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For now everyone knows that the coming of rains, the
yield of crops and all other such seasonal events
are based on the principles of nature.
In the old superstitious age, the creed of shirk
might have been acceptable, but today, in the age of
knowledge, the whole structure of shirk, from belief
to practice, has been thoroughly discredited. In the
age of modern science, the fate shirk has met can be
compared to that of a darkened room, which was
supposed to harbour a dangerous, long-horned demon,
but which, when opened up and flooded with light,
was seen to contain nothing of the sort. Before the
emergence of science the world was dominated by
superstitious beliefs. Due to an inadequate fund of
knowledge, people were deceived into believing in
shirk. But now with the spread of the light of
science, it has become impossible for shirk to find
a place once again in the minds of the people.
However, the superstitions themselves have not been
entirely laid to rest. In their personal lives
people all over the world still hold beliefs of
mysterious kinds. Although the majority of the
educated class do not believe in deities, they have
not yet arrived at belief in one God. The only
difference is that if the past generations were
irrevocably devoted to gods and goddesses, nowadays
people have set up another “deity”, called the law
of nature, to which they accord the same importance
as was formerly shown to pagan deities The course of
human history has followed many pathways, but now a
stage has come when all obstructions have been
cleared away, so that a movement, based on the
teachings of the prophets, could well be revived.
Today, such a movement to reject shirk and affirm
monotheism could freely and effectively be launched.
In this modern age the political and international
atmosphere is also entirely favourable, and all
academic arguments are in support of it. It would
not be an exaggeration to say that today any
movement based on monotheism would be in a position
of unopposed victory. No obstacle is now in its way.
The need of the hour is for the monotheists to rise
with all their will and determination and
communicate with unstinted zeal and vigour the
divine message—the life-giving reality of tauhid.
In ancient times a number of evils had crept into
human society, with the result that man had been
divested of his natural greatness. It was the
movement of tauhid, launched by the Prophet of Islam
and his companions, which led the world out of a
pitiable age and caused humanity to enter upon an
age of progress in the real sense. For the first
time in human history, man received the blessings
which had been destined for him, and of which he,
had deprived himself on account of his self-styled
superstitious beliefs. Humanity emerged from a
prolonged age of darkness and entered the age of
light. Now, despite all material progress, man is
beset by insuperable problems. Trapped in the
glitter of civilization, he is deprived of real
peace and happiness. The greatness bestowed upon man
by nature has again fallen into a new abyss of
degradation.
Now the need of the hour is to revive the call of
tauhid with renewed force and vigour. The task is
twofold: tauhid has to be made more acceptable by
means of new and forceful arguments and, by using
modern means of communication, it has to be spread
all over the world. As recorded in the historic
prediction made by the Prophet, the time will come
when God’s religion will spread all over the world,
and not a ‘home or a tent’ will be saved from
entering God’s word of monotheism. |
