Posted by Verily, in the creation of heaven and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are signs for the people of wisdom (Qur’an 3:190)
“God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destruction of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam, Mindanao, The Philippines, November 24, 1963
Speech
“Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur’an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah’s benevolent majesty.“
Mawlana Hazar Imam, London, UK, October 19, 2003
Speech
“Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran, God’s signs (ayat) are referred to as natural phenomena, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomena in cause and effect. The stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are repeatedly mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and order…. During the great ages of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion….
Under the Khalif Muavia and the great Omaiyyad Khalifs of Damascus, the Islamic navy was supreme in the Mediterranean; better ships, better knowledge of wind and tide were placed at the disposal of the Muslim navy and thus the land conquests of half of Western Europe rendered possible and easy…
But at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, the European Renaissance rapidly advanced in knowledge of nature, namely all those very Ayats of God to which the Quran refers, when Muslims forgot the Ayats, namely natural phenomenon, its law and order which are the proofs of divine guidance used in the Quran, but we stuck to our rites and ceremonies, to our prayers and fast alone, forgetting the other half of our faith. Thus during those 200/300 years, Europe and the West got an advance out of all proportion to the Muslim world and we found everywhere in Islam (in spite of our humble prayers, our moral standard, our kindliness and gentleness towards the poor) constant deterioration of one form or another and the Muslim world went down. Why? Because we forgot the law and order of nature to which the Quran refers as proof of God’s existence and we went against God’s natural laws. This and this alone has led to the disastrous consequences we have seen….
“… we look upon Islamic principles as only rites and ceremonies and forget the real Ayats of God’s natural phenomenon… there is no unity of soul without which there can be no greatness…“
Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah’s Letter to the President of the Arabiyya Jamiyyat, Karachi, 4 April 1952
Selected Speeches and Writings of Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, Edited by K.K. Aziz, Kegan Paul International, London, p 1290-1293
“All those sunrises and sunsets – all the intricate miracle of sky colour, from dawn to dusk. All that splendid spendthrift beauty. As a very rich man treasures the possession of some unique picture, so a man should treasure and exult in the possession – his individual possession – of the sights of this unique world. Those glories are his from dawn to dusk, and then – and then comes night – ‘a night of stars – all eyes’… I look up at night and I know – I know the glory of the stars. It is then that the stars speak to us – and the sense of mystery is in our blood.”
Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah
K.K. Aziz, Selected Speeches of Aga Khan III, Kegan Paul International, London, p 171
“As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries… Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Ottawa, Canada, December 6, 2008
Speech
Further reading – Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah: “We stuck to our rites and ceremonies… forgetting the other half of our faith“
From Earth to Multiverse (You Tube Video– 6 minutes)
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