ASK MAULANA

ASK MAULANA Your Questions Answered The remedy for ignorance is asking questions. (Prophet Muhammad) The spirit of enquiry is the hallmark of an open society and the above saying of the Prophet aptly illustrates this principle. A culture of curiosity and open-mindedness will foster development in any society by motivating its members to learn enthusiastically and enrich their knowledge. This is because awareness of one’s ignorance is half of knowledge, as it becomes a stepping-stone to seeking and finding answers. A questioning mind is like a flowing river that is replenished with fresh thoughts and ideas and continues on its journey. Does the world of the Hereafter exist? We can subject the enquiry of the existence of the Hereafter to the same scientific principles as we use to study the physical phenomenon around us. We present here a few ideas in support of the argument that the world of the Hereafter is a rational and scientific fact. Sir James Jeans once observed that the Creator of the universe must have possessed a mathematical mind. Here, we must add that the very meaningfulness of the universe is a proof that its Creator must have had a deep sense of purpose. Such a purposeful Creator could not have created a world which was imperfect—and therefore meaningless—if this objective was to be fulfilled. Despite all its meaningfulness, our world in its present state is incomplete. We can come to grips with this paradox by examining the observable phenomenon of the principle of pairs, which is universally operative. Everything in this world exists in pairs; everything becomes complete only in a pair—the negative and positive particles in an atom, the male and female in humans, animals and even in plants. Therefore, it follows that along with this world there must exist another parallel world, and in its existence lies the completion of our present world. It is such a world that all the prophets have called the world of the Hereafter. This world of the Hereafter is not just a matter of dogma. It is an entirely scientific fact. First of all, we must define what is scientific proof? Scientific proof does not mean that there can be any degree of absolute certainty about whatever is to be proved. This kind of undeniable certainty is not