Food for thought: True Guidance

 

Food for thought 

True Guidance

 

All the scientific discoveries of the modern world and the accumulated knowledge cultivated throughout the centuries will prove useless without the guidance of religious principles. There is admittedly a stupendous amount of usefulness in this knowledge for partial and one-sided objectives but on the whole, a healthy corporate existence can be built.

 

Modern scientific knowledge has certainly solved many complex questions and answered many difficult inquiries about processes of the external physical universe but the more complex yet fascinating problems of man's own life still defy solution leading his life into a tangled mass of unsolved problems. There is only one way for the salvation of the world and that is to acknowledge its moral and intellectual bankruptcy as far as the ultimate issues of life and the guiding principles of social and corporate existence is concerned and to turn to religion and prophetic revelation for the solution to the difficulties.

 

In this period of human history when fear stalks with gigantic strides right into the very existence of man and the civilization he has built up, it is urgently needed to call a halt to our march into inevitable destruction. Let arrogance of power which has become the besetting weakness of great nations yield to the counsel of saner thought and understanding. Let the leaders of men and nations whose ingenuity bought into existence the structure of. the United Nations Organization, find the vision in them to provide the Organization with a soul - an enduring and genuinely benevolent character - for the moral, spiritual as well as material well-being of the whole of humanity inhabiting the globe.

 

Instead of gathering around the Organization to let off the outbursts of national might, as it seemed to have become the sole weakness of the leaders of the countries who are assembled in New York, they may really do themselves, their own peoples and the world a real service, if they turn their minds towards the ideal of recognizing the oneness of mankind whom they represent and uphold their interest in its wholeness.

 

No apology is needed for making a brief reference to the workings of the teaching of Islam along this direction from the pages of history, as the teaching, do not belong to the Muslims alone but to all men and women of goodwill irrespective of race, colour and nationality.

The socio-religious order of humanity is the common heritage of civilization. Each nation and each country have an equal interest in that heritage. Such an order of society gives equal chance to all people to achieve maximum progress. No nation or race had a monopoly of this socio-religious order. The Prophet of Islam made it clear by exhorting to his followers thus:

“Each one of you is descended from Adam and Adam was made of clay. The Arabs have no superiority over the non-Arabs, nor the non-Arabs over Arabs except on grounds of piety and moral purity. Allah has divided you into tribes and families so that you may be distinguished from one another. The highest and the most respectable in the sight of God is he who is most God-fearing.”

In the first period of Islam, we find Salman of Persia, Suhail (RDA) of Rome and Bilal (RDA) of Abyssinia and their several compatriots working side by side with the Quraish of Mecca and the Ansar of Medina. We hear a great Caliph like Umar (RDA) address Bilal (RDA), the Abyssinian, as Sayyedanah ‘our chief and leader’. Even later in the history of Islam, we find new converts to Islam and Persians occupying the chairs of religious learning in the cities and centres of knowledge of the Islamic world giving religious guidance to the Arab chiefs and Muslims who had inherited Islam from their forefathers and it is known for a fact that their verdicts commanded universal respect and obedience.

 

Once Abdul Malik, the famous Omayyad Caliph, inquired of a traveller the names of the religious heads and distinguished men of learning in the great cities of the Muslim Empire of the time. The Caliph was surprised to learn that only in one city the highest position among men of learning had gone to an Arab. In all other places, non-Arabs and freed slaves occupied the highest seats of learning.

 

The whole history of Islam furnishes ample evidence to show that Islam gave equal and unfettered opportunities for development to men of diverse nationalities and races who accepted its message and joined its ranks and thus elevated them without the slightest distinction of race or nationality and on this basis the prophecy of the Qur’an about the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) in respect of the oppressed and downtrodden people was fulfilled.