Prophetic Guidance for the Modern Age

to bring about equality therefore eliminated the very thing, which was the greatest incentive to action ­that is personal interest. That is why progress and development in socialistic societies were affected to such a dangerous extent that they ultimately collapsed. The truth is that the difference between human beings is not an evil but rather a great boon. It is this difference, in fact, that causes people to continuously face challenges and enter into competition in a free human society. Challenge and competition are stimuli, which keep people perpetually active. A society which eliminates difference and disparity will also eliminate challenge, and in its absence human initiative will wither away. The Creator of all things has created this world for the purpose of putting human beings to the test. But the thinkers want to carve out a plan of life without taking this purpose into account. In any case, they have so far failed to ­formulate a plan, so the question of establishing a practical system does not even arise. For instance, all these thinkers vehemently hold forth on sin and wickedness. They even go to the extent of saying that the greatest problem our human society faces in this world is the presence of evil. That is why we have to pay the utmost attention to this matter. But this is unrealistic thinking. What these thinkers call the problem of evil is, in fact, a major factor in the exigencies of man’s trial. Since this world has been created for the purpose of testing, many such incidents will inevitably take place as are mistakenly referred to as evils. For instance, if the Creator of human beings desires to test them on the scales of patience and gratefulness, then it is essential that at times they should find themselves in difficult situations in order to see whether or not they remained patient on those occasions. Similarly, it is also necessary that man should receive the good things of life in order to see whether or not he responds with proper gratefulness or with insolence and haughtiness. Moreover, this purpose of man’s stay on earth requires some to be given more and some less resources. This is to test whether those who are given less remain free from the evil feelings of jealousy, and whether those who are given more spend the money solely on their own luxury or on the service of humanity, etc. In the modern age, freedom has been given the status of summum bonum. Its prevalence stemmed, in fact, from the general reaction to the coercive system established by the despotic monarchs of ancient times. Freedom is without doubt extremely precious so far as human progress is concerned. But unbounded freedom, on the contrary, results in disaster. In a hundredyear experiment with unlimited freedom, thinkers are coming to the fore in the West who hold that freedom cannot be given the status of an absolute good. For instance, B.F. Skinner has written a book titled, ‘We Can’t Afford Freedom.’ The title indicates the gist of the book. Through the Prophet of Islam, modern man is being shown how to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy freedom. The Prophet has brought real knowledge to the demarcation of what is lawful and what is unlawful. Similarly, through the Prophet of Islam, modern man can understand how to arrange for a practicable division of the workplace between men and women by according them equal respect. A knowledge of human limitations is essential for the proper