Talking to newsmen in New Delhi Mr. Pechnikov, Director of the Children’s Theatre, Moscow, said that the Ramayana and the Mahabharata belonged to the whole of humanity. “The Ramayana is much more than a religious book. It reflects man’s eternal quest for truth.”
(Patriot, November 24, 1984)
The above statement shows how the concept of religion has become distorted in modern times, for the above-mentioned epics are known to be a composite of time-honoured traditions of a particular nation and are not, as stated by Mr. Pecknikov, exclusively concerned with universal truths. A religion which relies heavily on tradition can be of great significance for the nation to which it belongs, but it is not necessarily of spiritual value to the whole of mankind. Religion should never be equated in this way with stagnant tradition, but rather with the ongoing quest for the ultimate truth.
Religion gives man what, ironically, he persists in seeking outside its folds. The true, divine path, to which religion points, is as universal as the sun. Religion’s truth is in no way different from other scientific truths, it is that same truth which has been brought to mankind throughout the ages by successive Prophets of God.
In the intervening periods, however, God’s true religion underwent distortion and interpolation at the hands of misguided followers. That is why God felt it imperative to reveal once again the true form of His religion through His messenger, the Prophet Mohammad. God’s message, according to His promise, is enshrined in the Quran and, in its pages, it has been preserved for all eternity.
Islam is not in any sense a new religion. It is simply the authentic version of the same divine truths as have been revealed throughout the centuries to the precursors of the Prophet Mohammad.
Source: Al-Risala, April 1989
