Divine Planning

The present world is a manifestation of the attributes of God. Here man finds his Creator in the mirror of His creation. By making a profound study of creation, he witnesses God’s power and greatness. The ancient idolatrous concepts had, on the contrary, rendered all material things of this world mysteriously sacred. The superstitious ideas which had come to surround them came in the way of research being carried out on the multitude of objects in this world. When the entire world came to be held as God’s creation in the wake of the monotheistic revolution, this mentality of holding everything sacred vanished. Now everything began to be studied objectively. As a result of this investigation, the truth about the hidden system of nature and its functioning in the world began to be revealed. Ultimately, in the form of the modern scientific revolution, the prophecy mentioned above in verse 53 of chapter 41 was quite finally fulfilled. The facts unraveled about the universe through modern scientific studies have definitively brought to an end the age of superstition. These newly discovered realities have simultaneously benefited humanity in two ways, one being that religious beliefs are no longer just dogma but facts established through human knowledge itself. The other benefit to mankind is that these scientific revelations about nature provide an immense source for increasing the faith of the believer. Although partial in extent, whatever has been revealed by science regarding the universe is so amazing that, on learning it, the believer’s hair stands on end. His mind receives the light of the realization of the Lord. His eyes become wet with tears from awe and fear of God. He is elevated to the plan of ihsan, a state of worship in which man feels as if he is seeing the Almighty. There is a hadith to this effect, asking the believers to worship God as if they were actually seeing Him.