man knows for certain that even in the secrecy of a well-guarded and sealed room and in the darkness of night somebody is watching him, and somebody is writing down the smallest thing he does. Herein lies the secret of the clean and pure society which arose in the early days of Islam when the mere sight of a Muslim, of his manners and morals, was enough to make non-believers literally fall in love with Islam. For (Continued) But even those thinkers who have recognised the indispensable need for regulations and rules, if not principles, for human conduct in order to preserve social order or to make social life possible, have in general had no qualms about discarding the very idea of divine sanction - despite the intimation of Voltaire, the arch-priest of relationalism, that man would have to invent God, even if He did not exist. As to the nature and origin of the ethical regulations and the sanction behind them, Western thinkers have fiom time to time tried to promote various agencies - the sovereign state, social will or convention or custom, the supposedly pure and innocent nature of man himself with its capacity for self-regulation, and finally biological laws. The second half of the twentieth century has witnessed the withering away of all these ethical authorities which has left the modern man without even a dim prospect of constructing a new illusion. It is only in this perspective that one can properly consider the significance of the belief in the hereafter for human society. Surah Al-Baqarah 2 : 6 - 7 113 true Faith in the Hereafter, certitude must follow Oral Affirmation. Before we proceed, we may point out that in speaking of faith in the hereafter as one of the qualities of the God-fearing, the Holy ~uran does not use the word yuminuna (believe) but the word yiiqiniina (have complete certitude), for the opposite of belief is denial, and that of certitude is doubt and hesitation. Thus, we find a subtle suggestion here that in order to attain the perfection of ?man it is not enough to affirm the hereafter orally, but one must have a complete certitude which leaves no room for doubt - the kind of certitude which comes when one has seen a thing with ones own eyes. It is an essential quality of the God-fearing that they always have present before their eyes the whole picture of how people will have to present themselves for judgment before Allah in the hereafter, how their deeds will be assessed and how they will receive reward or punishment according to what they have been doing in this world. A man who amasses wealth by usurping what righfully belongs to others, or who gains petty material ends by adopting unlawful means forbidden by Allah, may declare his faith in the hereafter a thousand times and the Sharlah may accept him as a Muslim in the context of worldly concerns, but he does not possess the certitude which the Holy ~urin demands of him. And it is this certitude alone which transforms human life, and which brings in its wake as a reward the guidance and triumph promised in verse 5 of this Surah: /.979~ 9 / : /79 j+l ~dd,l;@jg~;:& / / +,I It is these who are on guidance given by their Lord; and it is just these who are successful. Verses 6-7 Surely for those who have disbelieved, it is all the same whether you warn them or you warn them not: they would not believe. Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, and on their eyes there is a Surah Al-Baqarah 2 : 6 - 7 114 covering; and for them there lies a mighty punishment. (Verses 6-7) After affirming the Holy Quran as the Book of Guidance and as being beyond all doubt, the first five verses of the present Surah refer to those who derive full benefit from this Book and whom the Holy Quran has named as Miiminiin (true Muslims) or Muttaqun (the God-fearing), and also delineate their characteristic qualities which distinguish them from others. The next fifteen verses speak of those who refuse to accept this guidance, and even oppose it out of sheer spite and blind malice. In the time of the Holy Prophet +, Ljc rLll there were two distinct groups of such people. On the one hand were those who came out in open hostility and rejection, and whom the Holy Quran has termed as kafirun (disbelievers); on the other hand were those who did not, on account of their moral depravity and greed, had even the courage to speak out their minds and to express their disbelief clearly, but adopted the way of deceit and duplicity. They tried to convince the Muslims that they had faith in the Holy Quran and its teachings, that they were as good a Muslim as any and would support the Muslims against the disbelievers. But they nursed denial and rejection in their hearts, and would, in the company of disbelievers, assure them that they had nothing to do with Islam, but mixed with Muslims in order to deceive them and to spy on them. The Holy Quran has given them the title of MunZfiqGn (hypocrites). Thus, these fifteen verses deal with those who refuse to believe in the Holy Quran - the first two are concerned with open disbelievers, and the other thirteen with hypocrites, their signs and characteristics and their ultimate end. Taking the first twenty verses of this SGrah together in all their detail, one can see that the Holy Quran has, on the one hand, pointed out to us the source of guidance which is the Book itself, and, on the other, divided mankind into two distinct groups on the basis of their acceptawe or rejection of this guidance - on the one side are those who have chosen to follow and to receive guidance, and are hence called Miiminiin (true Muslims) or Muttaqiin (the God-fearing); on the other side are those who reject the guidance or deviate from it, and are hence called KGfirGn (disbelievers) or Munafiqiin (hypocrites). People of the first kind are those whose path is the object of the prayer at the Surah Al-Baqarah 2 : 6 - 7 115 . d I end of the SGrah Al-Fatihah, 4 . ~Y$$I Llk : the path of those on whom You have bestowed Your grace, and people of the second kind are those against whose path refuge has been sought $;&k+,21s . . &&I Not of those who have incurred Your wrath, nor of those who have gone astray. This teaching of the Holy Quran provides us with a fundamental principle. A division of mankind into different groups must, in order to be meaningful, be based on differences in principle, not on considerations of birth, race, colour, geography or language. The Holy ~uran has given a clear verdict in this respect: It was He that created you: yet some of you are disbelievers and some of you are believers (64:2). As we have said, the first two verses of this SGrah speak of those disbelievers who had become so stubborn and obstinate in their denial and disbelief that they were not prepared to hear the truth or to consider a ciear argument. In the case of such depraved people, the usual way of Allah has always been, and is, that they are given a certain kind of punishment even in this world - that is to say, their hearts are sealed and their eyes and ears stopped against the truth, and in so far as truth is concerned they become as if they have no mind to think, no eyes to see and no ears to listen. The last phrase of the second verse speaks of the grievous punishment that is reserved for them in the other world. It may be observ;d that the prediction ,7929# that: j,+~ : they shall not believe is specifically related to those disbelievers who refused to listen to the Holy Prophet +, J& 1111 ,& and who, as Allah knew, were going to die as disbelievers. This does not apply to disbelievers in general, for there were many who later accepted Islam. What is Kufr ? (Infidelity) As for the definition of kufr (disbelief), we may point out that lexically the word means to hide, to conceal. Ingratitude is also called kufr, because it involves the concealing or the covering up of the beneficence shown by someone. In the terminology of the ~hariah,
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 11:49:19 +0000
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