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Al-Risala (English), May 1986, p. 21
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
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1986 5 May 21-23 Options (1018) A person posted abroad receives a message from home. His son is seriously ill. He must return home immediately. The man is stunned by the news. No matter how many important tasks he has to attend to, he disregards them all and heads for home. He forsakes his work and leisure; he spends his hard-earned money, compromising his financial interests for the sake of his son. Everything else assumes secondary importance. There is nothing that matters now, except his son. His response to the message he has received is immediate: he disregards all other demands and takes the next plane home, so that he can be at his son’s bedside.
Now the same person receives another message – one from God – again calling on him to attend to a matter of the utmost urgency. But this message does not have the same shattering effect on him. He is not moved to act upon it. Instead all kinds of misgivings crop up in his mind. The person bringing him this message, he ponders, is just an ordinary human being; there seems to be nothing special about him; he does not enjoy the approval of any of the established “greats” of society. Added to this, the one who receives that message is afraid that acceptance of it will severely compromise his worldly interests: to admit that it is right will mean acknowledging that he himself has been in the wrong. Swayed by group prejudices, self-interest, expediency and egoism, he fails to answer the call of God. Either he denies it out of hand, or else he accepts it with reservations. He does not deem it necessary to act upon the divine message he receives. It does not move him, as the message concerning his son’s illness does.
The Quran has referred to such a person’s attitude in the following words: “No soul can have faith except by the will of God. He will visit His scourge upon the senseless.” (10 : 100). God has endowed man with an intellect, enabling him to accept anything which is backed up by sound reason. To follow one’s intellect is to tread the path of truth, which will lead one to salvation. To follow the dictates of desire and prejudice, on the other can only lead one to damnation.
In this world of trial and tribulation there are always two paths open before a person. One is able either to accept or reject that which is proved by solid evidence. By acceptance of truth is meant giving it precedence over everything else; one who fails to accept truth will let all kinds of extraneous issues block his vision of truth. This is what the Quran has called senselessness. Senselessness is to conduct irrelevant hair-splitting in what in reality is as plain as day; it is to put personal profit and sectarian interests before reason; it is to take what conforms to one’s personal taste, and leave what does not appeal to one; it is to let apprehension of personal detriment prevent one from bowing to truth. The first path is the path of true good sense, while the second is that of mental perversion, that which the Quran calls the scourge of God. When an individual does not put to good use the intellect with which God has endowed him, it is as though he is accommodating the devil in his mind and heart. He is giving Satan the place that should be allotted to God. Satan takes hold of such a person, making matters of substance appear trivial in his sight and elevating other insignificant matters to undue heights of importance. A mind which is occupied by Satan is a perverted mind; it is a mind which deviates from the course of nature, adopting the crooked paths that Satan, in all his ingeniousness, lays out for it.
God has created the universe according to a certain pattern. It is by following that pattern that man can find true guidance. What is this pattern of creation? It can be seen within man – in his conscience. Everyone has been given a conscience, which in every matter shows one the path that conforms to nature, and that which contradicts it. One should eschew any matter over which one’s conscience pricks one, acting only where one’s conscience is at ease. That is to follow the pattern of God’s creation. This pattern can also be seen in man’s intellect. God has endowed man with the power to distinguish between what is backed up by solid evidence, and that which does not have any proof in support of it. To follow the pattern of God’s creation is to do that which appears to one’s intellect to be reasonable and right, avoiding that which is unreasonable and wrong. God’s pattern of creation can also be observed in the universe around us. God has created a universe of ultimate perfection and propriety. Whenever we have to decide what position to adopt on a certain matter, the universe provides us with silent but meaningful clues as to what that position should be. It shows us what we should do to conform to God’s pattern of creation, and what would amount to a contradiction of that pattern. In order to live in accordance with God’s pattern of creation, we have only to follow the cosmic clues with which He has provided us.
A life in accordance with God’s pattern of creation is a life of truth. The Quran, revealed by God, is a guide-book showing us how to follow that pattern. One who is sincere in his search for truth, alive to the call of nature, will surely find truth if he allows himself to be guided by the Quran. One who lacks the necessary sincerity, however, will not be swayed by its words: He will only be brought to his senses by the universal awakening which will come when the veil is removed from the world of realities. But then because he has no other option but to accept the truth, it will do him no good to do so at that time.
