There is a God of this universe. He is the Creator and the Lord of Creation. God has created us with a special purpose. He sends His messages through selected servants who are called messengers. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the last messenger in this long line of messengers. No messenger will come after him because the book revealed to him, the Quran, has been fully preserved.
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
Let us take the first question of whether there is a God of this universe. There are some people who do not believe in any such concept. They insist that this entire machinery has come into existence just by a mere accident and is functioning on its own. Six monkeys, set to strum unintelligently on typewriters for millions and millions of years, would be bound in time to write all the books in the British Library. If we examined the pages which a particular monkey had typed, and found that it had chanced, in its blind strumming, to type a Shakespeare sonnet, we would rightly regard the occurrence as a remarkable accident, the product of a blind play of chance. In the same way, millions and millions of stars wandering blindly through space for millions and millions of years are bound to meet with every kind of accident; a limited number are bound to meet with that special kind of accident which called the planetary systems into being.
This proposition has deceived many people for centuries. And it is not the answer. For there is no such thing as accident or chance. How can something which has no existence bring something else into existence? This is why this interpretation of the universe does not in any way apply to it. It is nothing but a baseless claim which has been forged in the human mind, and bears no relation to the actual making of the universe. On the contrary, the concept of God is totally in harmony with the universe. The universe itself is crying out that it has a God. The universe is so meaningful and so organized that it is beyond comprehension that it could have come into existence by mere accident. The circumstances which are necessary for the survival of living beings here on earth exist in their perfect form. Could such perfect conditions be produced simply as a result of accident?
The earth rotates on its axis like a spinning top at a speed of 1040.4 miles per hour. Had the speed of the earth been 100 miles per hour, our days and nights would have been ten times longer. With this greatly decreased speed, the survival of crops or any other kind of greenery would be impossible because, during a day lengthened out to 120 hours, the sun would burn them up and during a similarly prolonged night they would die of frost bite. The sun, which is the source of our life, has a blazing surface temperature of 10,000 °F. It is situated at such a suitable distance that this eternal furnace does not give us even a little more heat than is required. If the sun’s distance from the earth were doubled, the earth would become so cold that we would all freeze. And if its distance were halved, so much heat would be generated that all plant and animal life would be burnt to ashes.
The earth is not situated in an upright position in space. It is inclined at an angle of 23.4°. Without this inclination of the earth, there would be no seasons, the weather patterns would be different, there would be shifts in the levels of oceans. The distance between the earth and the moon varies from around 221,500 miles to 252,700 miles. If it had been only 1 lakh miles away, the waves at high tide would have been so enormous that the entire globe would have been submerged in water.
These are some simple and basic facts about our universe. There are countless objects that are functioning in such great harmony to support life that it is difficult to believe that all this is just the result of mere chance. Certainly there is some being who has brought all this into existence and is sustaining the universe in such an organized manner. The universe is so well planned and efficient that any description of any of its functioning only limits it. Every particle of the cosmos is such a miracle and so full of meaning that if we attempt to describe it, we only diminish it. If one finds irrational the belief that such a universe is God’s creation, then the theory that it has come into existence on its own is all the more irrational.
There are some who ask: ‘If God created the universe, who created God ?’ This question would arise whether or not we believe in God. So we are compelled to believe in one of the two without having a cause—either God or the universe. We find before us a vast universe that we see with our eyes and feel with our senses, so we are compelled to accept the existence of this universe. We cannot deny it. Then we have two options: either the universe has come into existence on its own or there is a being who has created it. In either case we have to accept one of these two without a cause, then why should we not accept God without a cause? For if we accept the presence of God, we find answers to all our questions. Whereas if we believe in a universe without cause, none of our questions about existence are answered.
Some people have attempted to prove that the universe does not exist or has no substance—that it is all make-believe. But even this very theory assumes that they have accepted the existence of the universe. Why did this question arise as to the existence or non-existence of the universe? The question itself shows that there is something to which it relates and there is someone in whose mind it has been produced. In this way, this philosophy accepts both man and the universe at the same time.
WHAT IS OUR RELATION WITH GOD?
After believing in God the first question that arises is: what is our relation with God? Some decades back it was believed that even if God existed, we could have no relation with God. But with the acceptance of the modern quantum theory, science itself has rejected this. Earlier it was believed that the universe was a machine which was continuously moving after once having been set in motion (prime mover theory). Scientists were so convinced of this theory that at the end of the nineteenth century when Prof. Max Planck of Berlin presented his theory of light, disproving the theory that the universe was an automatic machine, his theory was criticized and ridiculed. But it gradually gained acceptance and, finally, after further research on the subject, it is now regarded as one of the most important principles in the form of the modern quantum theory.
Planck’s theory in its initial form was that nature functions by way of quantum jumps. In 1917 Einstein made it clear that Planck’s theory does not just prove discontinuity but rather produces more revolutionary results. This theory displaced the principle of causation from its high pedestal, which was earlier regarded as an explanation for all the important events of the world of nature. Earlier science had declared with full conviction that nature could opt for only one path, which is determined from its beginning till its end, taking the form of an ongoing chain of cause and effect.
Now it has been revealed that this proposition was nothing but the result of incomplete study. Earlier it had been said that even if you want to believe in God you can believe in Him only as the first cause, for the universe does not need a God to sustain it. Now it was learnt that the universe was not in need of just the first cause but it was in need of God at every moment for its sustenance. Quantum theory, in other words, tells us that the universe is not an automatic machine but is rather a machine which is being run at every moment. It is a continuous proof of there being a Living Being which keeps it going. If even for one moment it were to withdraw its power, the entire universe would collapse in the way that all the pictures vanish from the screen in a cinema hall with the disconnection of electricity. It is as if every particle of this world seeks permission from the Almighty for its existence and motion. Without this, it cannot sustain itself.
This relation of the universe with God is an indicator of what man’s relation with God should be. Obviously, the One who has created us and who continuously maintains all the life-support systems, Who is sustaining us at every moment, certainly has the right to be accepted and have His superiority acknowledged by us. The most important human value is to be grateful to the Giver of all blessings. The fact that God is the Giver of all blessings itself demands that we accept His divinity, and make it the goal of our lives to live in accordance with His will. Man’s submission to God requires no other argument.
But this is not all that there is to the matter. It is not only because of the demand of righteousness that we acknowledge God’s godhead and accept our position of servitude. The truth is that there is no other way for us. All the problems of our lives bear some relation to God. Whatever we receive, we will receive from Him. None save God can give us anything. In this universe we are so helpless that without God’s help we cannot survive even for a moment. Where can we escape after leaving God? Think about it for a while. At the northern border of India, who created the 2500-mile-long Himalayas—we or God? Had there been no God, there would have been no Himalayan mountain range and the south-eastern winds which come from the Bay of Bengal, bringing rain each year, would have headed towards Russia without giving us any rain. As a result, entire north India would have been a desert like Mongolia.
As is well known, the sun is drawing our earth towards it with extraordinary power, but the earth resists being pulled out of its orbit. In this way it keeps its distance in space and preserves its existence. If any day this ability to resist disappears, the earth would start hurtling towards the sun and within days it would fall into the sun, just like a twig into a furnace. This power has been granted to the earth by God, and not by human beings.
The group of planets which orbit the sun—of which the earth is one—is called the solar system. If you were to observe from a distance in space, you will find that in the limitless space a fireball is visible which is 13 lakh times bigger than our planet. Then you will see the planets which are circling in their vast orbits around the sun. Of all these worlds in continuous motion, our world is a relatively small sphere with a circumference of about 25,000 miles.
Our solar system appears to be very big but, as compared to the vastness of the universe, it is extremely small. There are stars in the universe that are much bigger than our sun with galaxies much bigger than the Milky Way. Besides, the universe which is visible to man comprises only 4 per cent of the entire universe. The other 96 per cent is made up of matter that scientists have not yet been able to comprehend.
In this extremely vast universe our earth is so miniscule that it is like a grain of sand in a desert. We are like tiny insects clinging to it and co-travellers in a never-ending journey.
This is our position in the universe. Just think how helpless and how small man is as compared to external forces. When we find ourselves in such a helpless state, what can we do but seek help from the Creator of the universe? We are like children totally dependent upon our parents. Our lives, the fulfillment of our needs and our future totally depends on our parents. So man is in ever greater need of his Lord. We cannot conceive of anything without the help and guidance of our Lord. He alone is our support and to Him alone we should turn. So man has no option but to entreat God for help and guidance.
HOW DO YOU REALIZE GOD?
When we look at the world around us, we find that the Creator has provided for the guidance of His creation. Everyone is being provided for at His behest.
Let us take the example of a tiny wasp. Before laying its egg the wasp digs a hole in the earth and puts a fly into it. It stings the fly in its nerve with such precision that it does not die; it only falls unconscious, and becomes a source of fresh food. Then the wasp lays its eggs around this fly so that the baby wasps may eat from it for some time. Had the fly been killed, its carcass would have become poisonous. After providing this food, the wasp flies away and never returns to see its babies again. But despite that, when these baby wasps grow up, they repeat this exact same process. All the wasps do this only once, and they do it with perfection. Let us think who it is that teaches this baby wasp to repeat the process performed by its mother with total precision in order to continue the species although it has never seen its mother.
Another example is that of the European eel. This strange fish in the prime of their lives leave the rivers and ponds and head towards the Sargasso Sea which is 3000 miles away. There they lay their eggs and die. When the baby eels open their eyes they find themselves in a deserted, watery place. They have no apparent means of receiving any information. Yet they come back to the same rivers and ponds and other stretches of water where their parents used to live. No eel loses its way.
How do they receive information about how to find their way? It is through ‘revelation’. Revelation is that hidden chain of communication which remains constant between God and His creation. How a creature should lead his life and how he should perform his duty is laid down for him by the Creator of the universe in the overall scheme which is conveyed through revelation. There are two kinds of revelation: one which relates to creations other than human beings, and the other which relates to human beings. All the creatures besides man are bereft of willpower. They have no freedom to think and then act. They do not take conscious decisions. Rather they are guided by instinct on an unconscious plane. They are as if living machines which perform their specific acts in a limited circle. That is why the revelation they receive is not in the form of laws and commands but rather in the form of instincts. Their instinct is constituted in such a way that they go on repeating one particular act again and again.
But man is a creature who has the power to take decisions. He does something or refrains from doing it by a conscious decision. He choose to do something by an act of his will and also omits to do it at will. This shows that although man too is God’s creation like other creatures, there is a difference between man and the other creatures. Man is being put to the test. What other creatures have to do as a matter of instinct man has to do out of a conscious decision. This is why the revelation made to man is in the form of laws and commands.
To put it another way, the revelation for other creatures has been instilled in their nature, while revelation for man is made to him externally. The knowledge of what the other creatures have to do has been given to them by birth, unlike for man who, when he reaches maturity, is given a call by God who tells him what to do and what not to do.
This message is given to man through prophethood. The person who receives this message is called a Prophet—God selects one of his servants, one who excels in character, and sends messages to him. In this way he directly receives the knowledge of God’s dos and don’ts and communicates it to other men. A Prophet is the link between God and man.
WHAT IS REVELATION?
Now we have to look into the question of how revelation comes to a chosen servant of God. Let us take an example to understand this problem. The machines and equipment designed by man are all largely made of iron. If we look into the history of iron, we will find it really strange how man discovered it when he had no prior knowledge of it. How did he collect iron particles which lay scattered and mixed with other materials in rocks? Then man converted it into the solid form of pure iron. The same is the case with other discoveries too. It is likewise unexplainable how the human mind was guided to make these discoveries. What is that force that leads a scientist to a particular idea in the process of experiment and observation, and then helps him arrive at a useful conclusion? How does something which is unknown to us become known? The source of this knowledge is the same divine inspiration which we call revelation. One who is All-Knowing grants a little knowledge to one who does not know. This is the initial stage of revelation which comes to us unconsciously and everyone receives a share of it. The other form of revelation is more developed. It is what comes at a conscious level, and only to those who have been selected by God for prophethood. The knowledge of reality and the way to lead one’s life on earth is sent by God through this second type of revelation.
We can understand the reality of revelation only to this extent. Demanding more than this would require an answer which is beyond the reach of man. A flying aeroplane receives a wireless message which the pilot in the cockpit hears clearly. This is an incident relating to the life of today but it has never been fully explained as to how this takes place. The same is the case with all the events that happen on the earth. Our knowledge of most things is imprecise. The moment we want to understand reality to the core, we find that the full knowledge of Absolute Truth is beyond man’s reach or understanding.
