1. ISLAM: CREATOR OF THE MODERN AGE

~ 15 ~ indirectly but it also gives guidance, which is of great practical utility. FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT God created a perfect world. Then He created man in perfect form. Next He commanded man to live in the world and make use of everything he found in it. Man was told, moreover, that there was only one Creator who should be worshipped. Man was to worship this God alone, and none else besides Him. But man went astray. He began to worship anything, which was visibly prominent, such as rivers, mountains, etc. He could not continue to make an invisible God the centre of his attention. Worse, his inclination towards visible gods went on increasing. Anything large and impressive was regarded either as a god, or as possessing divine attributes. This engendered, on the one hand, the concept of the sacredness of certain personalities and, on the other, the practice of nature worship, or pantheism. This worship of some thing or person other than God finally developed into shirk, or polytheism.