RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND CONVERSION

These verses tell us the difference between one who has found the truth and one who has failed to do so. The latter is like the shrub growing on the upper surface of the soil: it is short-lived, either vanishing on its own or being pulled out, of no use to mankind. The former resembles a profitable, fruitful tree putting its roots deep down into the earth. It seems that it is for the earth and the earth is for it. Receiving sustenance from the earth and atmosphere, it benefits people immensely. Rooted as it is in the earth, it has a desirable and meaningful existence. Religious Freedom in Islam In 1948 the United Nations gave the world its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a universal charter for individuals as a matter of fundamental human dignity. Article 18 of this declaration reads as follows: ‘Everyone has the right of freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. These ideas are in accordance with the principles of Islamic teaching, where man’s intellectual development is firmly believed in and any system which favours intellectual development will, of necessity, uphold freedom of thought. Without this there would be no fruitful development of the human personality. What is perhaps more important is the Islamic concept of predetermination. Man is born free while every other animate or inanimate object is subservient to God’s will. Nothing in the heavens or on earth, except man, can decide the course of its own existence, this having been eternally predetermined. Everything, save man, must follow the path laid down by God, Islam requires man to make his own quest for truth. He should be fully conscious of this and impose upon himself as religious duty, to find that true nobility of character. External commands are for robots, not for fully mature human beings. Real, live, human beings can never come into existence in an atmosphere of blinkered constraint. What truly moves the human The real conversion takes place when the convert is aware that he has entered the phase of gnosis and leaving behind the phase of ignorance.