In the Age of Science

However, the superstitions themselves have not been entirely laid to rest. In their personal lives people all over the world still hold beliefs of mysterious kinds. Although the majority of the educated class do not believe in deities, they have not yet arrived at belief in one God. The only difference is that if the past generations were irrevocably devoted to gods and goddesses, nowadays people have set up another “deity,” called the law of nature, to which they accord the same importance as was formerly shown to pagan deities The course of human history has followed many pathways, but now a stage has come when all obstructions have been cleared away, so that a movement, based on the teachings of the Prophets, could well be revived. Today, such a movement to reject shirk and affirm monotheism could freely and effectively be launched. In this modern age the political and international atmosphere is also entirely favourable, and all academic arguments are in support of it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that today any movement based on monotheism would be in a position of unopposed victory. No obstacle is now in its way. The need of the hour is for the monotheists to rise with all their will and determination and communicate with unstinted zeal and vigour the divine message—the life-giving reality of tawhid. In ancient times a number of evils had crept into human society, with the result that man had been divested of his natural greatness. It was the movement of tawhid, launched by the Prophet of Islam and his companions, which led the world out of a pitiable age and caused humanity to enter upon an age of progress in the real sense. For the first time in human history, man received the blessings which had been destined for him, and of which he had deprived himself on account of his self-styled superstitious beliefs. Humanity emerged from a