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On The Holy Qur'an and Its Interpretation |
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 The Qur'an is God's miraculous, matchless message that has been sent to all humanity via His last Messenger. With the Qur'an God has shown humanity, one last time, a short-cut to His good pleasure. He has communicated to us about His Essence, Attributes, and Names. He has expressed in the most explicit way, leaving no room for any misunderstanding, His will to be known and recognized in the correct way, to be believed in and worshipped. Almighty God has put emphasis on the duties and responsibilities of believers, while enthusing hearts and agitating souls with His warrant for punishment and promise for reward. He has presented the Qur'an as a sign for perfection and completion and as an orbit to rotate around for His good pleasure, while condescending to offer this gift to us as a compliment greater than any that has been or will ever be granted to anyone else. The Qur'an is the most radiant and enduring of the hundreds of miracles bestowed upon the Master of creation, upon him be the best of blessings and peace. In addition to its wondrous discourse, articulation, and styles of expression, with its social discipline, legal rulings, principles of good morality, and education, its analysis of the whole creation including especially humanity, with its many allusions and indications to the essentials of almost all the sciences, which are sometimes even presented as manifest expressions, and the alternative solutions it offers for many administrative, economic, and political problems, the Qur'an is the ultimate source of reference for everyone and for all times. It is an untainted fountain with an infinite resource; it is a vast ocean which can never be dimmed by even the most complicated and filthy of eras.
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 The situation before our eyes is as horrific as it could be, but with faith, hope, and turning to God it is not impossible to rise above it. Walking towards the sun, a person's shadow falls behind them, but if one turns one's back to the sun, one will look only into the darkness of one's own shadow. Our eyes should always observe the infinite source of light. In the words of Akif the poet, it is necessary to "rely on God, hold tight to our efforts, and submit to wisdom." Although we are currently in a string of uninterrupted crises, whenever we have been aware of the causes and confronted them with faith, hope, and determination, we have almost always triumphed over such periods. At other times, once these crises have been stirred up with groundless fears and delirium or abused for political means, problems appeared inflated to a size larger than they really are, and their psychological damage has yielded no way out.
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Submission, Sense, and Reason |
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 Many people ask how Islam, which requires submission to God, can be in accord with sense and reason. What we must realize here is that these two realities are not mutually exclusive. Islam does mean submission to God, and Islam is indeed in accord with sense and reason.
The principles of Muslim life are set forth in the Qur'an. If they were not, how could we know them? The Qur'an is an uncorrupted revelation of reality. The demonstrations presented therein concerning Divinity require Prophethood, since only Prophets can make the Divine known to humanity. Such demonstrations appeal to reason and sense, as do those concerning death and resurrection. Our intuition of eternity actually arises from eternal life itself. If this were not so, how could we intuit its existence, based upon our limited human knowledge and experience?
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 Love is one of the most subtle blessings that the Most Merciful One has bestowed upon humanity. It exists in everyone as a seed. This seed germinates under favorable circumstances and, growing like a tree, blossoms into a flower, and finally ripens, like a fruit, to unite the beginning with the end.
Love penetrates, as a feeling, into our inner being through the inlets of our eyes, ears, and heart. It then swells like water behind a dam, grows like an avalanche, or engulfs our very being like a flame. It starts to subside only when it results in union. The flame goes out, the reservoir empties, and the avalanche melts away.
Love is a natural and essential aspect of our being. But when it is transformed into "true love"-love of the Creator-it acquires its true nature and color, and later becomes "pure" pleasure at the threshold of union.
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