A large industry has many components as well as many functions. But the real goal of the industry is only one, that is to produce some specific product. That product would be the real part of the industry while the rest would be considered its additional components. This is the only principle to gauge the performance of the industry.

The same is true of human history. There are many seemingly working components of human history. The first prerequisite in this regard is to be fully aware of the plan of the Creator, and of the special product the Creator plans to produce from this great factory of human history. No other point of view save this can be useful so far as the correct interpretation of history is concerned.

A study of the Quran reveals that there is only one product desired by the Creator through various activities of human history. This product is called a godly man (rabbani insaan) in the Quran (3:79). That is to say, that the real goal of God’s creation plan is the development of a divine personality within an individual—a “man created in God’s image.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 6227) As long as such divine (rabbani) individuals continue to be born, the course of human history will not come to a halt. Only when such people cease to exist, the present period of human history would be brought to an end. Subsequently, its second period, the life hereafter, would commence in the next eternal world.

According to the goal set by the Creator, it is not right to examine human history in terms of a just social system. It is because the Creator’s plan is to produce righteous people in this world—which is a testing ground—rather than an ideal system. These ideal people are the ones who would be selected to live forever in the ideal world of Paradise. A meaningful understanding of history is therefore possible only in the light of the above principle.

Source: Interpretation of Human History