Fazlur Rahman

The Qur___ definitely seems optimistic about the future, while rather grim about the past It is absolutely imperative for successor civilizations and their bearer communities to study well and learn from the fate of earlier ones that have perished; or they will assuredly meet with the same fate, for "God's law does not change" for any people. This is perhaps one of the most insistent ideas in the Qur___, which constantly exhorts people to "travel on the earth and see the end of those before them

All evil, all injustice, all harm that one does to someone else__n sum, all deviation from man's normative nature__n a much more fundamental way and in a far more ultimate sense one does to oneself, and not just metaphorically but literally.

The successful are those who can be saved from their own selfishness.

The Qur___ began by criticizing two closely related aspects of that society: the polytheism or multiplicity of gods which was symptomatic of the segmentation of society, and the gross socioeconomic disparities that equally rested on and perpetuated a pernicious divisiveness of mankind. The two are obverse and converse of the same coin: only God can ensure the essential unity of the human race as His creation, His subjects, and those responsible finally to Him alone. The economic disparities were most persistently criticized, because they were the most difficult to remedy and were at the hear of social discord__lthough tribal rivalries, with their multiple entanglements of alliance, enmity, and vengeance, were no less serious, and the welding of these tribes into a political unity was an imperative need. Certain abuses of girls, orphans, and women, and the institution of slavery demanded desperate reform.

The essence of all human rights is the equality of the entire human race, which the Qur___ assumed, affirmed, and confirmed. It obliterated all distinctions among men except goodness and virtue (taqw_): The reason the Qur___ emphasizes essential human equality is that the kind of vicious superiority which certain members of this species assert over others is unique among all animals. This is where human reason appears in its most perverted forms.

The purpose of man's creation is that he do good in the world, not substitutehimself for God and think that he can make and unmake the moral law at his ownconvenience and for his own selfish and narrow ends. This is the difference betweenphysical laws and the moral law__he one is to be used and put to service; the othermust be obeyed and served. For God says

People belittle or ignore or even rebel against God, because they view theprocesses of nature as having self-sufficient causes, normally regarded by them asultimate. They do not realize that the universe is a sign pointing to something"beyond" itself, something without which the universe, with all its natural causes,would be and could be nothing.

The corruption of religious leaders, who were expected to be the source of spiritual force and regeneration, is the last step in the of decay of a community.