The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cccxlix
GENERAL INTRODUCTION would endure forever. No object would, therefore, be served by His creating or appointing a son. A man sometimes makes provision for the future against unknown contingencies, but the Quran points out that since God has perfect knowledge of all things, He is under no necessity to provide for unknown contingencies. He knows the past and the future and is under no need to take precautions with regard to the future. The Quran then goes on to draw attention to the fact that not only has God created man but that He also fosters and develops him from weakness and inferiority to strength and superiority. There is no god beside Him. He has created the whole universe. All mankind, whether Persians or Arabs, Jews or Hindus, are equal in His sight. He has created all of them and provided the means of progress for all. It is incumbent therefore upon all men that they should worship Him alone, for He alone controls the universe and man can escape ruin and destruction only by fostering his relationship with Him and can never find peace away from Him. The Quran teaches that God knows all about everything in the universe. There is nothing that is outside His ken. It says: "His knowledge extends over the heavens and the earth" (2:256). Again, it says: of And thou art not engaged in anything, and thou recitest not from Him any portion of the Quran, and you do no work, but We are Witnesses you when you are engrossed therein. And there is not hidden from thy Lord even an atom's weight in the earth or in heaven. And there is nothing smaller than that or greater, but it is recorded in a clear Book (10:62). These verses show that the condition of a man's mind and that which he utters by word of mouth and that which he does by the exercise of his limbs are all manifest to God. Objects even as minute as an atom or even smaller are not hidden from His sight. He perceives the minutest as well as the grossest object and not only is everything within His knowledge but all that is done or that happens is preserved in such manner as to produce its due result in its season. The verse says that all these things are recorded in an open Book. This means that whereas ordinary records are hidden from the eyes of men and after they are entered up they disappear even from the sight of the person making them, the divine record of all that occurs is such that it speaks for itself, that is to say, every action leads to its result in accordance with the divine law and the divine will. Again, the Quran says that since God is beyond physical perception, "Eyes cannot reach Him" (6:104), that is to say, God is by His nature different from all material objects and it is not therefore possible to perceive Him through any of the physical senses. The Quran teaches that God has full power to carry out all His designs. It says: "Allah has the power to do all that He wills" (2:110). It should be noted cccxxiii