THE MEANINGFULNESS OF LIFE

By: Kassim Ahmad (e-mail: kassim@pc.jaring.my)

It is a daunting subject that we have undertaken to discuss. Most writers today would consider
it an irrelevant topic. But it is a fact that mankind has asked this question of the meaning of
life since the beginnig of his historical existence on earth. The existence of religions, arts and
philosophies testify to man’s quest for meaning. Yet are we any nearer to solving the mystery
than our first theologians, artists and philosophers in the Middle East, Greece, India, Persia or
China? It does not seem so. On the contrary, going by the present state of chaos in the world,
we are as far away from getting an anwer to life’s mystery as we can be. We, therefore, have
to try and try again until we come nearer to its understanding.

Alija Ali Izetbegovic, now president of Bosnia-Herzergovina, in his profound book 1 has
reminded us that Islam is the middle way between ascetism, or religion in the narrow sense of
the term, and materialism. Islam is a harmonious blending of spirit and matter. It does not
reject the world, as mysticism does; nor does it reject the spirit, as the materialist does. He
says:

There are three integral views of the world: the religious, the materialistic, and the Islamic.
They reflect three elemental possibilities -- conscience, nature and man, each of them
manifesting itself as Christianity, Materialism and Islam. All variety of ideologies, philosophies
and teachings from the oldest time up to now can be reduced to one of these three basic world
views. The first takes as its starting point the existence of the spirit, the second the existence
of matter, and the third the simultaneous existence of spirit and matter. If only matter exists,
materialism would be the only consequent philosophy. On the contrary, if the spirit exists,
then man also exists, and man’s life would be senseless without a kind of religion and
morality. Islam is the name for the unity of spirit and matter, the highest form of which is man
himself. The human life is complete only if it includes both the physical and the spiritual
desires of the human being. All man’s failures are either because of the religious denial of
man’s biological needs or the materialistic denial of man’s spiritual desires. 2

The materialist concept, by rejecting the spirit, denies an important aspect of life and hence
distorts it. Thus a social system based on the materialist philosophy, as communism is, is
bound to deny morality, creativity and freedom, since these belong to the realm of the spirit.
This is its own death warrant and the death of the communist system is now an accomplished
fact. Capitalist liberalism is no less materialist than communism. In fact, they are twins, born
of the same materialist philosophical parents. But since Western liberalism has been tempered
somewhat with social responsibility of the state, a legacy it derived from the American
Revolution, it was able to prolong its life. In spite of this, unfettered individualism, which is the
essence of liberalism, will sooner or later, sooner rather than later, lead it to its destruction.
The present period in world history seems to us to be a period of the death throes of liberalism
-- a desperate spurt to stay alive of a living entity already doomed to death. 3

1 Islam Between East and West, American Trust Publication, Indianapolis, U.S.A. 1984.

2 Ibid., p.1.

3 The liberal truimphalism announced by Francis Fukuyama after the collapse of communism in 1989 is
obviously illusory. The system is being kept alive largely through usury and the moral apathy of Western
societies. See his book, The End of History and the Last Man, Penguin Books, New York, 1992.

The collapse of Marxism and liberalism, however, is not due to any cycle of life and death of
any society or civilization, as propounded by Ibn Khaldun 4 and Arnold Toynbee. 5 Both of
them postulated and described cycles of birth, development dan degeneration of societies and
civilizations. The birth and development are due to the creative spirit embedded in that
society; the degeneration and death to the loss of that creative spirit. Liberalism and Marxism
are two universal materialist philosophies of the modern era and their collapse is complete and
final, due to their inherent error. It is not due to mismanagement or fatigue. Therefore, there
is no such thing as a revival of liberalism or communism, except in the sense of a temporary
backward step in history in the absence of a better alternative. When the Quran states a term
for every nation, 6 it is referring to the first phenomenon of historical cycles. The second
phenomenon refers to an error of philosophical conception.

What is life, then? What is the purpose of our being here? Denying the spirit, the materialist
does not believe in any purpose. One modern materialist philosopher, Bertrand Russell,
describes this meaninglessness poignantly and almost poetically:

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world in which
science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must
find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the need they were
achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but
the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of the
labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the aspiration, all the noonday brightness of human
genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole
temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in
ruins -- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearluy certain, that no
philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of those truths,
only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be built
7

On the other hand, Islam teaches the purposefulness of life. In one of its clearest statements,
the Quran declares:

We did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them just to play. If We
needed entertainment, We could have initiated it without any of these, if that is what We
wanted to do. Instead, it is Our plan to support the truth against falsehood in order to defeat
it. 8

4 The Muqaddimah, 3 vol., 1958 (trans. by F. Rosenthal).

5 A Study of History, 10 vol., 1934, 1939 & 1954. Abridged edition made by D.C. Somervell, 1960.

¡°For each community, there is a predetermined life span. Once their interim comes to an end,
they cannot delay it by one hour, nor advance it.¡± (Quran, Al-A’raf: 34)

This occurs when a community, after going through the stages of growth and prosperity, forgets the moral
law and abondans itself to decadence, as often happens.

7 Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic, Allen and Unwin, London, 1910; p. 41.

8 Al-Anbiya: 16-18.

Thus, the whole universe has been created by God in accordance with the laws of truth in such
a way that all falsehoods that temporarily pervade life will be ultimately exposed and
defeated. Man, therefore, has a moral duty to fight against evil and falsehood in order to
establish good and the truth 9 in accordance with the divine plan to establish the truth.
Studying the entire history of mankind, we can see the evolution of human society, definitely
progressing, if at most times all too slowly, sometimes regressing, yet definitely moving
forward from stage to stage: from pimitive society to civilized society, localized in the
beginning and leading to the formation of an international scientific-technologically-based
society in the 20th century. The philosophies guiding these stages are the same: materialist,
ascetic and Islamic. When the Islamic philosophical element is predominant or strong, the
evolution is fast; otherwise it is slow and society may even regress. 10

It is often complained by non-believers and sceptics that a suffering human being or child did
not ask to be born: why then did God create him and put him into this suffering? To answer
this question, one has first to define the concept of suffering. Two types of suffering have first
to be identified, that is physical and spiritual suffering. Being materially poor, one may suffer
from material deprivation like hunger or lack of other material goods. Yet spiritual deprivation,
a feeling of loneliness, aimlessness, hopelessness and despair is surely more painful. A
spiritually strong person not only will not suffer spiritually; he also may not suffer materially,
because being spiritually strong, he is resourceful enough to earn his living. A spiritually
strong society will also be able to look after its deficient children, like the poor and the
physically-handicapped. So the question of suffering really does not arise.

¡°The human being is utterly lost, except those who lead a righteous life, exhort one another
to uphold the truth, and exhort one another to be steadfast.¡± (Al-`Asr: 2-3)

10

¡°The One Who created death and life for the purpose of distinguishing those among you who
would do better.¡± (Quran, Al-Mulk: 2)

As to man’s consent to come into this world, no man refuses to benefit from the joys of this
world, like wealth, position, power, love, friendship, reading, food, conversation, music,
literature, family life and so on. Although some extremely spiritual men, like Buddha and Jesus
Christ, may forgo some of these pleasures, most of them do not; neither is it normal for
human beings to do so. Therefore, we can conclude that symbolically man agrees to be born
into this world and is pleased to be in it, although under certain conditions some of his kind
would commit suicide.

This brings us face to face with the question of man’s mortality or immortality. If a man’s life
ends with his death, then life is meaningless. On the one hand, man propagates himself
physically, intellectually, morally and spiritually. His children and grand-children not only
continue his physical life but also intellectual, moral and spiritual live. There is continuity
throughout. On the other hand, death only takes away the physical man; his spirit does not
die with him, because spirits belong to the realm of the divine. 11 According to the Quran, this
spirit will get resurrected in another world on the Day of Judgement. This spirit will get a new
body and continue the man’s journey of life. 12 This will continue until God’s plan of
sepearating the truth from falsehood and making the truth prevail is fully realized.

Since man dies on this earth and will be resurrected on this earth 13 and since Heaven is as
wide as the universe 14, it can be postulated that in the coming decades, three more decades
at most, man will live on other planets and in outer space. As changes on earth was made
with man’s participation, so we can expect that future changes, including the Final Judgement,
will be made with man’s participation. 15

Thus, it seems clear that we cannot take life to mean our brief earthly life. This earthly life,
important as it is, is simply a stage in a man’s long journey to ascend to od, his Maker, and to
share in His perfection and freedom. The earthly life is an important prepatory period for the
coming stages of his almost immortal life. 16
11 Man’s distinction from the other orders of created beings is his possession of the divine spark of creative
reason within him. For this reason he is superior to all other beings, including the angels.

¡°Your Lord said to the angels, `I am creating a human being from aged mud, like the potter’s
clay. Once I perfect him and blow into him from My spirit, you shall prostrate before him.¡±
(Quran, Al-Hijr: 28-29)

Of all created beings, only man has this divine spirit in him. Thus he is God’s vicegerent, and the whole of
creation, including the angels, are commanded by God to serve him.

12

¡°On that day, We shall fold the heavens like the folding of a book. Just as We initiated the
first creation, We shall repeat it. This is Our promise; We shall certainly carry it out.¡± (Quran,
Al-Anbiya: 104)

13

¡°He said, `On it you will live, on it you will die, and from it you will be brought out.’ ¡±
(Quran, Al-A’raf: 25)

14

¡°You should eagerly race towards forgiveness from your Lord, and a Paradise whose width
encompases the heavens and the earth; it awaits the righteous.¡± (Quran, Ali-Imran: 133)

15 Man’s participation in the divine creative work of perfecting the world can be deduced from the Quranic
concept of man’s vicegerency on earth as well its concept of the divine subjection of universal forces to
man’s purpose. (See notes 11 and 19.) Man’s self-judgement on Resurrection Day is indicated in such
verses as this:

¡°We have recorded the fate of every human being; it is tied to his neck. On the Day of
Resurrection, We shall hand him a record that is accesible. Read your own record. Today you
suffice as your own reckoner.¡± (Bani Israil: 13-14)

16

¡°O man! You are toiling towards your Lord, and you will meet Him.¡± (Quran, Al-Inshiqaq: 6)

This verse, coupled with other verses speaking of man’s journey of life, indicates his evolution.

At this point, it is pertinent to raise the question of time and space. Civilization, as far as we
know, is about five thousand years old, and man about a million years. Is this flow of time
fixed? Could it have happened faster? If it could, what are the determining factors? Since
Einstein and Heisenberg, physics has answered for us that both time and space are not fixed
or static; they are relative and elastic. 17 The Quran has also revealed to us this fact a long
time ago. 18 So, mankind could have progressed in an all-round way in a much shorter time
and with much less pain and suffering than it has taken. The conditions are that man must
exert himself , first morally and spiritually and, of course, also mentally and physically to
make the world save and better for himself. The whole universe has been created for him. 19
The earth and the whole universe is both a test of his fidelity to God as well a battle-ground
for the realization of his fullest potential as God’s vicegerent. 20
17 ¡°The principle if indeterminacy seems to introduce a new kind of incalculability into nature. The
uncertainties hitherto decribed might possibly be due to ignorance, and might pass into determinism again
as knowledge increase. It is dangerous to build on them a philosophy of free-will. But ... the work of
Schrodinger and Bohr indicates that there is an uncertainty in the nature of things. The alternative
uncertainties that, if we try to calculate the position of an electron, its velocity become incalculable, and if we
wish to determine its velocity its position becomes indeterminate, have been thought by some to indicate
that, in the ultimate analysis, the scientific argument for determinism breaks down. But others hold that this
indeterminacy merely expresses the inadequacy of our system of measurements to deal with problems
outside the realm of physics.¡± (W.C. Dampier, A History of Science, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1968; pp. 480-81)

18 The following verses show the relativity of time and space.

¡°They challenge you to bring retribution, and God neever breaks His promise. A day of your
Lord is like a thousand of your years.¡± (Al-Hajj: 47)

¡°The angels and the inspiration ascend to Him in a day that equals fifty thousand years.¡±
(Al-Ma’rij: 4) ¡

°Our commands are done within the blink of an eye.¡± (Al-Rahman: 50)

19

¡°Do you not see that God has committed in your service everything in the heavens and the
earth, and has showered you with His blessings, obvious and hidden? Yet, some people argue
about God without knowledge, guidance and an enlightening scripture.¡± (Luqman: 20)

20

¡°We have decreed death for you. Nothing can stop Us from changing your attributes and
transforming you into something you do not know.¡± (Al-Waqi`ah: 60-61)

Let us have a brief practical look at time and space. We know of the slow development of
transportation from antiquity to very recent times. First, we moved on our bare legs and
carried things on poles; then we harnessed the domesticated animals, like horses, camels and
dogs, and used slide cars and sleighs; we also invented the raft; then came a big invention:
the wheel and the use of roads; we also harnessed the wind and invented sailing ships. All
these took us from the beginning up to recent times, that is, about two hundred years ago.
Then from steamships, to engines, to locomotives and to nuclear-powered ocean-liners and
rocket-ships, it is pretty quick development, only around 150 years. The next 50 to 100 years
will bring yet more astonishing developments. Man has not only conquered the earth; he has
already begun to conquer space! All these are taking place, of course, in the Quranic phrase,
¡°with God’s leave¡±, that is, in accordance with His will or His law. 21

From the earliest times, man has puzzled over the question of freedom and determination.
How free and determined are we in our actions? Coupled with this question is the question of
Evil. If God is all-powerful, why does evil exist? How can an all-compassionate God allow the
genocide in Bosnia, for example? Of course, we cannot entertain the wrong thought of atheists
and disbelievers who think that that is a conclusive argument for the non-existence of God.
But we certainly have to give some satisfactory explanations for these puzzles.

That man, to some extent, has freedom of action is proved by his ability to act freely in certain
circumstances. For instance, he can choose his place of residence, his work or profession, his
food and clothes, his life-partner and many other things. But to a great extent, a man,
especially an ordinary man, without influence and power, cannot prevent wars and diseases
and cannot determine the type of government or politico-economic system that he wants for
his country, however important these matters are to him personally. However, these thoughts
suggest to us two creative forces that are avilable to him to render him free to decide these
things. They are the combined power of men acting together and the power of science and
technology.

The first creative force that man as an individual has at his disposal we already know, that is,
his mind or intelligence. Using his mind to combine with other individuals to attain a like
purpose through united actions, or through the fruits of scientific research, he can attain far
greater freedom than if he were to act individually or by brute force. For instance, the people
of the Thirteen Colonies, acting together, launched the great American Revolution against the
British Empire and created the first modern republic. Through the use of his mind and
scientific research, man conquered the air and is now able to fly far better than the birds.
Thus, his mind, and through the rational use of his mind to discover the knowledge of laws of
the universe, i.e science -- his mind and science -- these are the sources of his almost
unlimited power that gives him his freedom. Freedom is, therefore, not static and not given a
priori to man. He has to struggle to achieve freedom step by step. But, speaking absolutely,
man is free.

21

¡°Who can intercede with Him, except in accordance with His will?¡± (Al-Baqarah: 255)

This does not mean that there is no determination. Freedom and determination must not be
conceived as opposites. All created things exist in pairs, as the Quran tells us. 22 For man you
have woman; for matter you have spirit; for good you have evil; for tall you have short; for
white you have black. This law applies to all things. The same goes for freedom and
determination. God created the world according to law; therefore, He knows everything,
including the falling of a leaf. 23 Yet, this law includes everything, including a man’s free
action. Take the case of one’s action tomorrow. We cannot have exact knowledge of what we
shall do tomorrow, however much we plan, for we may decide on doing them as we go to
sleep, or early in the morning as we get up, or even cancel or modify some of them in the
early part of the day, depending on circumstances. But God knows exactly what we are going
to do. Therefore, looking from God’s point of view, everything has been decided for us (His
decision includes allowing us to do certain things we want to do and not allowing us to do
certain other things, all in His infinite wisdom); but looking from our point of view, some of
our daily actions are completely free.

Such understanding of this question would exclude and reject fatalism, a bane, it is to be
noted, among Muslims after the collapse the rationalist philosophy of Mu’tazilism in the third
Muslim century 24 and the emergence of a compromised freedom-and-unfreedom doctrine of
the Asha`arites. Again this freedom must not be conceived as chaos. It is lawful freedom, or
freedom within the divine laws of justice, truth and mercy. 25

22

¡°Glory be to the One Who created pairs of everything from the earth and from themselves as
well as other things they do not even know.¡± (Ya Sin: 36)

23

¡°With Him are the keys to all secrets; none knows them except He. He knows everything on
land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls without His knowledge. Nor is there a grain in the depth of
the soil, be it wet or dry, that is not recorded in a clear book.¡± (Al-An`am: 59)
¡°There is nothing in the heavens and the earth that is absent. Everything is in a profound
record.¡± (Al-Naml: 75)

¡°Everything We created is precisely measured.¡± (Al-Qamar: 49)

24 The Mu’tazilites, the rationalists of early Islam, upheld man’s freedom of action, and hence his
responsibilty, and rejected fatalism of the later Asha`arites. Due the peculiar circumstances of that time, they
lost their case to the so-called orthodox party, the Asha`arites, in the fourth and fifth centuries of Islam.
However, the rationalist trend continued, through philosophers, thinkers and reformers in all Muslim
countries, like Ibn Khaldun, Shah Waliullah, Muhamad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal, Malek Bennabi, Ali
Shari`ati, just to mention a few, up to the present time. (See Kassim Ahmad, Teori Sosial Moden Islam,
Penerbit Fajar Bakti, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 1984; pp. 85-88.)

25 Justice, truth and mercy as the bases of God’s laws are stated in many Quranic verses. We give some
here.

¡°Say, `My Lord advocates justice, and to stand devoted to Him at every place of worship. You
shall devote your worship absolutely to Him alone. Just as He initiated you, you will ultimately
go back to Him.¡± (Al-A’raf: 29)

¡°It was God’s will to establish the truth with His words and to punish the disbelievers so as to
make the truth prevail and falsehood vanish, despite the disbelievers.¡± Al-Anfal: 7-8)

¡°He has ordained mercy on Himself.¡± (Al-An`am: 12)

That evil, with a small `e’, exists is only obvious. But to believe in Evil (with a capital `E’) as
an equal power rivalling God, as the Manichans have believed, is an error. God tells us in the
Quran that He did not create men and jins, except to worship Him. 26 Thus the devil, standing
for evil in the world, is to serve the purposes of God., however paradoxical this may sound. It
should be remembered that we said in the beginning that the divine purpose of the whole
creation is to expose falsehood and establish the truth. How is man to know the truth and the
good unless there exist falsehood and evil to oppose the truth and the good? Thus are evil and
falsehood exposed and defeated.

In the beginning, the whole universe submitted to God, its Creator and Ruler, but among
God’s creations, out of the moral freedom granted to man, a principle of rebellion arose.
Rebellion against God means evil, symbolized in the person of the rebel or the devil. This is
the source of evil. By negative example, the devil, by his opposition to the moral man,
exposes the immoral man and thus renders the immoral man impotent. This is the meaning of
the Quranic statement that even the jins serve God.

Therefore, God is not to blame for the existence, at times even widespread, of evil in the
world. Man is to blame. Wanting freedom of action, he yet does not use his freedom to fight
against evil, even as he complains when evil touches him. The widespread evil that we are
seeing too obviously in the post-Cold War world (the horrendous Anglo-American-led
aggression against Iraq and its consequent murderous U.N. embargo against that country, the
British-sponsored Serbian genocide against Bosnia, to mention just two) is due to man’s
current state of spiritual blindness and moral apathy. Even then, in the face of such extremes
of cruelty, the moral man can be said to have stood up and defeated the foe, both in Iraq and
Bosnia. This is proof of ever-recurrent divine protection for the moral law with which He has
constructed the universe. 27 This gives us the optimism to look ahead and to work towards
the future good of mankind. If we remember well, we should know that God has given us this
assurance when He related us the story of creation.28

26
¡°I did not create the jins and the humans except to worship Me alone.¡± (Al-Dariyah: 56)

27

¡°Imploring Him is everyone in the heavens and the earth. Everyday He is in full control.¡±
(Al-Rahman: 29)

¡°His dominian encompasses the heavens and the earth, and ruling them never burdens
Him.¡± (Al-Baqarah: 255).

So the pessimists’ complaint that God is absent from the world should be turned against the passivity of men
who expect good to come to them without their exertion to attain it.

28 28. In Al-Baqarah, verses 30-33 inform us of the great future in store for men, in spite of their
weaknesses.

Although we said at the beginning that Izetbegovic’s book is profound, it is also frightening in
several parts. One concerns the question of modern pessimism. The author, in spite of being a
committed Muslim, seems a hopeless pessimist (which, however, is not borne by his
courageous and unflinching struggle for Bosnia). At the end of the book, one finds this
astonishing passage:

Therefore, to properly understand our position in the world means to submit to God, to find
peace, not to start making a more positive effort to encompass and to overcome everything,
but rather a negative effort to accept the place and the time of our birth , the place and the
time that are our destiny and God’s will. Submission to God is the only human and dignified
way out of the unsolvable senselessness of life, a way out without revolt, despair, nihilism or
suicide. It is a heroic feeling not of a hero, but of an ordinary man who has done his duty and
accepted his destiny.

Islam does not get its name from its laws, orders, or prohibitions, nor from the efforts of the
body and soul it claims, but from something that encompasses and surmounts all that: from a
moment of cognition, from the strength of the soul to face the times, from the readiness to
endure everything that an existence can offer, from the truth of submission to God. 29

Ironically, the author seems to equate civilization with man’s increasing feeling of
hopelessness. He states:

Comfort is the outward, and absurdity is the inward, image of life in civilization. Dialectically
expressed: the more comfort and abundance, the more the feeling of emptiness and despair.
On the contrary, primitive societies can be poor and affected by sharp social differences, but
all that we know about them indicate a life coloured by strong and rich feelings. Folklore -- the
¡°literature of primitive society¡± -- can show, in its specific way, the extraordinary living
vigour of primitive man. The feelings of disaffection and hopelessness are alien to that poor
society. 30

This is surely a wrong reading of civilization. The great studies of human societies and
civilizations by Ibn Khaldun and A.J. Toynbee and others following in their footsteps refer to
historical cycles of birth, development and decay. The birth and development is due to a great
explosion of creativity on the part of the society or civilization and the decay due to that
creativity’s death. Is there continuity and development? Recent studies, especially by the
American historical philosopher Sorokin, point to what he calls multilinear, not unilinear,
development.31 That means that human society and civilization develop, but not along a
straight line; it develops along a line of concentric circles. History repeats itself, but with a
difference -- with a movement upwards.
That is the right way of looking at society and civilization. All societies and civilizations contain
both good and bad ideas and practices. When the good predominate over the bad, that society
and civilization grow. Once the bad predominate, and no action is taken by its members to
reverse the trend, that society and civilization is destroyed, and new societies and civilizations
are born to take over from where the old left off. 32 Thus, we see the old civilizations of
Mesopotamia and Egypt giving birth to Greek, then to Roman; then the Arabs under Islamic
inspiration took over, inheriting from all the then civilizations, including those of Persia, India
and China. Then modern Europe took over from the Arabs around the 15th century and
carried forward the flag of civilization to all parts of the world through trade and colonization.
In the 20th century that civilization is facing doom again for having regressed morally and
spiritually, with two world wars already past, and a new world war looming.

29 Izetbegovic, Op.cit., p. 226.

30 Ibid., pp. 59-60.

31 See P.A. Sorokin, Modern Historical and Social Philosophies, pp. 291-92.

32 This historical law of the carrying forward of good ideas and practices in human society in stated in the
Quran thus:

¡°He sends down water from the sky, causing the valleys to overflow. The rapids produce
abundant foam. Similarly, when they use fire to refine metals for their jewellery or equipment,
foam is produced. God thus cites analogies for truth and falsehood. As for the foam, it goes to
waste, while that which benefits the people stays close to the ground.¡± (Al-Ra`ad: 17)

Will the world be destroyed, along with what we call modern civilization, as Bertrand Russell,
has forecast? 33 Under the present conditions of widespread pessimism and despair, it is easy
to agree with Russell. The good Alija Izetbegovic had come under the spell of that post-war
pessimism before he fought the good fight for Bosnia-Herzergovina and, let it be said, for all
humanity, as the brave Iraqis and others who have stood up against the technological might
of the modern-day Goliath. No! Morality and right reason cannot agree to this forecast of
despair. History is our evidence. If mankind had no other destiny but to be destroyed, then it
should have been destroyed a long time ago. 34 How many times in history has the fate of
man hung in the balance between continuity and total destruction? The fact that man has
survived the many occurances of major floods and earthquakes, big storms and fires,
widespread epidemics and diseases in antiquity and medieval times, when modern science and
technology was not yet at his disposal is evidence enough of the existence of a grand divine
scheme in which his great destiny is placed. Now that man has greater grasp of natural and
historical laws than ever before, it is less likely that he is targeted for total annihilation.

For that matter, life on earth itself is a miracle, as science has shown. The possibility of its
occurance is so minimal that explanation of its non-existence is easier than that of its
emergence. 35 Therefore, it is inevitable for us to conclude that mankind has a destiny beyond
and far greater than any human being or even any human generation can know. It is thus
important that man should understand this and put himself at the service of this destiny, in
other words, at the service of God. 36

33 See note 7.

34
¡°If God were to punish the people for their transgressions, He would have annihilated every
creature on earth. But He respites them for a specific predetermined time. Once their interim
ends, they cannot delay it by a single moment, nor can they hasten it.¡± (Al-Nahl: 61)

35 Many modern biologists who have devoted years of studies to the phenomenon of life have concluded
that life is a miracle. Man cannot create life. (See A.A. Izetbegovic, Ibid., pp. 22-31.) The Quran informed us
that only God can create life a long time ago:

¡°O people, here is a parable that you must consider carefully: the idols you call upon besides
God can never create a fly, even if they banded together to do so. Furthermore, if the fly
steals anything from them, they cannot recover it; weak is the pursuer and the pursued.¡±
(Al-Hajj: 73)

36 The whole complete life of man is to be devoted to God alone is succinctly summed up in this verse:

¡°Say, ¡®My prayers, my worship, my life and my death all belong to God, Lord of the
universe. He has no partner. This is what I am commanded to believe and I am the first to
submit.’ ¡± (Al-An`am: 162-63)

Actually, we must understand that there exists two plans for the world: God’s Grand Design
and the devil’s evil design. God’s design is to put man in His Paradise, whereas the devil’s
design is to put him in Hell. These plans weave and intertwine the historical fabric of man’s life
in this world. In so far as he puts himself in the service of God and carrying out God’s design,
he succeeds; in so far as he fails and puts himself at the service of the devil, he suffers. Man’s
successes accumulate; his sufferings are temporary, although often repetitive. Ultimately,
God’s Grand Design will prevail, since the moral nature of the universe and of man is the
fundamental basis of existence, as we have seen. The role of man, using his freedom, is to
realize God’s Grand Design with as little pain and suffering and in as little time as possible. In
a morally-bound universe, God gives man moral freedom and lets him decide his own fate.

This fundamental truth is graphically illustrated in the story of Joseph and his brothers, where
his brothers planned some evil for Joseph, while God had planned good for him. The first part
of the story finds Joseph thrown into dire circumstances, culminating in his being accused of
molesting the beautiful wife of the Egyptian governor, in whose house he was a trusted
servant, and being wrongfully imprisoned for it. The latter part of the story finds Joseph freed
from imprisonment and honoured in Egypt and reunited with his old father, Jacob, and his
erstwhile jealous but now-repentant brothers. 37

Here we naturally come to the question of the occurrence of miracles and of divine revelation.
How do we scientifically explain miracles, miracles being defined as `supernatural’ events?
How do we explain the Quran and other divine books? Is the Quran Muhammad’s composition,
as some Western orientalists assert? If not, was Muhammad simply a passive recipient of the
message? Does God intervene in natural processes? If He does, does this not make a mockery
of His own law? What is law? And, finally, what is God?

All the above questions are no doubt related. We cannot try to answer some, while ignoring
others that seem to us intractable. But we cannot assert the principles of rationality and
science unless we try to answer them. It seems to us that we must attempt to answer them to
the best of our ability. Let us take the questions of miracles and divine revelation first.

37 Quran, Yusuf: 4-102.

What we call `natural’ as opposed to `supernatural’ is simply what our cognizance (both
sensory and rational) tell us is the order of things, or what we call the natural order. But our
natural order belongs to a specific category of created beings, i.e. this material world, with its
spatio-temporal dimension. Time and space exist for us, but it does not exist for God. Even for
us, during sleep or during loss of cosnciousness, we are not aware of time and space. Time
and space, therefore, are not absolute realities. They only exist under certain circumstances
but do not under certain other circumstances. Once we grasp this truth, we remove the iron-
clad separation between the two catogories of the `natural’ and the `supernatural’. Thus,
when Moses’s stick turned into a serpent, it was a case of the encapsulation of time: the
matter, stick (standing for the vegetable world), turned into the matter, serpent (standing for
the animal world which comes into being immediately after that), without the normal
intervening time.

Now, if a stick can turn into a serpent, what is there to stop just anything from happening?
Can your enemy destroy you by just wishing evil for you? Can you obtain good by just
wishing? In other words, is the world capricious, or is it lawful? This is a basic question. Man
has had to answer this question right from the start. For to live, and go on living, the first
human beings, as do all human beings, must believe that living is worthwhile. This belief, in a
way, is not based on reason. It is based on an instinctive feeling, the feeling that the world is
good, and behind the good world is a good and loving Creator. This basic feeling in a human
being is natural to him. 38 This is the basis of the right religion of man, as this verse states:

Therefore, you shall devote yourselves to the religion of strict monotheism. Such is the natural
instinct placed in the people by God. Such creation of God will never change. This is the
perfect religion, but most people do not know. 39

Thus, although there is no absolute barrier between the natural and the supernatural, the
universe is not capricious, but lawful, created and ruled by a lawful, rational, good and
compassionate God. Therefore, the existence of evil in the world is both contingent and
temporary. It is contingent upon man’s rebellion against God, and temporary upon man’s
struggle against evil. Once man stops rebelling against God and fights against evil, man’s
victory over evil is assured and complete. When this condition is achieved, the Hereafter
comes into being with its Paradise (God’s Kingdom) and its Hell (the state of exile from God’s
Kingdom).

The phemomena of revelation cannot be explained except in the context of a rational and
moral universe. Neither can the prophet-messengers, among whom number the greats among
them -- Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad -- be conceived as passive recepients of the
revelations. Because God is Compassionate, He continuously sends messages to human
communities from the earliest times to guide them. 40 Obviously, He must choose His
message-bearers from among the morally-commited individuals of each community.
Muhammad, whose life-history we know, is a good example of a morally-committed individual
chosen to carry His final message to mankind. Thus, Muhammad’s moral and intellectual
qualities rendered him suitable to receive the great message.

38

¡°Recall that your Lord summoned all the descendents of Adam and had them bear witnees for
themselves: `Am I not your Lord?’ They all said, `Yes. We bear witness.’ Thus, you cannot
say on the Day of Resurrection, `We were not aware of this.’ Nor can you say, `It was our
parents who practised idolatory, and we simply followed in their footsteps. Will you punish us
for the sins of innovators?’ We thus explain the revelations to enable them to return.¡± (Al-
A’raf: 172-74)

39 Al-Rum: 30

40

¡° To every community, a messenger. Once their messenger comes, they are judged equitably
without the least injustice.¡± (Yunus: 47)
That does not mean, however, that with Muhammad, God stopped communicating with human
beings. Such a belief would severely restrict God’s overwhelming attribute of mercy. 41 The
Quran tells us in no uncertain terms that Muhammad was the last prophet. 42 That simply
means that the era of prophethood, beginning with Adam, representing the earliest human
communities, came to an end with Muhammad, as mankind enters the international stage and
the true Age of Science, when prophets are no longer required. 43 This does not mean that at
that point God stops communicating with man. 44 We are told that God is ever active and all
the time intervening in the affairs of the world. 45 Only now man, having reached the stage of
spiritual adulthood, has to rely more on his mind and science to continue his journey.
However, he has God’s final scripture, the Grand Quran, with him to guide him on his onward
journey. 46

There has been a notion that man, using his mind alone, can arrive at a correct understanding
of universal laws, implying that God’s guidance is not necessary. 47 The facts, however, have
not borne this out. It is now generally agreed that the 18th century so-called Age of Reason
has been a failure. It had not realized the high hopes that it engendered. Rather it culminated
in colonialism, wars of colonialism and peaked in the 20th century’s two terrible world wars of
imperialism. The closing decades of the 20th century, in fact, witnessed a renewed interest in
religion, precisely because of the spiritual and moral failures of modern Western civilization.

41

¡°He said, `My retribution is incurred by whomever I wish, but My mercy encompasses all
things.’ ¡± (Al-A’raf: 156)

42

¡°Muhammad was not the father of any man among you. He was a messenger of God and the
final prophet.¡± (Al-Ahzab: 40)

43 ¡°... the Prophet of Islam seems to stand between the ancient and the modern world. In so far as the
source of his revelation is concerned, he belongs to the ancient world; in so far as the spirit of his revelation
is concerned, he belongs to the modern world. In him life discovers other sources of knowledge suitable to
its new direction. The birth of Islam ... is the birth of the inductive intellect. In Islam prophecy reaches its
perfection in discovering the need of its own abolition ...¡± (The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
Islam, p. 126)

44

¡°Possessor of high ranks, the Ruler of the whole dominion, He sends inspiration, bearing His
commands, to whomever he chooses from among His servants, to warn of the Day of
Gathering.¡± (Gahfir: 15)

45 See note 27.

46 In the understanding of the Quran, of course, man needs God’s guidance. Although, the Quran is the
same Quran as that used by the Prophet and his Companions, its understanding in the modern context must
necessarily differ. This is what is referred to in the Quran as hikmah or wisdom, i.e. a rational interpretation
of its message. Although classical tafsir has assigned the role of interpretation to the Prophet, this is not an
accurate meaning of the Quranic texts. An overall understanding would assign God as the ultimate teacher
of the Quran. (See Quran, Al-Rahman: 1-2; Al-Mudathir: 19 & Al-Ra`ad: 2) Read with other relevant verses,
these would mean that God will explain the meanings of His message through people whom He selects from
every generation.

47 We refer to the philosophical romance by the Muslim philosopher Ibn Tufail (1109-1185) where the main
character, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, marooned in an uninhabited island, discovered God through the sheer use of
his reasoning. See The Journey of the Soul: The Story of Hai bin Yaqzan (trans. Riad Kocache), The
Octagon Press, London, 1982.

Reason is actually a double-edged weapon. Is it the reason of the mind, or the reason of the
body? The philosophers of the so-called European Enlightenment, notably Adam Smith,
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Thomas Malthus understood and analysed it as the reason of
the body. Others, like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel conceived it as the reason
of the mind. However, the former interpretation carried the day and landed Europe, and the
world with it, in the clutches of its own evil works.

At this juncture, we should perhaps examine the phenomenon of what is called divine
punishment. Punishment must, of course, be paired with reward. One cannot exist without the
other. Since this world is part of a rational, lawful and moral universe, we can be certain that
good works will be rewarded and evil works punished fully in this life as well as in the
Hereafter (which stand for our infinite future life). We know that human laws are not always
just and that criminals are not always apprehended and adequately punished in this world.
Conversely, in this world, good works are not always, nor adequately, rewarded. Therefore, it
only stands to reason to expect that both the rewards and punishments will be fully executed
in the Hereafter. 48

This far is clear. But what about the so-called ¡°natural disasters¡±, like earthquakes, storms,
floods, fires, epidemics and diseases, which, in total, have claimed many thousands, even
millions, of human lives, including those of the innocent? What about the wars, especially the
two world wars? Even as we pose the question, the answer seems to emerge. The answer is:
human failure to act morally and to act in obedience to God. 49

Take the case of the recent Gulf War, with its attendent results of starvation for the whole
Iraqi population. Is Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government alone to blame for the so-
called aggression against Kuwait, when we now know that the war could have been avioded
had the Anglo-American neo-imperialists not had their way? Why did the United Nations
Security Council go along with these two powerful members? Why was the Organization of
Islamic Countries (OIC) unable to play its proper role to find a peaceful solution acceptable to
both sides? Why did Russia and China, both veto-bearing members of the Security Council,
not stop the war when they actually had the power to? Why did Saudi Arabia lend its territory
for the conduct of Anglo-American aggression against Iraq? Why did Iran, Egypt, Syria and
Turkey, important regional powers, not acted together to stop the war? These questions
suggest the answer: current international community’s failure to act morally on the basis of
principles.

48

¡° That is the day when they will be completely exposed; none of them will hide anything from
God. To whom belongs all kingship on that day? To God, the One, the Supreme. On that day,
every soul will be paid for whatever it earned. There will be no injustice on that day. God is
most efficient in reckoning.¡± (Quran, Ghafir: 16-17)

49

¡°Anything good that happens to you is from God, and anything bad that happens to you is
from you.¡± (Quran, Al-Nisa’: 79)
This verse should not be understood as meaning that there exist things outside of God’s creation. Evil is a
consequence of man’s rebellion against God, in accordance with His laws. This verse alone throws
abundant light on the occurrence of the so-called natural disasters. Further, consider these:

¡°Say, `Who can protect you from the calamities of the land and the sea?’ You implore Him
loudly as well as secretly: `If only He saves us this time, we shall indeed be grateful.’ Say,
`God saves you this time, and other times as well, then you still set up idols besides Him.’
Say, `He is able to pour upon you retribution from above you, or from beneath your feet, or
He can divide you into factions and have you taste each other’s tyranny and persecution.’ Note
how We explain the revelations that they may understand.¡± (Al-An`am: 63-65)

Similarly, we must understand the so-called natural disasters. God relates to us in the Quran
the stories of disbeliving peoples of intiquity, the people of Noah, the people of Hud , the
people of Pharaoh’s Egypt among them, who were destroyed by these ¡°natural disasters¡±.
They were no more or no less natural than God’s punishments to them for their transgressions
against His commands. If, as we are told in the Quran, that everything in heaven and earth
submits to God, sings His praises and obeys His commands, 50 we must inevitably conclude
that these destructive natural forces are behaving exactly as God wills them to do, when they
occur. In short, they are punishments from God for our errant ways to make us remember
Him and return to obeying Him. 51

The question that arises is why the victims should include the innocent, especially children and
old people. To answer this puzzle, one must consider several matters. Firstly, altough a
person’s life is declared sacred by God, that life is to be served and sacrificed for the purposes
of establishing truth and justice. Thus, truth and justice are higher than individual lives so that
the principle of sacrificing lives for these noble ends is right and of paramount importance. In
fact, it is this sacrifice that will guarantee the continuance of life. 52 It is also this that gives
rise to the concept of martyrdom. Secondly, both good and evil are divine instruments to test
man’s fidelity to God. Thus, they are to be seen in this relative, and not absolute, context.
Thirdly, man is not only an individual; he is also a collective. While he must bear the
responsibilty of his own actions, he is also responsible for the actions of the collective. For
instance, a good socio-economic order will benefit his children and descendents, just as a bad
one will harm them. In this perspective, several human generations are, in terms of
responsibilty, linked together. What the older generation does or fails to do will be reaped by
the younger generation.

Looked at from this perspective, the human family is one. They must either do good together,
or they will suffer together. No individual is free from the collective and no individual is
completely blameless. This would explain the necessary sacrifice that the relatively innocent
members of the human family must make for the sins of the other members in the process of
attaining felicity for itself. This understanding would encourage man to realize the extreme
importance of his fidelity to God and of leading a moral existence.

Man must, thus, first commit himself to the belief that the universe is lawful before his mind
can be harnessed to explain that conception. In other words, man must have faith in God and
this faith is concurrent with his higher reason. It is for this reason that religion, a supra-
rational conception, has existed from the beginning of time. This is because every society
consists of individuals. The collective, at one end, and the individual, at the other, exist side
by side, each working on and influencing the other.

In order to create the good society, the individuals must first be good. As God is the source of
of all good, the individual must imbue himself with the attributes of goodness. This is the true
aim and function of the Muslim rituals of prayer, fasting, obligatory charity and the pilgrimage
to Mecca: to cleanse oneself of impurities and to be close to God. 53 As individuals can
become corrupt through imbibing corrupt attributes, so can society. Corrupt societies must
therefore be reformed or changed by reformed or changed individuals. This is a truth that we
sometimes forget, thinking that in order to change society, we must change the system,
forgetting that the system itself came into being through our own creative actions.54 Thus,
the sovereign individual creative activity is of signal importance in changing society.

50

¡°Glorifying Him are the seven universes, the earth and everyone in them. There is nothing
that does not glorify Him, but you do not comprehend their glorification. He is Clement and
Forgiver.¡± (Bani Israel: 44)

¡°His dominion encompasses the heavens and the earth, and ruling them never burdens
Him.He is the Most High, the Great.¡± (Al-Baqara: 255)

Everyone in the heavens and earth glorifying God includes those parts of man that he, mercifully, has no
control of, like the workings of his body, especially the brain and the liver.

51

¡°We tested them with prosperity and hardship that they may return.¡± (Al-A’raf : 168)

52 The Quran often makes this point. Consider this:

¡°O you who believe, you shall respond to God, and to the messenger when he invites you to
that which grants you life.¡± (Al-Anfal: 24)

This chapter deals with the Battle of Badr, the first battle that Muhammad and his small band of followers
had to fight. But, in terms of Muhammad’s mission, it was a very important and decisive battle, where a
small, ill-trained and ill-equipped force of 313 people beat a bigger and militarily superior force of 1,000. The
battle proved the superiority of moral power over material power. Hence, the battle is also referred to in the
Quran as the Day of Discrimination. (Verse 41) Thus, the verse we have quoted means that fighting and
dying in the cause of God, i.e. in the cause of justice and truth, is fighting to uphold the dignity of human
lives. However, the clearest expression of this principle is given in this verse:

¡°God has bought from the believers their lives and their money in exchange for Paradise.
Thus, they fight in the cause of God, willing to kill and get killed. Such is His truthful pledge in
the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran, and who fulfils His pledge better than God? You shall
rejoice in making such an exchange. This is the greatest triumph. (Al-Taubah: 111)

53

¡°Surely, the salat prayers keep one away from evil works and vice, and the rememberance of
God is the greatest thing.¡± (Al-`Ankabut: 45)

Amidst his busy daily schedule, Prophet Muhammad was told to praise God and to pray to
Him; he was further told to perform the superrerogatory midnight prayer of tahajjud. Why?
Because man is apt to be sucked into his worldly affairs, leaving him little time for reflection
and contemplation of the larger aims of life. In this way, he would forget the Hereafter, which
is truely the more important world for him.

The Muslim five daily prayers are indeed a beauty of form and spirit combined. First, its times
are strategic, combining discipline, vigour and regularity. Rising early at dawn, the first thing
you do is to perform your first prayer of the day. Then you are off to work. Then breaking for
lunch at one o’ clock, you perform your second prayer, and then you continue your work. The
third prayer is performed in the evening before you go for games or some other excercise.
Then the fourth prayer before your dinner. Before you retire to bed for the day, you perform
your last prayer. The timing is the very perfection of discipline and regularity. So are the
movements: washed and clean-clad, you stand reverently facing the Ka`abah, the earthly
House of God, in Mecca, and you bow down and prostrate to the Only One deserving of
prostration. Again the content of your prayer, the Fatihah 55 is beauty itself. The prayer is the
individual’s perpetual return to God.

You can pray alone in the privacy of your house, or you can join the congregation in a nearby
mosque, with the exception of the weekly Friday Prayer. This prayer which is a congregational
prayer is performed on Fridays at the time of , and replacing, the noon prayer. It is not only a
prayer; it is a prayer combined with a social gathering, with the sermon taking the place of a
discussion and a debate on social issues. Thus, the Muslim prayers afford the people not only
access to their Lord and Creator, but also to themselves. Thus, the personal and the social
elements are nicely combined.

As in prayers, so in the other religious devotions of fasting, charity and the pilgrimage. The
aim is both personal cleansing and social intercourse necessary for the fostering of the good
society. For example, today the Muslim pilgrimage to the House of God in Mecca, rebuild by
Abraham and Ismail, in commemoration of Abraham’s and Ismail’s sacrifice, attracts a yearly
attendance of around two million people from all over the world. It is a vast concourse of
human beings and affords a golden opportunity for developing, spreading and deepening the
spirit of internationalism, humanism and cooperation among nations.

Unfortunately, it must seriously be recorded here, that the beautiful teachings of monotheism
of the great teachers of the true religion -- Moses, Jesus and Muhammad among them -- have
been invariably distorted by their later followers. The Jews rejected the prophethood of Jesus
and Muhammad and considered themselves exclusively as the Chosen People of God, and
thereby opted for the world-view of racism. The Christians rejected the prophethood of
Muhammad and deified Jesus, resulting in the same exclusive world-view. Following closely in
their footsteps, the Muslims idolized Muhammad, turning him into the favourite of God and
greatest prophet and putting him next to God, 56 ending with the same resultant world-view
of exclusivism. Thus, one originally monotheistic universalist teaching 57 became three, each
claiming to possess the truth to the exclusion of the others, and all antagonistic towards one
another.

For more than forty years the world has witnessed a deviating Western Christian community
allying itself with a deviating Jewish community in a colonial-settler state of Israel, set up by
the United Nations, to suppress a deviating Muslim Arab community. What a triangle of
entanglements! All originating from the same teaching of monotheism! Surely, such chaos
cannot be the finishing point of history, as the ideologue of capitalist liberalism, Francis
Fukuyama, would have us believe.

Our essay which postulates the meaningfulness of life cannot conclude at the point of perhaps
the greatest chaos in human history, the post-Cold War period. As man gropes for light during
the waning years of the Twentieh Century, he cannot but expect to be severely punished for
yet another transgression after his severe beating in the past two world wars. Can man doubt
that his saviour is God, the Most Merciful? This third beating will definitely bring him back to
God and to a more just and peaceful world, seeing that he has thoroughly experimented with
the world-views of materialism and ascetism and failed. The way is now open for the world-
view of Islam, not the Islam of the theologians, but the Islam of the prophets 58, whose
teachings are completed and perfected in the Grand Quran. How much pain and suffering man
would have saved himself from had he heeded the call of God to follow the Quran earlier on
his journey through the world!
54 This historical law is stated in the Quran thus:

¡°God does not remove a blessing He has bestowed upon any people unless they themselves
decide to change.¡± (Al-Anfal: 53)

¡°God does not change the condition of any people unless they themselves make the decision
to change.¡± (Al-Ra’ad: 11)

55 The first chapter of the Quran, called Al-Fatihah, translated as ¡°The Opening¡± or ¡°The Key¡± is a whole
prayer, consisting of seven short verses and containing two parts: a hymn to God and a supplication for His
help, guidance and blessings.

56 Most Muslims will vehemently deny that they have idolized Muhammad, because they have done so
without realizing it. Not only the so-called hadith extol him as the the favourite of God and the greatest
prophet, in clear violation of Quranic injuctions not to discriminate between God’s prophets, but several
Quranic verses have been misused and misinterpreted to achieve this effect. Verse 56 of Surah 33, which
calls upon Muslims to support and respect the Prophet (the Arabic word is salla, usually translated as `to
bless’) is the main vehicle for this idolization. Taken in its proper context, the verse simply means that a
leader fighting in God’s cause has the support and blessings of God and His angels and that it is the duty of
his followers to support and respect him. To gain this understanding, one should read this verse along with
verse 43 of the same surah (where God and His angels bless and support the Muslims) and verse 103 of
Surah 9 (where the Prophet was told to support and bless his followers).

57 Most Muslims labour under the wrong impression that Muhammad is the prophet of Islam. Actually all
prophets, from Adam, through Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus, ending in Muhammad, teach the same
true religion of Islam (whose basic teaching is: `There is no god but Allah; worship Him alone.’). The laws
and rituals differ, according to time and place, but the basic teaching is the same. ¡°We did not send any
messenger before you except with the inspiration:

`There is no god except Me; you shall worship Me alone.’ ¡± (Al-Anbia: 25)

Regarding multiplicity of laws and rituals:

¡°For each of you We have decreed laws and methodologies. Had God willed, He could have
made you one congregation. But He does puts you to the test through His revelations to you.
Therefore, you shall race towards righteousness.¡± (Al-Ma’idah: 48)

58 The majority of the Muslims, about three hundred years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, deviated
from the teachings of the Quran to follow the teachings of their religious scholars, precisely like the Jews
and the Christians. This is the main reason for their downfall. Now they must return to the Quran to follow
the Islam of the prophets, if they desire to regain their honour and their proper place in the world.