SPIRIT OF ISLAM JUNE 2O18

41 Spirit of Islam Issue 66 June 2018 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 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 PROSTRATION In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Alif Lam Mim. This Book has beyond all doubt been revealed by the Lord of the Universe. Do they say, ‘He has invented it himself.’? No indeed! It is the truth from your Lord to warn a people to whom, before you, no warner came, so that hopefully they may be rightly guided. (32: 1-3) On the face of it, this is an ordinary statement consisting of just a few words. But this is a very serious and portentous claim, which in the entire history of religion, nobody has had the courage to profess, except those chosen few to whom the Book of God was in actuality revealed. Other than the appointed person, anyone who mustered the audacity to utter these words was either a trifler or a madman. The Quran is a proof in itself. Its miraculous style, its claims that have not been proved wrong even after centuries have elapsed,—all these and similar considerations prove that it is a book sent by God. And since it is a book of God, it is absolutely necessary that everybody should pay heed to its warnings and gives serious thought to them. It was God who created the heavens and the earth and whatsoever is in between in six Days, and then He established Himself on the throne. You have no patron nor any intercessor besides Him. So will you not pay heed? He directs all affairs from heaven to earth. Then all will again ascend to Him on a Day whose length is a thousand years by the way you measure. Such is the Knower of the unseen and the visible, the Powerful, the Merciful, who gave everything its perfect