The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 293
292 Α'ΙΝΑ-Ε-ΚΑMĀLĀT-E-ISLAM-DAFI UL-WASĀWIS and Messenger, and realizes His Messenger to be a True Bearer of news. Therefore, he attains salvation by virtue of his sincerity and goodness. It is the duty of every intelligent person to reflect over the deep mystery as to why Almighty God kept matters which man is obliged to have faith in, so secret and hidden that they cannot be solved or explained by the knowledge, wisdom, and philosophy of this world. For example, in matters pertaining to faith, the foremost fact is that one has to believe in the existence of Almighty God, in His attributes of Knowledge, of His being Wise and Almighty, of His being the Lord of His will, of His being One without a partner, Eternal and Everlasting, Lord of the Throne, and then of His being Omnipresent, but what discovery can the reason of man make regarding these matters except that it may indulge in mere speculations and self-made conjectures? Further, how can such a person who is hungry and thirsty to discover the true reality and who desires realization of the Living God, be satis- fied with the one-sided and inadequate argumentation of reason? Human intellect may indulge in a thousand thoughts, and it may think-ever so deeply as if a hundred-thousand times—over the wisely planned creation of the earth and other heavenly bodies, but it can never dare make the assertion that there is a Creator of this universe; for, such an assertion can only be made if He has been seen or discov- ered. If, however, human reason does not fall prey to deception and does not go astray, it can only say that there ought to be a Creator of this highly organized, superbly planned, and wisely designed enter- prise. Nonetheless, the extent of the difference that separates 'is' from 'ought to be' is obvious. What I have said is only by way of mild statement. Otherwise, whoever has taken reason alone as their guide to find the Person of Almighty God, has been carried along by reason to either atheism or to such a weak belief in God Almighty, which is tantamount to disbelief. When the rationalists flounder even at the stage of God-realization, and, make a wrong start, then what can we expect from human reason in other matters pertaining to the unseen?