God The Saviour of His Servants
Al-Risala (English), April 1989, p. 10
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.
God The Saviour of His Servants
1989 4 April 10-11 God: The Saviour of His Servants (715) Lord, I have settled some of my offspring in a barren valley near Your Sacred House, so that they may observe the prayer. Put in the hearts of men kindness towards them, and provide them with the earth’s fruits, so that they may give thanks. Lord, You have knowledge of all that we hide and all that we reveal: nothing in heaven or earth is hidden from God. (Quran, 14:38).
When the Prophet Abraham felt inspired to preach the message of truth in all its purity, the results for him were cataclysmic, for, having run counter to the conventions of his country, he was forced by powerful antagonists to flee from his native land. The moment at which he left his birthplace, the town of Ur in southern Iraq, is one of the most crucial in world religion: commanded by God to betake himself to the desert of Arabia, he set up, in the barren and, as yet, unpeopled valley of Mecca, the sacred House of God.
On this momentous occasion, one of the prayers which he uttered was:
Lord, I have settled some of my offspring in a barren valley near Your Sacred House, so that they may observe the prayer. Put in the hearts of men kindness towards them, and provide them with the earth’s fruits, so that they may give thanks. Lord, You have knowledge of all that we hide and all that we reveal: nothing in heaven or earth is hidden from God. (Quran, 14:38).
There is great symbolic importance attached to this event in the life of Abraham. Here history speaks, telling us what happens to God’s servant who arises to preach the message of truth in all its purity: he is rejected by the conventional order; religious institutions refuse to acknowledge him; he even becomes unappealing to friends and relatives.
The cultivated valleys of the world, despite all their fertility, become dry for him. He is forced to take his wife and family to live in a barren land. There, he calls upon his Lord: “Lord,” he says, “they have no one to help them but You. The world of man has refused to support them; now You make springs gush forth beneath their feet.”
This is extremely delicate moment in the history of men. The pulse of the universe stops beating at such a time. The earth, and all heavenly bodies, await new instructions before continuing their course. Man sees a new and unfamiliar happening. “Springs” gush forth in the desert. The blessings of God start descending from above. Winds scatter the words of the preacher among mankind. God, in all His might, comes to the assistance of His servants – the ones who were scorned and deprived of all assistance by people of the world. To preach the pure truth is the most difficult task beneath the heavens; but it is this task that draws God’s succour more than any other. This succour only comes, however, when the preacher of God’s word has fully communicated his message, and people’s persecution of him as a result has reached its climax.
The story implicit in this prayer has repeated itself throughout world history. Whenever servants of God have arisen to communicate the divine message, they have had to pray to God to “put in the hearts of men kindness .....” because, like Abraham, they have been rejected by the conventional order, have received no acknowledgement from existing religious institutions and have had little or no support from friends and relatives. When they have been driven away from their homelands, even the most fertile valleys of the world have dried up at their feet. But when their persecution has reached a climax, their invocations of God have caused springs to gush forth from the desert, and the winds to scatter the divine message to mankind, for that is the awesome moment that God comes with all His might to the assistance of His servants; that is the moment that the universe, as it were, stands still, awaiting new, divine edicts before proceeding on its course.
The preaching of the truth is the most difficult task in the world. But it is the sincere effort to do so which, more than any other human action, elicits the blessed succour of the Almighty.
