Az-Zukhruf

The Original Book, or the Mother of Book (ummul kitab), refers to the preserved tablet (lawh mahfuz), which is with God. On this tablet, God Almighty has an imprint of the true religion, which He requires human beings to follow. This true religion, revealed to numerous prophets in various languages, was revealed to the Last of the Prophets in Arabic. Today, it is only this Arabic Quran which represents the true religion of God. It is now the responsibility of the bearers of the Quran to have it translated into every language and make it available to all the nations of the world, so that this religion may be understood by all other people, as it was understood by the Arabs. These sublime scriptures, being full of wisdom, are in themselves proof of their being the Book of God. The language of the Quran and its contents do justice to the Majesty of God with the utmost exactitude. Had the Quran been couched in the words of human beings, it would not have possessed the extraordinary glory which it possesses till today.

Today there are countless people in the world who speak of previous prophets with reverence. In view of this, it appears very strange that these very prophets (including the Prophet Muhammad) were ridiculed and mocked by their contemporaries. The reason for this is not that the people of those days were savage and the people of today are civilized. It is simply due to a difference in the times. Today, after the lapse of centuries, every prophet is surrounded by an aura of historical glory. So, every superficial admirer of appearances recognises the prophet. But, to his contemporaries, the prophet appeared to be an ordinary person. At that time, in order to discover and recognise the reality of the prophetic position of a prophet, a deep insight was required to discover the reality and, undoubtedly, such insight has always been very rare in this world. However badly a preacher’s addressees may treat him, he unilaterally exercises patience and carries on the work of his mission, until the day comes when God’s will is made manifest on what future course he should take.

In every period, the majority of people have admitted, that the Creator and Lord of the Universe is God, and that it is He who has provided them with the wherewithal for the sustenance of life. To bring the Universe into existence and to make every provision for life on the earth are such gigantic tasks that it is impossible to attribute their undertaking to anyone except the one and only God. This assertion calls for man to devote his attention to God above all; his life should be a God-oriented life. But man sets himself other goals; he places entities other than God at the centre of his attention. Almighty God has revealed the realities through His prophets. In addition to that, He has created the world in such a way that it has become the practical illustration, or analogy of hidden realities. For instance, it is a fact that human beings will be resurrected after death—a fact shown at the level of vegetation again and again. It is seen by man every year that the land becomes dry and dead. Then there are rains and the land is again covered with lush greenery. This phenomenon points to the fact that man will be brought to life again after death. Another special feature of the present world is that it is most wonderfully favourable to human existence. Everything here has been created in such a way that it can be used by man for his own purposes as he wishes. This blessing demands that a feeling of gratitude should develop in man. Whenever he happens to use anything in God’s world, he should spontaneously bow his head before God and words of acknowledgement and prayer should fall from his lips.

One way of ascribing partners to God is to assume that He can have offspring, for example, holding angels to be the daughters of God, or Christ to be the son of God, or subscribing to the theory of the unity of existence (wahdat al-wujud) or monism which interprets all things of the universe to be part and parcel of God. All such beliefs are baseless suppositions or flights of imagination, which are not borne out by reasoning. Here, certain of the gender characteristics of women have been dealt with under two headings—one is that by nature she is given to self-adornment and the other is that at times of dispute she is unable to vindicate herself. These weaknesses in a woman are facts, and that is why in Islam the distribution of work is such that the responsibility for outside work lies with the men and that of inside work with the women.

A man may do whatever he wants in this world, because he has ample opportunities to do so. For this reason, people harbour the misunderstanding that whatever they do must be right. They argue that, had they been wrong, they would not have achieved success by adopting the course that they did. Arguments of this kind are generally advanced by those who belong to the well-to-do class. But this is a serious misunderstanding. In this world, indulgence in any kind of behaviour may make headway because of the freedom given to human beings during their period of trial. But in the world of the Hereafter, the testing period will be over and, therefore, this opportunity will no longer exist for anybody there. In every age, the religion of the prophets was opposed and most of all by ancestral religion. Ancestors assume the status of the ‘great’ ones in the estimation of nations. As compared to them, the prophet of their own days appears lowly in stature. It therefore becomes impossible for them to renounce the religion of their great men in favour of that of a lesser mortal. But it is on account of their denial of these ‘small’ men that these nations have had to face horrendous punishments.

Abraham’s proclamation of the Unity of God as mentioned here was made by him during the last days of his mission. This was not simply a string of words: it was the sum and substance of a great history. When he attained the age of awareness, he discovered that the only Being worth worshipping by man was God. Except for Him, all other gods were false and without foundation. He built up his life solely on the basis of this belief and preached it among his family members and the people of his community. In complete disregard of personal or other considerations, he was steadfast in this belief for a very long time, so much so that his being a believer in the one God came to define his identity. After a lifetime spent in this way, when he left his native place and repeated the above-mentioned words, they naturally left a permanent impression. His words were such that people used to remember them whenever his name was mentioned. This strong tradition laid down by Abraham should have served as a milestone for the coming generations. But absorption in worldly interests made them neglectful of it and they became so careless and forgetful of it that in a later period, when one of God’s messengers came to remind them of this past lesson, they rejected him.