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Living \r\n the Quran

Al-Furqan \r\n (The Criterion)
\r\n Chapter 25: Verses 45-46

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Roll \r\n up the shade
\r\n \"Have you not seen how your \r\n Lord spreads the shade? If He will, he could have made it stationary: \r\n instead We have made the sun its pilot. So (as the sun rises), We gradually \r\n roll up that shade unto Us.\"

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The word dalil has been used here in exactly the same sense \r\n in which the word \"pilot\" is used in English. To say that the \r\n sun is a dalil of the shade means that the lengthening and shortening \r\n of the shade is dependent on the rise and decline of the sun. \"Shade\", \r\n here denotes the state between light and darkness, the state that we observe \r\n before sunrise, or which we find during the day by the side of buildings \r\n or under trees.

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To \"roll up that shade unto Us\" means to cause a thing to vanish, \r\n to drive it out of existence, for whatever vanishes or becomes extinct \r\n returns to God. From Him everything issues and to Him everything ultimately \r\n returns. There are two levels of meaning in this verse:

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In its exoteric sense, it is addressed to the unbelievers who are immersed \r\n in heedlessness and negligence and it tells them: if you had carefully \r\n observed the movement of the shade you would have realised that the \r\n Message of the Oneness of God which the Prophet (peace be upon him) \r\n has brought to you is true. Your own lives depend on \r\n the lengthening and shortening of the shade. Now, had the shade been \r\n made permanent, no life or vegetation would have been left on earth \r\n for life's continuation requires both the heat and the light of the \r\n sun. In like manner, were there to be no shade, there would be no life. \r\n This delicate system could not have come into existence by itself, nor \r\n could it have been the outcome of blind working of nature. Nor could \r\n it have continued with such precision had there been a multiplicity \r\n of gods each endowed with some degree of power and authority.

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Behind this apparent meaning there is a further subtle undertone which \r\n suggests that the present dark shade of \r\n ignorance and unbelief will not endure. One needs, however, \r\n to be patient because God's Law does not \r\n bring about sudden changes. In the physical world we \r\n see that both the sun rises and the shade shrinks slowly. The same will \r\n happen in the realm of thought, belief and morality: as the sun of guidance \r\n slowly rises, the dark shade of error will begin to shrink slowly and \r\n will gradually disappear.

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Source:
\r\n \"Towards Understanding the Quran\" - Syed Abul Ala Mawdudi, Vol \r\n 7, pp. 28 - 29
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\r\n Understanding the Prophet's Life
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\"Bringing about \r\n justice between two is an act of charity.\"
\r\n [Bukhari and Muslim]
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This wording implies bringing peace between two people, making conciliation \r\n between two people, judging justly between two people and so forth. \r\n It implies bringing two people or parties \r\n together in such a way that one has not made something forbidden permissible \r\n or vice-versa.

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Making things aright between people is described as a kind of charity \r\n toward others. This may be because of the wonderful results that it \r\n brings about. It brings about peace, \r\n love and harmony between people who may have had, for whatever reason, \r\n some disharmony in their relationship with one another. \r\n From the shariah point of view, this goal is so important \r\n that it is one of the few areas in which some form of lying is considered \r\n permissible. According to al-Bugha and Mistu, reconciling relationships \r\n between individuals is a communal obligation (Fardh Kifayah). \r\n Sultan points out that the effect of such conciliatory behaviour is \r\n that it will make society like one body, united and working in accord \r\n with one another.

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Source:
\r\n \"Commentary on the Forty Hadith of al-Nawawi\" - Jamaal Al-Din \r\n M. Zarabozo, Vol 2, p. 1000

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Blindspot!
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Socio-economic unrest \r\n of our days

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Owing to the rapid development of science and its practical \r\n application to industry, communications, warfare, labour conditions, \r\n and so forth, the conventional \r\n systems of social co-operation have been thrown out of gear \r\n all over the world. The most elementary problems \r\n of life: bread and clothing, poverty and security, work and \r\n education, have become so complicated that they now constitute \r\n problems in the fullest and most baffling sense of the word. \r\n Not that there was a period when these things were less important \r\n that they are now. People always needed bread and clothing, \r\n poverty was always a bitter worry, and security always the aim: \r\n but in previous epochs, when society did not possess its present \r\n complexity, all such problems were comparatively easy of solution \r\n and did not, therefore, occupy people's minds as desperately \r\n as they do now.

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By virtue of its stupendous progress in recent times, science \r\n has entirely changed the conditions of our existence. \r\n It has opened new, unexpected vistas, with all the attending \r\n complications, in almost every branch of human activity. It \r\n has made possible many things. Some of them creative and full \r\n of promise for the future, some of them destructive and full \r\n of terror. But none of them dreamt \r\n of by previous generations. Furthermore, precisely \r\n because these things had not been dreamt of (that is, had not \r\n been anticipated in the social concepts evolved in the past) \r\n the majority of people had, intellectually and morally, not \r\n been properly prepared for them. The \r\n net result now is that we possess neither the requisite economic \r\n technique nor the ethical maturity to adequately cope with this \r\n new situation. The intensity of people's search \r\n for new ways and means to resolve this perplexity is mirrored \r\n in the emergence of the many social ideologies which are now \r\n warring for predominance. Their widely conflicting claims make \r\n us realise that the very basis of our conventional thought, \r\n the assurance of stability in our social forms and in the relations \r\n between one human being and another, has broken down entirely. \r\n

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This turmoil in socio-economic views did not, and could not, \r\n remain confined to the purely material side of our affairs. \r\n It has invaded our beliefs as well. Naturally so, for \r\n the confusions of our politics and economics gives rise to a \r\n very far-reaching criticisms of the ethical and religious convictions \r\n on which those politics and economics have hitherto rested: \r\n the more so as our religious leaders have become accustomed \r\n to taking every convention for granted and contributing precious \r\n little towards a solution to the perplexities with which modern \r\n life is beset. And so the political and socio-economic \r\n unrest of our days has its counterpart in deep unrest on the \r\n ethical plane.

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Source:
\r\n \"Is Religion a thing of the Past?\" - Muhammad Asad, \r\n pp. 14-36

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