Man can not live by Bread Alone

Man can not live by Bread Alone

1985 2 February 16 Man can not live by Bread Alone (250) Man cannot live by scepticism. He must have faith if he is to exist in this world. It is Islam alone which can respond to this human need. Man strives to arrive at belief by employing reason. But the history of philosophy spanning over five thousand years shows that human reason has lead man nowhere but to skepticism. Owing to the limitations of human reason, universal realities can not be encompassed. After a certain stage, the human mind is incapable of apprehending reality as a whole. Thus the increase in human knowledge has brought us only to the point of understanding our limitations, as a scientist has aptly said: “We know more and more about less and less.” By contrast, a great source of faith is revelation. But since each of the many existing religions claims that its scriptures are of divine origin, the question of authenticity looms large. A serious study shows that these divine scriptures, through human interpolations, have been reduced to a set of superstitions, without historical credibility. Such versions should be rejected as distortions which are hardly calculated to uplift or enlighten the human mind and soul. What survives the test of this historical credibility is Islam. The divine scripture of Islam, the Quran, is a book which has been preserved in the original. It is a document whose authenticity has been historically established. Its contents, far from contradicting established scientific knowledge, reinforces and elaborates upon it. It is, moreover, in complete harmony with human nature.