Al-Hajj 22:61–78

The system of this world, in its silent language, goes on teaching us a great lesson. Here, again and again, we see the phenomenon of the darkness of the night coming and enveloping the light of the day. Here, every day, the day dawns and dispels the darkness of the night. By analogy, if a group or community is enjoying pomp and glory, it should not harbour the misunderstanding that its pomp and glory will never come to an end. Similarly, if a group or community is oppressed, it should not think that it will remain oppressed forever. God who, in the realm of the heavens, causes the light to be plunged into darkness, and who then restores it, can certainly cause similar events to occur in the world of human beings also. There is no power that can prevent Him from doing so.

When a man builds up his life on the basis of Truth, he comes across different types of difficulties, such as being harassed by others at Satan’s instigation. This reduces the worshipper of Truth to a state of abject despair. But, the universe, in its silent language, declares that there is no question of despair for any of God’s subjects. They have only to compare their condition to that of the earth when, due to extreme heat, it loses all its greenery and becomes dry and barren. To all appearances there is no hope of life. Then, as He does every year, God performs His wonderful miracle—He brings the rain—and all is green again. This is an example of God’s power which is made manifest every year at the material level. Can anyone then doubt His efficacy at the human level?

All the things of this earth maintain a harmonious balance. If this balance is upset, it will be harmful to us instead of being useful. If a piece of metal is put in water, it will sink immediately. But God has made water subject to certain rules on account of which if iron is given the shape of a boat, it will not sink in water. The numerous spheres floating in space should apparently have fallen down, but according to a set law of nature, they accurately maintain their orbits. Man has not created himself. God has created him. Then He has maintained him in a world which is full of blessings. But after being given freedom, man has become so rebellious that he does not admit the graciousness of his greatest Benefactor.

There are two aspects of prayer—one is its spirit, i.e. its true inner aspect, and the other its outward ritual aspect. Inner reality is the true essence of prayer, and the outward form is extraneous. But when a group follows the outward form for a long period, it forgets the aforesaid difference. It gradually comes to consider carrying out only the outward formalities, as if they were the real prayer. This means that the group has reached the stage of mental stagnation. Hence, it has been the way of God Almighty that when He sends a new prophet, He makes some changes in his shariah (i.e. outward ritual forms). His purpose is to shake the people out of their inertia, to break their addiction to outward formalities and to make them active and live worshippers in spirit. Now, those who think that outward formality and ritual in prayer are everything, refuse to obey the prophet. On the contrary, those who know the true spirit underlying prayer start to follow the prophet’s instructions. This change infuses a new spirit into their prayers. It removes them from inert and frozen faith and takes them towards active and live faith. This is the wisdom which accounts for the rites of prayer or worship having differed from one prophet to the next. When a prophet introduced new rites, those who were sunk in inertia would raise serious objections to them. But the prophets were instructed not to allow these matters to become the subject of serious discussions and to devote their full attention to the real and basic teachings.

Inevitably, the call for pure monotheism is intolerable to those who have reposed their faith in many gods rather than in the one and only God. They become deeply agitated when their gods and beloved personalities are criticised. Being unable to refute by rational arguments the call of Truth, they resort to violence against the upholder of the call of monotheism, and want him to be eliminated altogether. When told by God that their behaviour is unwise in the extreme, they are not prepared to bear even verbal criticism. But what will be their condition subsequently when they will be required to undergo the punishment of Hellfire on account of their opposition to the Truth?

To clothe anybody except God with holiness is absolute stupidity, because holiness is given to a being who has inherent power, and as far as this world is concerned, there is no human being or non-human being who enjoys real power. A fly is an ordinary creature, but all the things of the earth and heavens together cannot bring into existence even this ordinary fly. Then where is the justification for holding anything other than God to be holy? All these beliefs are, in fact, based on an underestimation of God’s godhead. People do believe in God, but they are not fully aware of His majesty and power. If they believe in God as He should be believed in, then all deviant beliefs will strike them as meaningless to the point of being ridiculous. Then they themselves will give up all such beliefs.

The scheme by which God created man and settled him on earth, necessitated His providing guidance to man and showing him which way leads to paradise and which way to hell. He, therefore, ordained the selection of certain human beings for prophethood and then sent them His messages by the angels. By this arrangement, on the one hand, man is being made aware of the reality. On the other, Almighty God is keeping a watch on people’s actions. Thereafter, when the period of testing is over, all the people will be brought back before God in order that they may be requited according to their performance.

The addressees of this verse were directly the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, and indirectly all the believers in the Quran. God chose this group for the special task of making all communities and nations aware of the true and eternal religion of God. The task of bearing witness was performed by the Prophet Muhammad for the people of his own times, and his followers were required to perform this same task for their contemporaries uptill Doomsday. This obligation is a very delicate one. For this purpose, a vigorous and persevering struggle is required. It can be properly performed only by those who bow down before God in the real sense; who are well-wishers of others to the extent that they derive pleasure from spending their time and money on them; who rely on the one and only God; who rise above everything else; who fulfil in the real sense the requirement of the term ‘Muslim’, which term has been specially devised for them by God. However, God has made a special dispensation in relation to the work of bearing witness, i.e. He has removed forever all the external hurdles in the way of this work. A revolution has been brought about through the Prophet Muhammad, which has resulted in the permanent abolition of such hurdles as once constricted the ways of the prophets of the past and their followers. Now there is absolutely no real obstacle to performing this work, unless the bearers of the Quran themselves create self-made difficulties out of ignorance, and thus make an easy task unnecessarily difficult.