CHAPTER TWO Divine Arrangement

Quran: God requires the Muslims to preserve not just its wordings but, more importantly, its meanings. Whereas the test of former people of the book lay in perpetuating the exact wordings of their scriptures, the real test of the Muslim ummah lies in the guarding of their scriptures’ meaning. Since the Muslims’ predecessors failed in their test, God Himself undertook the responsibility of keeping the Quran intact. As a matter of divine trial, Muslims have to prove that they do not deviate from the text in their explanations and interpretations, and of having kept everything in the exact place designated by the Quran. In their commentaries, they must take the greatest care to make no shift in emphasis, for that would be tantamount to altering the goals of the sacred text. When presenting the Quran to others, they should convey exactly what it asserts, no less and no more. The failure of Muslims as the people of the Quran lies in their forgetting its spirit and using the Quran simply as a book of blessing rather than a book of guidance. When Muslims’ degeneration reaches this stage, their activities become directed away from the basics of Islam. They refer to their religion, their holy book, as being matters of national pride. Others engage themselves in show business in the name of Islam. Yet others exploit it for political gain. All these activities, even if they are indulged in in the name of the Quran and Islam, are all deviations from sacred principles. If Muslims persist in engaging themselves in such activities, they will not escape the wrath of God. If they feel satisfied that they will be saved on the ground that they have spared no effort in preserving the words of the Quran, they are grossly mistaken. God will hold them responsible for having distorted the meanings of the Quranic text out of all recognition. It should be clearly understood that the Muslims will be taken to task for the meaning of the text just as the earlier peoples of the Book had been taken to task for having altered the wording of their scriptures. It is on this point that the Muslims are perennially tested. Having changed the meaning of the Quran by their self-styled interpretations, they cannot escape the wrath of God simply because they have made no change in the text. No man can be tested unless he be given freedom of action as well. Muslims are free to interpret the text, but not to alter it. One must fully grasp this point that the punishment meted out to other peoples of the Book for altering the wordings of the divine text will be meted out to Muslims for altering the meaning of the text. Herein lies the gauge of the Muslims. If by their self-styled interpretations they change the meaning of the sacred text, they cannot be spared divine punishment by the mere fact of