Volume 10 Surah 12 - 15 - Enjoy Islam

Ibrahīm (Abraham) | ONE MESSAGE FOR ALL MANKIND
This statement serves as a final comment on the main topic that takes up more
than half of the sūrah that is entitled Abraham, after the father of the prophets. This
principal subject matter is God’s message and its advocacy. The good tree with its
good fruit and stretching, cool shade, and the good word that survives one
generation after another, contain together the great truth of the one message which
never changes, namely the message of the oneness of God, the Almighty.
Messengers versus Unbelievers
We need to pause here in order to reflect on the main facts in the history of God’s
messengers and their encounter with jāhiliyyah. We have already made brief
references to these in our commentary, but they now merit further discussion.
The first basic fact which God, in His absolute wisdom and faultless knowledge,
tells us is that there has been a procession of faith ever since the beginning of human
history. This procession has continued uninterrupted, led by God’s messengers who
have advocated the same truth and followed the same method. They have advocated
the oneness of God, the Lord of the universe. None of them has ever associated any
partners with God. None relied on, or sought support from, or appealed to, anyone
other than God.
This means that faith in the One God has not come about progressively or
developed from a belief in a multiplicity of deities, to dualism and then the concept
of a single God, as claimed by scholars of Comparative Religion. This claim saying
that man started with the worship of totems, spirits and stars before progressing to
the worship of a single deity is false. Nor is it true to claim that such progress
parallels the progress of human knowledge and experience, or the development of
political power in human society. All such claims are false.
Faith in God, the only deity to be worshipped, has been preached by God’s
messengers ever since the beginning of history. The basic truth of God’s oneness was
established in its full form in all divine messages. None of these messages or divine
religions introduced any change in, or modification of, this truth. This is what we are
told by God whose knowledge encompasses all things.
Had such scholars said that acceptability of the faith based on God’s oneness
developed over the centuries, and that pagan beliefs have been influenced by the
different forms of the divine faith, preached by God’s successive messengers who
confronted such pagan beliefs, until there was a time when the masses were more
ready to accept the divine faith, then their claims might have had some validity. But
such scholars follow a method of research and investigation that is based on an old
subtle hostility to the church in Europe. This old hostility still survives although it
may go unnoticed by modern scholars. They are motivated by an underlying desire,
218