Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Discover God
The Quran advocates the culture of spirituality. Quranic spirituality has nothing mysterious about it. It is a well-known discipline. It is only an alternative name for intellectual development. The formula for Quranic spirituality is expressed thus in a Quranic chapter: “Become men of God.” (The Quran, 3:79)
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Discover God
We have been told in the Quran that ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth.’ (24:35) That is, all the light in the entire universe emanates from God’s Being. If the Almighty did not create light, it could not be derived from any other source.
The Qur'an says, "O Men, have fear of your Lord, who created you from a single soul. From that soul He created its mate, and through them, He scattered the earth with countless men and women." (4:1)
This shows that men and women have been created from the same substance. Their being physically one, of necessity, demands their spiritual oneness.
The Qur'an states that "There is no changing in God's creation." (30:30) According to the Prophet of Islam 'every child is born with an upright nature.' (Al-Bukhari) We learn from this that unity is found among all human beings at the level of nature and creation. Nature forms the common constituent in the creation of human beings, just as the atom forms the common constituent in all the varied objects of nature in the physical world.
The most important factor in Islam's contribution is its concept of monotheism – of there being only One God (2:163). According to Islam, God, or the Ultimate Reality of this universe is only one called God in Islam. It is implicit in the concept of the Oneness of Godhead that differences and multiplicity would appear to exist in reality, yet there is an underlying unity.
It is generally said that in present times, the world has assumed the form of a global village. But this is only half the truth. Modern technology and communications have, of course, greatly reduced distances across the world. But the closeness thus produced is of a purely physical nature. Modern technology may have bridged certain gaps, bringing the external world closer together, but the task of bringing unity into the internal world has yet to be accomplished.
Newton (1642-1727) made a special study of the solar system, discovering laws governing the revolution of planets around the sun. His study was, however, confined to astronomical bodies, which can be called the macro¬-world. It is possible in the macro world to weigh and measure things. As a result of the immediate impact of these discoveries, many began to think along the lines that reality was observable, and that proper and valid argument was one based on observation. It was under the influence of this concept that the philosophy generally known as positivism came into being.
As Bertrand Russell puts it, Knowledge is of two kinds - knowledge of things and knowledge of truths. This dichotomy exists in religion as well as in science. For instance, to the scientist who regards biological evolution as a scientific fact, there are two aspects to be considered. One is related to the organic part of species and the other relates to the law of evolution which is inherently and covertly operative in the continuing process of change among the species.
The concept of God is naturally embedded in the minds of people. It is however covered with veils of confusion. One of the major obstacles faced by many a men in accepting the concept of a Universal God is that they cannot see Him and therefore do not have a rational argument to prove the existence of God. They believe in the direct or observable argument or primary rationalism and not the unseen or inferential argument or secondary rationalism. This is contrary to the fact today.
