THE MEANINGFULNESS OF THE UNIVERSE

knowledge of the laws of nature therefore play a very important part in discovering God at a rational level. This knowledge was not available to ancient man, which is why he could not reach the second higher level of discovery of God. An attribute of God is that He manages human history. That is, while keeping human freedom intact, God makes human history arrive at a stage necessary according to the divine scheme of things. God thus develops a plan for human beings and achieves it without abrogating human freedom. This is a very complex task, one which only the Creator in all His superior powers can bring about. Our task is to understand this plan of the Creator, rather than try to change it. God has repeatedly informed in the Quran that the universe has been subjected for human beings (45:13). Man was enjoined to discover these laws governing the universe and then through this deep knowledge of creation, attain a high level of discovery of the Creator. However, Muslims proved to be inadequate for this task of discovering the laws of nature. Then God raised up another community to fulfil His plan (47: 38). This was the Christian community of Europe and America. It so happened that the European Christian nations suffered a defeat in the Crusades and as a consequence had to discontinue the fight. The only option left before them was to re-plan their course of action, and turn their energies in a direction other than the battlefield. Gradually, they diverted their attention to studying and discovering the laws governing nature and the universe. The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei is regarded as the father of modern science. The scientific method began largely with Galileo’s efforts to observation and study of celestial objects, and the physics of their motion. After him, the process of study of nature continued for up to 400 years and reached its culmination in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. The tremendous discoveries made in the physical world, both at the microscopic and macroscopic levels, provided enormous amount of information to attain an exalted level of understanding of the Creator of the universe. In the universe that God has created, every infinitesimally small component has the Creator’s imprint stamped upon it. Knowledge of this is scattered throughout the cosmos. God gave human beings a rational way of thinking so that they could themselves discover the hidden wisdom of the Creator in His creation. Modern science is the other name for unfolding of the hidden wisdom and truths of the universe. o