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To decide our own futures. No one is excluded. God really does love us. He reminds us daily, five times a day to be with Him, and of His presence each moment in our lives, as we learn what 24 hour God-consciousness really is. In Psalm 91, God tells us that not a scratch will touch us with our Lord as protector.
God tells us in the Quran how glorious and peaceful Heaven is, how wonderful to just barely miss Hell. We will not be surprised at anything. No fear of the unknown. No nightmares. No doubts. God reveals Himself to each soul personally, and does not stand back, silently waiting to see if we can make it or not. God has given us the proven word from Him, and in it, a mathematical miracle that is not vague, or conditioned upon faith alone, but which is unassailable, verifiable, tangible—a miracle for all time, and all people.
Happiness is a quality of the soul, not the body. Love is a quality of the soul, not the body. Both come only from God and are demonstrated in each of our lives daily.
[Reprinted from August 1993 SP]
[16:78] GOD brought you out of your mothers' bellies knowing nothing, and He gave you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brains, that you may be appreciative.
[22:18] Do you not realize that to GOD prostrates everyone in the heavens and the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the mountains, and the trees, and the animals, and many people? Many others among the people are committed to doom. Whomever GOD shames, none will honor him. Everything is in accordance with GOD's will.
For some readers my article “To Read or Not to Read…” published in the November, 2011 Submitter’s Perspective seemed to indicate that the information that came to us through the Messenger of the Covenant is not important. That is not the case at all!
I believe that the distinction we need to make is between the guidance that comes through a messenger and the source of that guidance.
We know from 28:56 that only God guides:
You cannot guide the ones you love. GOD is the only One who guides in accordance with His will, and in accordance with His knowledge of those who deserve the guidance.
However there are many verses in the Quran that indicate that God’s guidance can and does come through His messengers and others (7:158-159, 7:181, 18:17, 19:43, 21:73, 24:54, 32:24, 40:38, 42:52 and 79:19 are some examples).
Still no one but God truly guides. I believe that was why God revealed verse 72:21:
Say, “I possess no power to harm you, nor to guide you.”
Does that mean that we should ignore information that came down to us through the Messenger of the Covenant? Again, my personal answer to this question is absolutely not!
God tells us in 39:18 that the believers examine all words and then follow the best. Do we want to reinvent the wheel? Do we want to be like the people of Sheba who did not appreciate God’s blessings and so they lost them?
God has given us many, many invaluable explanations through His messenger, why should we disregard them? I believe we should use them to help us study and better understand God’s great gift to us, the Quran.
God tells us in 18:27 that the Quran should be our only source:
You shall recite what is revealed to you of your Lord’s scripture. Nothing shall abrogate His words, and you shall not find any other source beside it.
From this and several footnotes and subtitles (and many verbal statements in Quran studies, etc.) we know that everything pertaining to our salvation that came through His messenger is in the Quran. We may not have found and understood everything yet, but I believe it is now our duty to take heed of 17:36 and really study the Quran to see for ourselves the source of the information we have been blessed with:
You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.
There may be things that we cannot find in the Quran, but that does not mean that they are not there. When God tells us to trust the messenger (81:21), it makes no sense that He would then have that messenger misguide us.
How many centuries have sincere Muslims read the Quran, looked directly at 6:141 and still believed that the Zakat should be given only once a year? They simply were not able to see the verse for what it was.
Undoubtedly as we study, our understandings will change from time to time and different Submitters will come up with different understandings. But that is how any body of knowledge is built. It will not happen over night and there will almost certainly not be any immediate consensus of understanding. However we have the advantage of knowing that we must kill our egos and that we must treat each other with respect and consideration. Ultimately, if we are worthy of it, God will guide us to the correct understanding.
We have been given the keys to a great treasure; now it up to us to use them.