Jonah (Yunus)

Commentary

(a) Imagining the sons and daughters of God is like imagining God on the lines of a human being. Man is the victim of shortcomings and limitations; he therefore needs children so that, through them he can compensate for these shortcomings and limitations. But imagining such a position in respect of God is absolutely baseless. The pattern of God’s creations itself confirms the existence of a Creator. The image of God which should be projected is that of one who is perfect to the final degree; one who is free of all kinds of flaws and deficiencies. Had God not been a perfect being, had He been full of shortcomings and defects, He would not have been able to create a universe like the present one and would not have been able to control it in the present, precisely regulated manner. This means that all the signs of heaven and the earth establish the existence of the one God, the concept of which has been presented by the prophets. But the concept of God devised for themselves by the polytheists has absolutely no proof in the present universe. Now, obviously, the polytheists’ acceptance of an unproved god shows that such people can never be successful, because how can a god who is actually non-existent come to help anybody or fulfil anybody’s wishes? God, who is really in existence, is not accepted by the polytheists and the god they accept does not exist anywhere. Under these circumstances, how can the the polytheists be successful in the present universe? Their only possible fate will be to finally become helpless and without support and forever suffer disgrace and disappoint- ment. (a) In the present world nobody loses anything by rejection of the Truth or shirk (assigning partners to God). This leads to great misunderstanding. But, this state of affairs comes about simply because of the respite given to man during his period of trial. In the present world man has been given freedom of action, so that he may be put to the test. The moment the period of testing is over, the present condition will also come to an end. At that time man will see that he has been left with none of those things of which he considered himself the owner, and on account of which he had become arrogant. It has been recorded in a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad that God apostrophied wisdom, saying, ‘O, wisdom! In this universe I have not created anything superior to you, anything more beautiful or any creature better than you.’ The necessary consequence of the grant of such a great boon to a human being is that his responsibility should also be great. That is why rejection of truth is the greatest crime before God. When Truth is proved by reasoning, it becomes necessary for man to accept it. If, even after the truth has been proved by arguments, a man rejects it, then he is committing an unpardonable crime. When God has given to man the wisdom by which he may recognise the Truth as Truth and falsehood as falsehood, in such a situation there can be no excuse for his wrongdoing before God.