Spirit of Islam October 2017

41 Spirit of Islam Issue 58 October 2017 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 610 and 632 AD. It is a book that brings glad tidings to mankind, 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 O men! It is you who stand in need of God—God is self-sufficient, and praise worthy—if He so wished, He could take you away and replace you with a new creation; that is not difficult for God. No burden-bearer shall bear another’s burden, and if some over-laden soul should call out for someone else to carry his load, not the least portion of it will be borne for him, even though he were a near relative. You can only warn those who fear their Lord in the unseen, and pray regularly. Anyone who purifies himself will benefit greatly from doing so. To God all shall return. (35: 15-18) Man is an extremely vulnerable creation. His whole existence depends on a particular balance of natural factors. If this balance were to be disturbed, the very existence of man would be threatened. If, for instance, the sun reduced its distance from the earth and came near it, then all human beings would be burnt and reduced to ashes. Also, a large part of the inside of the earth consists of an extremely hot, semi-liquid material. If this hot matter moved upwards, the surface of the earth would experience terrible earthquakes which would reduce all human settlements to ruins. Moreover, meteors constantly fall upon Earth from outer space, but the atmosphere shields us against their effects. If the present balanced arrangement of this phenomenon were to be disrupted, the shower of meteors might turn into such a terrible barrage of stones that it would be impossible to save humanity from it. Man is surrounded by innumerable deadly possibilities of this kind; being totally dependent explains why man needs God and not vice versa.