A Message of Liberty and Equality

Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai, / Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai!  (Iqbal)

Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, trained a near-perfect generation of the best people around him to establish Islam in society in all its forms and aspects. And he filled the world with the life-giving message of truth, justice and equality for all human beings regardless of their birth, gender or status.

These things will be completely unbelievable if they did not have the kind of solid and unshakable historical foundation they do. And also, at the same time, if they did not continue to our day in the form of living and ongoing actual practices of hundreds of millions of Muslims in all parts of the world.

And if they had not been immortalized, as people would say, in the form of the most comprehensive social and institutional structure the world has ever seen: Namaz, Roza, Hajj, Zakaat, family life, death and everything else Islamic.

To make his teachings of human liberty and equality a reality on earth, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, abolished all forms of tyranny over the minds, bodies and souls of men and women. And he did that by completely cleansing human society of the most poisonous institutions of hereditary priesthood and hereditary monarchy.

The notorious European-Christian doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings to rule is thus a complete abomination in the system of Islam and the Islamic socio-political structure that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, built on earth in 7th Century Arabia.

At that time, he declared and showed in practice that all humans were created equal and that they all could and should communicate with God directly and without an intermediary. And they should do so both through inner contemplation and meditation as well as through public and congregational acts of worship and daily living.

For, according to Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, all life was an unbroken stream of human beings either worshipping God or turning away from him and worshipping other things.

Besides, he unleashed a full-fledged social, political and economic revolution in the world by commanding everyone everywhere to read – and to acquire an education.

“Iqra’: Read!” he said. And till then, and until centuries later, no one had issued that command to humanity. He made education compulsory for all men as well as women.

 

He invited all humanity to serve, obey and worship no one but God, the maker and master of the universe. Just how the Ten Commandments in the Bible say it: Thou shalt have no other God before me!

He asked people to free their slaves; to be kind to their women; to help the needy; and to share their wealth on a regular and systematic basis with their family and with those less advantaged than them.

“If you shall not show kindness and compassion to those younger than you and also show respect and regard to those older than you,” he declared, “then you are not one of us.”

What a way to divide up the people of the world into those younger and those older and giving each their due and appropriate share of human consideration!

 

He taught and showed, in private as well as through public practice, that God had placed human destiny in human hands, even though it was God who made human destiny what it was. And that God, though he remained in control all the time, had made human beings masters of their own fates.

Laisa lil-insaani illaa maa sa’aa, said the Qur'an without ambiguity or prevarication. Paraphrase: What human beings will get is what they work for.

Kullu nafsim bimaa kasabat raheenah, the Qur'an declared elsewhere. Paraphrase: Everyone must shoulder the burden and carry the consequences of their own doings and efforts.

He did all this in an unbelievably short period of barely over two decades. This is one of the greatest miracles of human history. For, no one in history was able to do it before or since.

And when, after completing his mission on earth, he died quietly and peacefully in his own bed, he had accomplished everything on earth his God – the God of all humanity and all creation – had sent him in this world to do, he had built a new world.

He had reshaped the world in his own image and according to his own teachings: according to the commands and doctrines God Almighty had sent him to preach and practice.

That was Islam.

And he left behind two things to power, propel and guard over the continued flourishing of Islam on earth forever. Those two things are Qur'an and Sunnah.

 

The Qur'an is the complete, unedited and unadulterated book that he brought from God. The Qur'an exists to this day in its original form and language, every letter and dot in it exactly the same as during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.

What the world doesn’t know is that the Qur'an exists in its first draft format in our hands to this day. That means what we have in our hands today is the first draft and first edition of the book that he brought from God and left behind – unrevised and unedited.

That means the Qur'an today exists in the same form it first came out of the mouth of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, 1400 years ago. Its first draft was also its last draft.

And it exists in the same original form to this day. No one edited or revised it; no one changed or tampered with it; and no one added anything to it.

It is the same Qur'an we read today – all the 1.5 billion of us Muslims in the world (1,500,000,000) today, from Europe to Asia and from America to Africa and Australia – that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his noble Companions read 1400 years ago.

Thus, anyone can see how every detail associated with the Qur'an is a miracle in its own right.

The Qur'an is thus a mother-source of all the teachings that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, received from God Almighty. At the same time, many of them were also the same teachings that were brought by earlier prophets of God before him and were contained in their books.

But sadly many of the teachings of other prophets had by now mostly disappeared in their original and complete form, leaving behind little more than fragments, imitations, substitutions and approximations of the originals. The Qur'an came and vouched for them.

The Qur'an affirmed and authenticated those left-over teachings of earlier prophets and rejected those that were interpolations and add-ons by others after them.

This Qur'an now, as it was at all times, the greatest sourcebook of Islam – all of Islam, from beginning to end.