Towards Understanding the Qur'an. Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi
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trial, and to keep his eyes fixed on the ultimate objective –success in God’s final judgement. Every other way is wrong.
It was also explained to man that if he chose to adopt the right way of life – and in this choice he was free – he would enjoy peace and contentment in this world and be assigned, on his return to God, the abode of eternal bliss and happiness known as Paradise. Should man follow any other way – and he was free to do so – he would experience the evil effects of corruption and disorder in the life of this world and be consigned to eternal grief and torment when he crossed the borders of the present world and arrived in the Hereafter.
3. Having explained all this, the Lord of the Universe placed man on earth and communicated to Adam and Eve, the first human beings to live on earth, the guidance which they and their offspring were required to follow. These first
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human beings were not born in a state of ignorance and darkness. On the contrary, they began their life in the broad daylight of Divine Guidance. They had intimate knowledge of reality and the Law which they were to follow was communicated to them. Their way of life consisted of obedience to God (i.e. Islam) and they taught their children to live in obedience to Him (i.e. to live as Muslims).
In the course of time, however, men gradually deviated from this true way of life and began to follow various erroneous ways. They allowed true guidance to be lost through heedlessness and negligence and sometimes, even deliberately, distorted it out of evil perversity. They associated with God a number of beings, human and non-human, real as well as imaginary, and adored them as deities. They adulterated the God-given knowledge of reality, (al-[ilm in the Qur’anic terminology), with all kinds of fanciful ideas, superstitions and philosophical concepts, thereby giving birth to innumerable religions. They disregarded or distorted the sound and equitable principles of individual morality and of collective conduct (al-Shari[ah in the Qur’anic terminology) and made their own laws in accordance with their base desires and prejudices. As a result, the world became filled with wrong and injustice.
4. It was inconsistent with the limited autonomy conferred upon man by God that He should exercise His over- whelming power and compel man to righteousness. It was also inconsistent with the fact that God had granted a term to the human species in which to show their worth that He should afflict men with catastrophic destruction as soon as they showed signs of rebellion. Moreover, God had undertaken from the beginning of creation that true guidance would be made available to man throughout the term granted to him and that this guidance would be available in a manner consistent with man’s autonomy. To fulfil this self-assumed responsibility God chose to appoint those human beings whose faith in Him was outstanding
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and who followed the way pleasing to Him. God chose these people to be His envoys. He had His messages communicated to them, honoured them with an intimate knowledge of reality, provided them with the true laws of life and entrusted them with the task of recalling man to the original path from which he had strayed.2
5. These Prophets were sent to different people in different lands and over a period of time covering thousands and thousands of years. They all had the same religion; the one originally revealed to man as the right way for him. All of them followed the same guidance; those principles of morality and collective life prescribed for man at the very outset of his existence. All these Prophets had the same mission – to call man to this true religion and subsequently to organize all who accepted this message into a community (ummah) which would be bound by the Law of God, which would strive to establish its observance and would seek to prevent its violation. All the Prophets discharged their missions creditably in their own time. However, there were always many who refused to accept their guidance and consequently those who did accept it and became a ‘Muslim’ community3 gradually degenerated, causing the Divine Guidance either to be lost, distorted or adulterated.
6. At last the Lord of the Universe sent Muhammad (peace be on him) to Arabia and entrusted him with the same mission that He had entrusted to the earlier Prophets. This last Messenger of God addressed the followers of the earlier Prophets (who had by this time deviated from their original teachings) as well as the rest of humanity. The mission of
2 These men were Prophets and Messengers of God. – Ed.
3 That is, a group of people committed to obey the true guidance of God as revealed to His Prophets. Here the word “Muslim” is not used in the sense of followers of the last Messenger of God, Muhammad (peace be on him), but in the wider sense, meaning all those who, at various periods, both before and after the advent of the Last Prophet, committed themselves to live in submission to God. – Ed.
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each Prophet was to call men to the right way of life, to communicate God’s true guidance afresh and to organize into one community all who responded to his mission and accepted the guidance vouchsafed to him. Such a community was to be dedicated to the two-fold task of moulding its own life in accordance with God’s guidance and striving for the reform of the world. The Qur’an is the Book which embodies this mission and guidance revealed by God to Muhammad (peace be on him).
[ IV ]
If we remember these basic facts about the Qur’an it becomes easy to grasp its true subject, its central theme and the objective it seeks to achieve. In so far as it seeks to explain the ultimate causes of man’s success or failure the subject of the Book is MAN.
Its central theme is that concepts relating to God, the universe and man which have emanated from man’s own limited knowledge run counter to reality. The same applies to concepts which have been either woven by man’s intellectual fancies or which have evolved through man’s obsession with animal desires. The ways of life which rest on these false foundations are both contrary to reality and ruinous for man. The essence of true knowledge is that which God revealed to man when He appointed him His vicegerent. Hence, the way of life which is in accordance with reality and conducive to human good is that which we have characterized above as ‘the right way’. The real object of the Book is to call people to this ‘right way’ and to illuminate God’s true guidance, which has often been lost either through man’s negligence and heedlessness or distorted by his wicked perversity.
If we study the Qur’an with these facts in mind it is bound to strike us that the Qur’an does not deviate one iota from its main subject, its central theme and its basic objective. All the various themes occurring in the Qur’an are related to the central theme; just as beads of different sizes and colour may be strung together to form a necklace. The Qur’an speaks of the structure of the heavens and the earth and of man, refers to the signs of reality in
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the various phenomena of the universe, relates anecdotes of bygone nations, criticizes the beliefs, morals and deeds of different peoples, elucidates supernatural truths and discusses many other things besides. All this the Qur’an does, not in order to provide instruction in physics, history, philosophy or any other particular branch of knowledge, but rather to remove the misconceptions people have about reality and to make that reality manifest to them.
It emphasizes that the various ways men follow, which are not in conformity with reality, are essentially false, and full of harmful consequences for mankind. It calls on men to shun all such ways and to follow instead the way which both conforms to reality and yields the best practical results. This is why the Qur’an mentions everything only to the extent and in the manner necessary for the purposes it seeks to serve. The Qur’an confines itself to essentials thereby omitting any irrelevant details. Thus, all its contents consistently revolve around this call.
Likewise, it is not possible fully to appreciate either the style of the Qur’an, the order underlying the arrangement of its verses or the diversity of the subjects treated in it, without fully understanding the manner in which it was revealed.
The Qur’an, as we have noted earlier, is not a book in the conventional