THE WORD OF GOD

THE WORD OF GOD From The Scriptures The Quran is the book of God. It has been preserved in its entirety since its revelation to the Prophet of Islam between AD 610 and 632. It is a book that brings glad tidings to humankind, 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 In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful The decree of God is at hand, so do not seek to hasten it. Holy is He, and exalted far above what they associate with Him. He sends down the angels with revelations by His command to whoever of His servants He pleases, saying, ‘Warn humankind that there is no god save Me, so fear Me.’He created the heavens and the earth for a true purpose. He is exalted above anything they associate with Him. (16: 1-3) The reality of religion is that man should apprehend the Being of God and His workmanship in the universe so intensely and realistically that the Being of the one God should become everything for him; man should fear only Him and on Him alone, should he build up his hopes. The one God should be the entire focus of his heart and mind. This is what constitutes the act of making God the object of worship (ilah) and amounts to praying to Him. All the prophets came into the world in order to bring about this condition. Those who prove to have this sense of submission to God will be treated as successful on Judgement Day, but those who go against this will be left without hope. For the general people, this decision will be taken on Doomsday (Judgement Day), but for the addressees of the prophet, it starts in this world itself. There is perfect unity in the universe and at the same time, there also is perfect meaningfulness. Unity in the universe makes it unwarranted for anyone to make somebody other than the one God the centre of his attention. And it is the natural consequence of its meaningfulness that it should meet a meaningful end. In this way, the system governing