Al-Risala (English), September-October 2002

with God) is totally alien to the universe. In this world, believing in idolatry and practising idolatry are completely out of place. Only one God is the Creator of this world. He alone is its Lord and Sustainer. He is possessed with all power. That being so, believing in something other than God, or associating anything with the godhead, amounts to according the status of an actual reality to a self-concocted supposition. This presupposes the existence of something which has no existence at all. The idolatrous way of thinking is the greatest of all evils. One whose mind thinks along idolatrous lines, in whose heart idolatrous thoughts are nurtured, has as it were, opted for something baseless and unreal. The universe with its whole existence refutes it. Idolatrous beliefs and concepts can never provide intellectual nourishment to their adherents. They will not flood them with that spiritual light without which the whole of human existence is rendered meaningless. Mission of the Prophets All the messengers of God sent in ancient times came only to admonish man not to commit idolatry and to teach him to worship the one God alone, so that he might accordingly reform his life in this world and share in God’s blessings in the next. But throughout the centuries of human history, almost all the prophets were rejected by the majority of their contemporaries, particularly those highly placed in society, who never showed any willingness to follow these divine messengers. This recurrent event in history is thus described in the Quran: ‘Alas for the servants! They laugh to scorn every apostle that comes to them’. (36:30)