Abraham (Ibrahim)

Commentary

(a) Faith enables man to discover God as a Being who is all powerful and possessed of all the good attributes. Such a mental state is not merely a formal belief. It, in fact, signals the emergence of a man from the darkness of ignorance and his entering into the light of knowledge. It amounts to the observation and realization of the Hereafter, while actually remaining in this world. Faith in reality is a conscious attainment and not the spiritless repetition of certain combinations of words. The Book of God aims to lead man to this higher stage of consciousness. Receiving guidance at the command of God would appear to attribute the matter of guidance to God. But these words are, in fact, aimed at man himself. There is an immutable law of God, which He has established for the guidance or misguidance of man. According to this law, a man’s serious desire for guidance is the only condition which will take him towards it. When a man receives guidance in this world, it is not simply because of the efforts of the missionary, but because it is available to him by the law of God which lays down that only that person will receive the bounty of guidance who himself is desirous of receiving it. Nobody can receive guidance without his own personal desire to have it. a God has made the path of guidance extremely clear and well illumined; signs are spread all around on the earth and in the sky; the Book of God provides undeniable arguments in its favour; human nature bears testimony to its veracity; in other words, all the evidence in nature are in its favour. This being so, those who do not seek out guidance certainly refrain from doing so in consideration of their worldly interests and not for any real reason, though such people advance a number of ‘arguments’ in order to justify their behaviour. But the actual purpose of these ‘arguments’ is to find something wrong with a straightforward statement. They are intended purely to justify their rejection of divine guidance in the eyes of the people. In view of this, only that person will be deprived of guidance whose love of self- interest and worldly inducements have made him completely blind and deaf.