THE WORD OF GOD

THE WORD OF GOD From The Scriptures T HE Quran is the book of God. It has been preserved in its entirety since its revelation to the Prophet of Islam between 610 and 632 A.D. It is a book that brings glad tidings to mankind, along with divine admonition, and stresses the importance of man’s discovery of the Truth on a spiritual and intellectual level. Translated from Arabic and commentary by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan He created you from a single soul, then produced its spouse from it, and He has provided for you eight heads of cattle in pairs. He creates you stage by stage in your mothers’ wombs in a threefold darkness. Such is God, your Lord. Sovereignty is His. There is no god but Him. So what has made you turn away? (39: 6) God made man and created woman as his mate. Through the first man and woman a generation of human beings came into existence. God also made extensive provision to fulfil their needs. In the early days of civilisation, sheep, goat, camel and cow (a couple from each totalling to eight) catered to economic and social requirements of man. As civilisation entered the next stage, man harnessed nature’s potential for his progress. The ‘three fold darkness’ refers to the three membranes, that enclose the foetus inside mother’s womb. It was impossible for a man to give such precise description lest it were revealed to him by the Creator Himself. If you are ungrateful, remember that God has no need of you. He is not pleased by ingratitude in His servants; if you are grateful, He is pleased [to see] it in you. No soul shall bear another’s burden. You will return to your Lord in the end and He will declare what you have done: He knows well what is in the hearts of men. (39: 7) To accept God and be grateful to Him is sought by the soul of man. Such an acknowledgement amounts to admission of the Truth, which is the demand of rationality.