Spirit of Islam, May 2013

Another possible concept could be that nothing is true. Or that Truth is something different altogether or has no existence. This kind of thought is without doubt an intellectual luxury that no serious man can afford to indulge in. On a serious note, a man can, however say that he has not found the Truth or that he is just a seeker but no serious man can say that Truth is not absolute. A seeker of Truth is looking for the answer to the question: "What is that knowledge by which I may believe?" When he finds Truth, he makes it supreme. If man is not able to decipher a thing in its absolute sense, then he continues his research until he has discovered it. In the universe that man lives in, everything is known to be absolute and if something has not yet been discovered in its absolute sense, then man is continuously struggling hard to discover its absolute position. The same is the case with man’s identity. Man by his nature is an absolute-loving person. He wants to live in conviction. Truth gives us conviction. Only with conviction can we take any action. Our behaviour is governed by our conviction. If he knows a woman to be his mother, then he wants to have an absolute belief in the fact that she is his mother. Similarly, when he owns a property then his ownership should be in the absolute sense. If this does not happen then man will be in an uncertain state of mind about everything. And it is a fact that man cannot live in uncertainty. These facts make it clear that the concept of absolutism is exactly in accordance with human nature. On the contrary, regarding everything as non-absolute is against the very nature of human beings. As far as "Truth" is concerned, if it is not absolute, it cannot give us any conviction. To say that Truth is not absolute is like saying that I do not believe in anything to be Truth. A man can only become a skeptic with such a belief. And to be a skeptic is not a practical position for any human being.