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Friday, 29 May 2015

The Wrath of Almighty Allah (SWT) (2/2) - Lessons From History



Our Creator and Sustainer has provided the means to satisfy all human needs and urges, including the human desire for guidance. Almighty Allah (SWT) established the institution of prophethood in order to guide humanity towards the Right Ideal. This is because the need to know the highest ideal of Beauty and Perfection, and the urge to love and worship that ideal, is the most irresistible desire of the human soul. A prophet or nabi is a person who  is  endowed  with the knowledge, through Divine revelation or Wahee, that the only true Ideal worthy of our love and worship is none other than Almighty Allah (SWT) Himself. The system of life based on this Ideal is characterized by an unconditional surrender to the will of the Creator, and this is what every prophet has preached to his people.

According to some traditions, there have been 124 thousand prophets in all, 313 of which were also messengers. Although the Qur’an does not clarify in an explicit manner the distinction between  a  prophet  and  a  messenger,  and  hence  there  are  a number of opinions on this point, the most logical explanation in our opinion is as follows. We believe that a prophet, or nabi, who was specifically appointed by Almighty Allah (SWT) to guide a particular nation or community, got promoted to the rank of His envoy, in a manner of speaking, and therefore he would become a messenger, or rasool. This means that all messengers were  chosen  by  Almighty  Allah  (SWT)  from  among  the prophets; that all messengers were prophets, but not all prophets were messengers.
The  Holy  Qur’an  tells  us  that  after  the  advent  of  a messenger or rasool to a given nation, the rise and fall of that nation became  linked  solely to  its  collective  response to the Divine messenger. If the people surrendered to the commands of their Creator and obeyed His messenger, they enjoyed peace and prosperity and material comforts. But if they showed ingratitude, and refused to follow the Divine message, then they became liable for the most severe punishment from Almighty Allah (SWT).

A community or a group of people who thus rejected the Divine messenger sent towards them became, in the sight of Allah  (SWT),  an  impediment  to  the  overall  evolution  of humanity towards the ultimate realization of the Right Ideal. Therefore, the Divine plan for the human race demanded that such a useless and spiritually barren people be removed from the face of the earth, once and for all. This can be described as the law of “annihilation of the worst.”

In this context, nearly identical stories of six different nations appear in the Qur’an, each of which was guilty of rejecting their Divinely appointed messengers. All of these nations were destroyed and eliminated as a punishment for their sins and transgressions. These condemned nations included, in chronological  sequence,  the  people  of  Prophet  Nuh  (AS),  a nation called Aad to which Prophet Hud (AS) was sent, a nation known as Thamud to which Prophet Saleh (AS) was appointed, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah which were assigned to Prophet  Lut  (AS),  the  people  of  Prophet  Sho‘aib  (AS),  and finally the Egyptian Pharaoh and his followers who rejected Prophet Musa (AS). Of course, there may be numerous other nations who met this fate; although only six of these are mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.

It should be kept in mind that such clear and open manifestations of the wrath of Almighty Allah (SWT) used to appear  in  the  past  only  after  one  of  His  messengers  had explicitly and unambiguously communicated the Divine message to a particular group of people, and they remained persistent in refusing to surrender before the will of their Lord. The Qur’an is very emphatic on this point:

We never punish till We have sent a messenger. (Al- Isra 17:15)

But your Lord does not destroy habitations without having sent a messenger to their metropolis to read out Our commandments to them. (Al-Qasas 28:59)

The converse of the above mentioned Divine Law is also true: A nation that unconditionally accepts the Sovereignty of Almighty Allah (SWT), and acts accordingly, is blessed with all that is good and desirable in this world. This has been described by the Qur’an in several ways. Here are two examples:

And if they had followed the teachings of the Torah and the Gospel, and what has been sent down to them by their Lord, they would surely have enjoyed (blessings) from the heavens above and the earth below their feet. Some among them are moderate, but evil is what most of them do. (Al-Ma’ida 5:66)

But if the people of these regions had believed and feared God, We would surely have showered on them blessings of the heavens and the earth; but they only denied, and We punished them for their deeds. (Al- A‘raf 7:96)

The Qur’an maintains that the real and everlasting rewards for believing in and obeying the commands of Allah (SWT) will manifest themselves in the next world, the Hereafter, or Al- Aakhira. However, there is a great deal to gain in this life as well, in  the  form  of  social  harmony,  peace,  and  general prosperity.

For those who do good there is good in the world, but certainly the abode of the next is better. (Al-Nahl 16:30)




Friday, 22 May 2015

The Wrath of Almighty Allah (SWT) (1/2) - Lessons From History



The    Wrath    of    Almighty   Allah (SWT)

As far as the individual human being is concerned, the Holy Qur’an makes it very clear that the life of this world is only a trial and a test, and that the consequences of good or bad deeds — in the form of rewards or punishments — are reserved for the life-beyond-death, the Hereafter, or the Al-Aakhira. Thus, the Almighty says:
Glorious is He who holds the Kingship in His hand, who has power over every thing, who created death and life in order to try you, to see who of you are best of deed. He is All-mighty and Forgiving. (Al-Mulk 67:1,2)
Verily We created man from a sperm joined (to the ovum) to try him, then gave him hearing and sight. We surely showed him the way that he may either be grateful or deny” (Al-Dahr 76:2-3)
We have made whatever exists on the earth its adornment to test and try them (and) know who acts better, for We shall certainly turn it to barren dust. (Al-Kahf 18:7-8)
This implies that the pains or troubles a person may face during the course of this-worldly life are not the penalties or punishments   for   his   wrongdoing;   similarly,   the   material comforts or prosperity or power one may enjoy are similarly not the rewards or compensations for his good deeds. What we experience in this life are the different ways in which the Lord tries us. This has been made clear in the Holy Qur’an thus:

Every soul will know the taste of death. We tempt you with evil and with good as a trial; and to Us you will return. (Al-Anbia 21:35)

However,  the  most  significant  point  to  note  is  that  the above discussion applies only to individuals and not to nations or communities. The Holy Qur’an teaches us that the manner in which  Almighty Allah (SWT) deals with different nations is quite different from the way in which He deals with individual human beings. The rewards and punishments for the individuals He postpones till the Doomsday, but when it comes to the behavior  of  entire  nations  and  communities,  the  rewards  for good deeds and the punishments for bad ones are often delivered to them right here in this world. This point is explained in the following paragraphs.




Friday, 15 May 2015

History is the Key (2/2) - Lessons From History



The Islamic view of history can be explained in terms of the philosophy of ideals, as presented by late Dr. Muhammad Rafiuddin (1904-1969), former director of Iqbal Academy (Karachi, Pakistan). According to him, the unchanging characteristic of the human nature — ingrained, of course, by Almighty Allah (SAW) — is that the motivating force behind all human endeavors is the urge for ideals. Thus, different stages of the life of a culture-civilization, i.e., birth, growth, decline, and death, can be correctly understood only in terms of this philosophy of ideals, briefly described in the following paragraphs.

A number of individuals inspired by a single ideal organize themselves in the form of an ideal-group, e.g. a primitive tribe or a modern state. Their ideal may be a certain personality, a supernatural belief, or a social theory. By definition, members of the  ideal-group  believe their ideal to be the highest possible form of Beauty and Perfection. They make an effort to realize the ideal in practice, the result of their effort being the intellectual, cultural, and behavioral framework of that particular culture-civilization,   including   their   language,   religion,   art, music, poetry, architecture, morality, philosophy, science, and law.

Initially, Almighty Allah (SWT) allows the culture- civilization to freely prosper and develop in all directions. In due course of time, however, the inherent defects and internal conflicts of the wrong ideal start manifesting and the ideal-group begins to deteriorate. Ultimately, over a variable period of time, the  culture-civilization gradually dies and disappears, making way for the next and possibly better ideal to capture the imagination and passion of a fresh generation, and the process repeats itself on a relatively higher plane of evolution. One Qur’anic verse summarizes this entire process in these words:


Do  they  not  see  how  many  generations  We  did destroy before  them,  whom We  had  firmly established in the land as We have not established you, and showered abundant rain on them, and made rivers lap at their feat, yet whom We destroyed for their sins, and raised new generations after them? (Al- An‘aam 6:6)


A deep study of history will show that the social evolution of humanity is progressing in a particular direction. Adopting and discarding one ideal after another, it is destined to reach the ultimate, permanent, and stable culture-civilization which will be based on the Right Ideal, i.e., an ideal which is in harmony with the human nature, and therefore free from all possible defects. This culture-civilization of the future will be characterized  by  the  domination  of  the  Right  Ideal;  in  other words, by the domination of Islam. We shall return to this topic later in this treatise.