Everything is a test paper. Negative means that if someone provoked you and as a reaction, you became negative. It is of course a part of the test to see, whether you succumb to negativity or not.

This is not a contradiction. As far as your being is concerned, you must live as an idealist. But when you are amidst others, then you should be pragmatic and accommodating. If someone is pragmatic for self-interest, that is evil. But when we realise that we cannot abolish God-given freedom and adjust with that, it is a form of worship. The only point of caution is that it should not be done for one’s vested interests but for disseminating the Word of God.

Suffering is not an evil. There’s a positive side to it. It gives you challenge. It gives incentive to work. It activates one’s mind; so suffering is a blessing in disguise. History shows that many of those who faced hardships and disadvantages emerged as achievers. It is rightly said that it is not ease but effort, not facility but difficulty that makes men.

Suffering is not an evil. There’s a positive side to it. It gives you challenge. It gives incentive to work. It activates one’s mind; so suffering is a blessing in disguise. History shows that many of those who faced hardships and disadvantages emerged as achievers. It is rightly said that it is not ease but effort, not facility but difficulty that makes men.

Jihad means struggle. Any sincere effort for the cause of religion will be called Jihad. Man’s self leads him to evil. So waging war with the self is jihad. Sometimes friends or acquaintances pressurize you into engaging in activities, which are not right from the moral standpoint. At that time, refusing to yield such pressure and sticking firmly to an upright attitude are forms of jihad.

Exhorting people to goodness and making them refrain from indecency are tasks entailing a great struggle. Continuing the dawah campaign whilst bearing all hardship is also jihad.

If having been treated with bitterness by neighbours or acquaintances, or after suffering any other kind of provocation, one refrains from reaction and retaliation and maintains pleasant relations unilaterally; this will also be a form of jihad.

There is another kind of jihad which is called ‘qital’ that is, engaging in war at God’s behest at the time of aggression on the part of the enemies. This jihad is purely in self-defence in order to counter aggression. The literal meaning of jihad is not war. But to fight in self-defence in accordance with God’s commandments also involves a struggle; that is why it is also called jihad.

Jihad, meaning war, is however a temporary and circumstantial matter. If in the real sense any need for defence arises only then will armed jihad be launched. If no such severe urgency arises, no armed jihad will take place.

Just calling an action ‘jihad’ will not morally validate it. The only true jihad is that which is carried out in accordance with Islam. Islamic jihad is, in actual fact, another name for peaceful struggle. This peaceful struggle is sometimes an inward-looking thing, like waging jihad with the self when it takes place at the level of feeling; sometimes it is desired externally, and manifests itself at the physical level through gestures (like kneeling, prostrating oneself before God).

Becoming an atheist is more an outcome of being against theism than a self-discovery of the non-existence of God. Atheism was earlier backed on scientific validation, however, it has now lost its foundations and has become anachronistic in nature. For those who still claim scientific backing for atheism should learn about what some of the authorities in science have said about the topic.

Once Einstein was asked if he was an atheist. He said:

You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. (Sept. 28, 1949 letter to Guy Raner Jr.)

This means scientists are not in a position to say that there is no God, they can just take a sceptical stand on the existence of God. This is because the accepted base for belief in something in the intellectual world is scientific, but since there is no scientific discovery about the non-existence of God, this is still subject to interpretation.

Towards the end of the 19th century, there was a strong wave of what was popularly called ‘scientific atheism’. The argument often offered to negate the existence of God was His being invisible. But new scientific investigations carried out at the beginning of the 20th century started turning the tide against the credibility of this position, it becoming accepted that there are many aspects of nature that are invisible yet they exist. One of the books written on this new world discovered by science is Science and the Unseen World by Sir Arthur Eddington.

At the beginning of the 20th century Sir James Jeans declared that the universe which had been discovered by modern science was not compatible with the mechanical interpretation that had gained ground since past several decades. The age of quantum mechanics has established that nothing is fully observable. Contrary to previous belief, it was not the atom that was the last fundamental particle that constituted matter, rather there were unobservable subatomic particles that served as the building blocks of atoms. In a book published in 1988, entitled A Brief History of Time, Stephen W. Hawking (one of the foremost physicists of present times) explains the Big Bang Theory, according to which the universe is constantly expanding. After working out the relevant mathematical equations, Hawking has reached the conclusion that the expansion of the universe is taking place according to a well-calculated scheme. The initial rate of expansion must have been fixed with great accuracy so that it would always be less than the critical rate, i.e. the rate at which the universe would begin to collapse again. This view cannot be explained unless it is accepted that the rate of expansion of the universe has been determined with the utmost precision. Stephen Hawking writes:

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us. (p. 127)

One of the most amazing qualities of the universe is that there is no interpretation or explanation of it, other than that which allows for God’s existence, despite the fact that the best brains in every age have attempted to unravel its mysteries. It has been claimed that the universe has always been in existence in its present form. It has also been claimed that it came into being on its own and that it goes on its own. Cause and effect have been said to have created everything, and attempts have also been made to prove the law of evolution to be the creator of the universe; which however can be only a process of nature, but never its creator. The more a man learns about the universe, the more absurd do these theories appear to him; the stranger does it seem that something, or some being other than God Almighty should be the Lord and Master of the Universe. The universe, by its very existence, testifies to the fact that God is its Creator. I find other claims to be without concrete foundation. Whatever arguments or opposing opinions have been expressed to propagate this theory have proved erroneous by the knowledge acquired to date through human research.

One of my early works on this subject include the book God Arises: Evidence of God in Nature and Science. It establishes the existence of God according to modern scientific findings. It has been translated into several languages.

Source: The Seeker’s Guide

Death will overtake everybody; no one can escape from it. But death is not the same for everyone. Some have made God their goal in life; they speak and keep silence for His sake alone; their attention is focused entirely on the after-life. Death is for them the end of a long terrestrial journey towards their Lord.

Others have forgotten their Lord; they do not do things for God’s sake; they are traveling away from their Lord. They are like rebels who roam at large for a few days, and then death seizes them and brings them to justice.

Death is not the same for both types of people, as it might seem. For one, death is to partake of the Lord’s hospitality; for the other, it is to be cast into His dungeon. For one, death is the gate to paradise; for the other it will be the day when he is thrown into hell’s raging fire, to burn there forever as a punishment for his rebelliousness.

Believers have a different attitude to death from unbelievers. They are concerned with what comes in the wake of death; they focus their attention on gaining an honorable position in the life after death. Unbelievers, on the other hand, are caught up on worldly affairs. Their ultimate ambition is worldly honour and prestige. Under present circumstances, those who have consolidated their position on earth seem to be successful, but death will shatter this facade. It will become clear that those who seemed to have no base in the world were in fact standing on the most solid of foundations, while the position of those who had reached a high status in the world will be exposed as false. Death will obliterate everything; afterwards only that which has some worth in the after-life will remain. We are obsessed with the world, which meets our eyes. We fail to pay attention to the call of truth. If we were to see the next life with our worldly vision, we would immediately submit to God. We would realize that if we do not submit to Him today, we will have to do so in the future world, when submission will profit no one.

Man attains his highest distinction only when he leads a purposeful life. Such a life characterizes the most advanced stage of human development. This does not mean that by taking up just any task, which is apparently significant, man’s life becomes truly purposeful. A really purposeful life is one in which man discovers his supreme status; a life in which his personality makes manifest its unique distinctive quality. An animal strives to obtain food; a bird flies in search of a better country when the seasons change; a wasp busies itself building up its own home from tiny particles of earth; a herd of deer takes measures to protect itself from wild beasts of prey. All of these appear to be purposeful actions. But when the phrase ‘a purposeful life’ is applied to man, then it does not refer to efforts of this nature. Without doubt arranging for one’s food, clothes and habitation are some of the tasks that man has to perform in this world; but this is a level of purposefulness in which men and animals, being concerned only with bare survival, are equal. Its true application in relation to man can only be one in which he appears in all his dignity. Man’s life becomes purposeful only when it goes beyond common animalism and takes the form of superior humanism.

God’s creations in this world fall into two categories: animate and inanimate. Obviously, animate objects enjoy a certain superiority over inanimate objects. The former can be divided into three classes: the vegetable, the animal and the human. Modern scientific research has shown that plants also possess life, in that they nourish themselves, they grow and they have feelings.

But animals and men surely represent a higher form of life. In what way does man excel animals? Many theories have been advanced in answer to this question over the ages, and great minds are still studying it. But modern biologists have come to the conclusion that it is man’s capacity for conceptual thought, which distinguishes him from other life forms. Animals lack this quality, whereas man is conscious of the fact that he is thinking. He consciously forms a plan of action in his mind; in his everyday life his actions are determined by himself. Whereas this is not the case with animals. Though many of their actions appear to be like those of men, they are not the result of thought; they all stem from pure instinct. Animals are simply led intuitively by their desires and their needs in a certain direction. Their actions are governed by environmental stresses from without and physical pressures from within.

It is in terms of this unique conceptual quality of man that we can conceive of what his higher purpose in life should be. The latter can only be one, which does not result from the pressures of desire or of immediate exigencies. It must emanate from his own urge to worship God.

Man’s true purpose in life can only be one, which reflects the higher side of his personality; one, which displays him as the superior being, he is.

If one pauses at this stage to take note of what the Qur’an has to say, one will find that it gives us clear guidance in this matter. Man’s purpose in life has been explained in the Qur’an in the following words:

“I created mankind and the jinn that they might worship Me. I demand no livelihood of them, nor do I ask that they should feed me. God alone is the Munificent Giver, the Mighty One, the Invincible.

These verses specify man’s purpose in life as worship. This is a purpose, which elicits from man his uniqueness in its ultimate form. It raises man to a much higher plane than that of animals. Not a trace of animalism contributes to the achievement of such a goal. God does not demand of you a livelihood, the verse states, rather He himself is responsible for your livelihood. This means that worship of God is a purpose, which is motivated neither by inward desires nor outward influences. Rather it comes into being through thought alone. Only when a person goes beyond his self and his environment can he understand that there is a higher purpose on which he should focus his life.

The motive force towards the fulfillment of this purpose is not the urge to satisfy one’s needs or those of others. The worshipper seeks neither to gratify his own desires nor those of the Being he worships. It is a purpose which sets before man a goal far above all these things—a goal which does not follow internal needs or external pressures, but results purely from conceptual thought.

When a person works, makes money, builds a house, makes an effort to improve his standard of living, he appears to be engaged in efforts towards some worthy end. But a life of this nature cannot be called a purposeful life, for these activities do not demonstrate man’s unique status. It might seem as if they are the result of deliberation, but if one looks at the matter in depth, one will see that in actual fact the motive force behind these actions is the same urge that motivates an animal in various ways, in its concern for its own survival. It is the driving force of one’s desires; the pressure of one’s needs, and the wish to fulfill the demands of one’s self that underlie such a life. These are the considerations which, in fact, guide a person in his search for his livelihood.

When man grows up, he realizes that there are certain material necessities without which he cannot live. He requires food, clothes, a place to live; he requires a reliable source of income to sustain him throughout his life. He is forced by these considerations to obtain these things. Then he sees that those who have an abundance of these material things enjoy respect and apparently possess every form of happiness and luxury in this world. Thus he is driven on to do more than just seek a livelihood; he desires to earn to a degree greatly in excess of his actual requirements.

In bustling markets, grandiose offices, and opulent buildings, he is not really guided by deliberate thought. Rather, he is being guided by inflated ideas of his own needs, desires, longings and ambitions to achieve fame and high status in this world. For this reason these activities cannot be considered as being directed towards the purpose which sets man apart from the animal and lends him a higher distinction.

To determine the purpose of life is, in short, the effort to make life meaningful. It must surely, therefore, be one which is in accordance with man’s unique status; it must be one which leads man on the path to success and progress in terms of his true nature.

There is just one formula – save yourself from distraction. People remain engaged in and distracted by other-than-God and at the same time desire to attain conviction in God. Till the time you do not steer yourself away from distractions, you will not be able to focus on God.

The essence of Islam is tawhid. That is, to believe in One all-powerful God who in the future shall hold us accountable for our actions here on earth. This belief makes one self-conscious about one’s actions. It instils in a person the virtues of honesty, modesty, just and fair dealing.

The best way to convey the true essence of Islam is to become an embodiment of these traits and let your character speak louder than your words.

Conviction is very important in life. It is conviction that gives you courage and determination. Without conviction, you cannot achieve anything especially in today’s competitive world. And the only source of conviction is trust in God.

The essence of faith is ma‘arifah, (realization or discovery of God). When a man consciously seeks out and finds God, and thereby has access to divine realities that is what constitutes faith.

This discovery is no simple matter. God is the Creator and Owner of all things. He will award or punish all, according to their deeds; none is free from His grip. The discovery of such a God shakes to the core of the whole life of man. His thinking is revolutionized, for God becomes the centre of all His emotions.

With God as the principal focus of his attention, man becomes God’s servant in the fullest sense of the word. He becomes a man whose living and dying is all for God.

Such a faith ultimately results in all of man’s behaviour and his dealings taking on the hue of God. When the believer speaks, he is conscious of the fact that God is listening to him. When he walks, he does so with modesty so that his gait may not be displeasing to God. When he deals with people, he is always worried lest he deal unjustly and be punished by God in the next life.

The impact of this degree of faith makes the entire life of man akhirat-oriented. In all matters his eyes are focused on the Hereafter. Instead of immediate gain he makes gain in the next life his goal. Whenever there are two aspects of any matter, one pertaining to this world and the other to the next world, he always prefers the latter.

Faith, another name for the recognition of the Supreme God, becomes for the believer a fountainhead of limitless confidence in his Creator. When this recognition takes root in an individual’s heart and soul, his whole personality becomes regenerated. Knowing that in all circumstances he may depend upon God, he becomes a new man.

According to the Quran,

Those who believe love God most. (Quran 2:165)

What is love? Love is a result of discovery. When you discover that God has already given me great reward in this world in the form of His numerous bounties, you become immersed in a sea of gratitude for Him, which in turn produces love for God.

Source: Love of God

We do love God. He is our supreme benefactor, the most gracious and the most merciful. Piety in human beings is a manifestation of the love they have for God. Having fear of God is not in the same sense as having fear of a ferocious animal. Rather, fear of God is positive fear and can be understood in the context of obedience to God. While God is compassionate and benevolent toward human beings, He is also very just. Thus, fear of God is a result of the realization that God has the ability of punishing wrongdoers for their evil deeds. God is all-knowing and nothing is, or can be, hidden from Him. A person who has fear of God constantly lives with the sense of being accountable to Him. Even if his fellow human beings do not have the power to implicate him for his wrongful actions, a person who has fear of God knows that in the Hereafter he will surely be answerable to the Almighty for his actions, big or small. It is this that causes a believer to naturally fear God, a concept which serves as a source of reform in his life.

I have spent significant time on this topic and my conclusion is that nature has instilled a special mechanism in a person by which he can control his anger. When angry, all one has to do is observe silence. Anger incites a psychological fire within a person and in the resulting rage, he is not able to control himself. But when one becomes silent in moments of anger, the rage instantly begins to take a downward trend. So, when someone provokes us, we must simply become quiet.

At all such times, I myself do not react and I have experienced that anger takes no time in subsiding. Reaction leads to chain reaction and not reacting stops the chain reaction, but in order to stop the chain reaction, one needs the power of self-control. Only the spiritually strong can break the chain reaction in a situation involving provocation and rage. It is a sign of great strength. As per a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad:

The strong man is not one who is good at wrestling, but the strong man is one who controls himself in a fit of rage. (Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith no. 5763)

It has also been alluded to in the Quran that one may earn a position in Paradise by being forgiving at times of anger:

for those who spend, both in prosperity and adversity, who restrain their anger and are forgiving towards their fellow men—God loves those who do good works. (Quran 3:135)

Even I used to get angry in my early days, but my anger led me to self-thinking, which made me realize that anger yields no result. I then concluded that it was futile to waste energy on anger.

During 1975, I had written an article for the publication, Al-Jamiat, where I had narrated the story of how I was invited to Ahmedabad by a young Muslim engineer who had set up a factory there. The engineer was a very competent person. As he was showing me around the place, we came across a new kind of machinery which was produced at that time only for export purpose. While demonstrating the prowess of the machine, he first pushed on a button and its flywheel started rotating at top speed. He then pushed another button and the flywheel immediately changed its direction and started rotating opposite to the previous position. As I saw this, it struck me that when matter (or machine) has the quality to change its direction within seconds, then a human being should have this ability manifold. After this incident, I started training my mind to change my emotion within seconds whenever a situation requiring so arises.

Hence, in moments of rage when our natural tendency is to speak or react aggressively, we need to instantaneously change the direction of our flywheel and remain silent. Without doubt, the anger shall dissipate and we shall be in a position to prudently handle the situation.

There is no objective criterion for this. The journey begins when man finds out that his sole concern is God. The Quran gives the criterion to discern between those who would be rewarded in the hereafter and those who would not be.

The first criterion pertains to one who would become deserving of punishment in the hereafter. The Quran says for such a person

He used to be happy with his own people. (84:13)

According to this criterion, those who earned and exhausted their resources on their family did not discover God! They could not think beyond their kith and kin.

The second criterion pertains to those who would be rewarded in the hereafter. For such individuals, the Quran says,

When we were among our families, we were full of fear of God’s displeasure. (52:26)

Such people were always actively thinking about their accountability towards God. In other words, despite being with their family, their sole concern was God.

This is very easy. All you need to do is remember God wherever you are. You do not need to do anything special. At all times, you must think how your needs are getting fulfilled – discovering, realizing and making up your mind on these lines is all that is required.

Source: The Seeker’s Guide

Zikr means remembrance of God. Zikr is the link to God Almighty. It is not just the repetition of certain words. It means to remember Him again and again in different situations. For example, if you see a tree, you will see the miracle of God in it. You will exclaim, standing with your hand on your heart, “O God! You have made the tree green and fresh, so also, in the same way, make me like a green tree. I am just a dried-up tree. You can turn me into a green tree by your inspiration.” This experience does not relate to any one thing. It relates to all things. Everything in this world contains spiritual food. Wise is the one who can live in this world by taking spiritual food from everything.

Remembering (zikr) is a meaningful reality, not just a turn of phrase. When you remember God, the Lord of the worlds, He will naturally come to your mind as the Owner and Lord of the universe; One whose blessings are so many that they cannot be counted. Contemplation or deep thinking is automatically involved in remembering. That is why zikr means remembering God again and again in different situations. This helps one to live a God-oriented life.

Source: The Spirit of Islam

We do love God. He is our supreme benefactor, the most gracious and the most merciful. Piety in human beings is a manifestation of the love they have for God. Having fear of God is not in the same sense as having fear of a ferocious animal. Rather, fear of God is positive fear and can be understood in the context of obedience to God. While God is compassionate and benevolent toward human beings, He is also very just. Thus, fear of God is a result of the realization that God has the ability of punishing wrongdoers for their evil deeds. God is all-knowing and nothing is, or can be, hidden from Him. A person who has fear of God constantly lives with the sense of being accountable to Him. Even if his fellow human beings do not have the power to implicate him for his wrongful actions, a person who has fear of God knows that in the Hereafter he will surely be answerable to the Almighty for his actions, big or small. It is this that causes a believer to naturally fear God, a concept which serves as a source of reform in his life.

There is a common misconception that Islam is a religion of Violence. There is no basis for this in Islam. Islam is a religion of peace.

The very first verse of the Quran reads: In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the most Compassionate. This verse, which is repeated in the Quran 114 times, clearly shows that the God of Islam is the God of Mercy and Compassion, and the book of Islam too is the book of mercy. The people of Islam must also possess the quality of mercy and compassion; otherwise they could not be true believers.

If you go through the Quran you will find that from most verses, either directly or indirectly there emanates the sprit of peace. There is a verse, which says ‘And God calls to the home of peace.’ (10:25) This means that the destination of Islam is peace. All the teachings of Islam are oriented towards the goal of peace.

If you make a detailed study of the Quran you will discover many verses, which deal with the objects and events of the universe, as signs of nature. These verses project the universe as a model of peace and harmony. There are innumerable astronomical bodies in space. All are in motion, but all follow their own orbits without the slightest deviation. Holding up this phenomenon as an ideal, the Quran asks us to follow the same course of peace, that is, to move in one’s own orbit and not trespass (3:83). Thus peaceful living is the religion for both: man and the universe.

Now I would like to present examples from the traditions of the Prophet. Once a man came to the Prophet and asked, “O Prophet, give me a master advice which will enable me to manage all the affairs of my life.” The Prophet told him: “Don’t be angry.”

That is to say, stick to positive behaviour in all situations. In fact, in normal conditions man is governed by his own nature. And nature always takes the course of peace. When people are provoked their nature is upset, and they are derailed into negativity. So the Prophet advised people never to take a negative course of action, and to keep to peaceful and positive behaviour in all situations, even in the face of provocation.

According to another tradition, the Prophet of Islam once observed: Don’t wish for confrontation with your enemy; instead always ask for peace from God.

This means that even when they have enemies. Muslims are not allowed to take the course of confrontation. They must rather seek the way of avoidance. The Quran further states that if you deal with your enemy positively and return good for evil, he will become your closest friend (41:34). These references from the Quran and Sunnah make it clear that peace is the greatest concern of Islam. The Islamic method is a peaceful method. Islamic activism is a peaceful activism.

Why does Islam lay such a great emphasis on peace? Because all the good things which Islam wants to see in human life can be brought about only in peaceful environment. For instance, such constructive activities like spiritual uplift, character building, educational activity, social welfare, worship and prayer — and above all dawah work, can be performed only in peaceful conditions. No peace, no progress; no peace, no development. Peace in Islam is not required for the sake of peace. It is required for the sake of God that is for the sake of a great purpose. It is because no Islamic activity can be carried out except in peaceful conditions. Due to this great importance, the Prophet of Islam always wanted to maintain peace even at the price of unilateral adjustment.

Some people portray the picture of Islam as a religion of violence by using the word Jihad. They say that Jihad in Islam is a holy war. But there is not concept of holy war in Islam. Jihad has nothing to do with war or violence; it actually means a struggle, a peaceful struggle. ‘And make Jihad on them, with the help of the Quran’ (25:52), says the Quran. Nowhere does it say, ‘with the help of the sword’.

Clearly, Jihad is an act to be performed by the power of ideology rather than the power of the sword; it is only another name for peaceful activism along Islamic lines.

The Quran says that on the day of the Judgement, God will say: ‘O peaceful soul, come and enter my paradise’ (89:28). And only those who have followed the path of peace in this world will be allowed an entrance into God’s Paradise.