possible. The universe with all its immense majesty and meaningfulness projects the image of its Creator as a God who is absolutely above all shortcomings. To assume the Creator of all things to be a Being subject to shortcomings and weaknesses would be to grossly undervalue the existing universe.

The assumption of there being anyone worthy of worship other than God is not based on any real reasoning, but on total ignorance. Those who assign partners to God have no argument in support of their belief—neither is it based on human knowledge nor on divine revelation. On hearing arguments in favour of the oneness of God, they become evasive and turn their backs, not because of the firmness of their belief based on sound reasoning, but purely because of their prejudice. On account of their biased attitude, they have become so rigid in their belief that they are not prepared to give it up, in spite of its being untenable on the basis of reasoning.

To consider one thing as right and some other thing as wrong curtails the freedom of human beings. Therefore, they have always attempted to find a theory according to which the difference between truth and untruth should vanish, so that they might live in the world in whatever manner they liked and have the satisfaction of not being answerable for what they did or for what they did not do. Irreligious people have tried to achieve this by denying the life hereafter while religious people have had recourse to polytheistic practices. Angels are invisible creatures. Human beings were informed of the existence of angels through the prophets, so that they might realise God’s power. But they (the human beings) formed the erroneous idea that the angels were the daughters of God and adopted the strange belief that they should perform certain rites of worship in the name of the angels, who would in turn recommend them to their ‘Father’, have them (the worshippers) pardoned and procure their salvation. All such beliefs amount to a negation of the godhood of the Almighty. God is God only because He is free of all shortcomings. Had He been subject to shortcomings, He would not have been God.

The solid mass which God ‘tore asunder’ probably refers to the earliest state of the earth and skies which, in this modern age is explained in terms of the ‘Big Bang’ theory. According to modern scientific calculations, the entire matter of the Universe was originally in the shape of a very big ball (a super atom). In obedience to known physical laws, all its parts were attracted towards its centre and were bound together very strongly. At some point, there was a huge explosion in this ball and its parts suddenly started hurtling outwards. In this way, finally the vast universe, which now extends before us, came into being. The question that remains is what caused the highly compact particles of the super-atom to explode. The Big Bang proves the existence of an intervenor. When the intervenor is proved, the existence of God is proven in itself. In this way, the history of the origin of the universe clearly establishes the existence of a Being Who has a separate permanent existence outside the universe and, Who by His own independent power, exerts His influence over the universe. In this world of ours the major component of every living thing is water. If there were no water there would be no life. Water is found in great abundance on the earth. In this extensive universe, the existence of so much water at one place clearly gives an indication of a ‘special creation’. How surprising it is that in spite of such clear signs, man does not find God and continues to remain spiritually deprived.