I place my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord! There is not a moving creature, but He has grasp of its forelock. Verily, it is my Lord that is on a straight Path. (Qur’an, 11:56)

Source: Arab News

By SHAHUL HAMEED

Is it really good to get the correct message of Islam and so become a believer? How about those who never received the message but will be forgiven, as the Qur’an says?

If a person never understood Islam, and lived as a non-believer, will he/she make it just as good in the Afterlife as an ordinary Muslim? How do we know that we understand the Qur’an correctly?

The Qur’an is extremely advanced. Sure, some things we do understand; we have found scientific evidences from the Qur’an, for example; but do we really understand anything completely?

The misunderstanding of the Qur’an has led to many horrible consequences, such as extremism. Similarly what is the concept of “grave” in Islam? It cannot be the physical grave, the human body will disappear sooner or later from this earth, long before the Day of Judgment. Will it feel like we are waiting for those (probably) thousands of years in the “grave” before the Day of Judgment, or will it appear to go faster?

There are a few general principles laid down in the Qur’an which help us to find answers to such questions. Consider just two of them: One, Allah is never unjust to His creation. And He is All-Merciful; indeed it has been clearly stated that His mercy prevails over His wrath. Two, Allah has made the Qur’an easy for us to understand. Its teachings are simple and not at all complex.

Based on the above two principles, we can deduce the following: It is necessary on the part of humans to seek the truth, especially because they need guidance; and indeed the yearning to receive guidance is built into their very being.

The Qur’an says that before all of us were sent to this earth to live here, our souls were created. In that primordial time the souls faced their Creator Who asked them the question: “Am I not your Lord?” And all of us testified before Allah that Allah is our Lord. The dialogue goes like this: “When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves, (saying): ‘Am I not your Lord (who cherishes and sustains you)?’ They said: ‘Yea! We do testify!’ (This), lest ye should say on the Day of Judgment: ‘Of this we were never mindful’.” (Qur’an, 7:172)

It was after this that we were born on earth. Though we have no conscious memory of that primordial covenant, it is dormant in the depths of our soul and consequently a prophet’s duty is only to remind his fellow beings about their Lord. Even the Qur’an is called “a Reminder” for that reason. Moreover, Allah the Almighty in the Qur’an states what means: “And We have indeed made the Qur’an easy to understand and remember: Then is there any that will receive admonition?” (Qur’an, 54:32)

The foregoing means that a human need not be a genius or an intellectual giant to understand divine guidance or to realize the necessity of following it in life.

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