QURAN: A GUIDE TO LIFE AND BEYOND

QURAN: A GUIDE TO LIFE AND BEYOND Towards A Meaningful Living MEDICINES are usually accompanied by leaflets explaining what illnesses they are designed to cure, how they should be used and what their basic formulae are. But, it is a tragedy that man is born into the world in such a condition that he knows neither what he is nor why he has been put here. No convenient handbook accompanies him. There are no signboards fixed to the summits of the mountains to give him directions or provide him with answers to his questions. Man has, in consequence, formed strange opinions about himself, the Earth and the sky, being ignorant of the essential reality of life. When he examines his own being, it appears to him as an amazing accumulation of intellectual and physical powers. Yet, he did not will himself into being, nor did he play any part in the making of himself. Then he looks at the world outside of him and finds a universe of such extreme vastness, that he cannot encompass or traverse it. He cannot even count the innumerable treasures it contains. What is all this, and why is it there? Where did this world start from and where will it all end? What is the purpose of all this existence? He finds himself completely in the dark on these subjects. Man has, of course, been given eyes, but all his eyes can do is see the outside of things. He has intelligence, but the trouble with human intelligence is that it does not even know about itself. Up till now, man has been unable to find out how thoughts enter the human mind or how the mind functions. With such inadequate faculties, he is neither able to arrive at any sound conclusion concerning himself, nor he is able to understand the universe. This riddle is solved by the Book of God. The Quran is a scripture which gives us definite knowledge concerning the realities of life. Those who have tried to understand the universe without recourse to the guidance of God will be akin to those blind people who try to find out what an elephant is by touching the different parts of its body. One will touch its leg, and think he has found a pillar. Another will feel its ear, and think it is a winnowing basket. Its back will be proclaimed a platform, its tail a snake and its trunk a hosepipe. But where in all this is the elephant? No matter how these blind people put together their findings, they cannot arrive at the correct answer. This is the eternal