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'...but all that you may do to
understand the Quran is not enough. If you want to identify with the
spirit of the Quran, you must practically involve [yourself] with the
struggle to fulfill its mission. For the Quran is not a book of
abstract theories and cold ideas, which one can grasp while seated in
a cosy arm chair. Nor is it merely a religious book like other
religious books, whose meanings can be grasped in seminaries and
oratories.
'On the contrary, it is a Book which
contains a message, and invitation, which generates a movement. The
moment it began to sent down, it impelled a quiet and pious man to
abandon his life of solitude and confront the world that was living in
rebellion against God. It inspired him to raise his voice against
falsehood, and pitted him in a grim struggle against the lords of
disbelief, evil and inquity. One after the other, from every home, it
drew every pure and noble soul, and gathered them under the banner of
truth. In every part of the country, it made all the mischevious and
the corrupt to rise and wage war against the bearers of the truth.
'This is a Book which launched a
glorious movement, with the voice of a single individual, and
continued to provide guidance to it for twenty-three years, till the
establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. At every stage during
this long and heart-rending struggle between truth and falsehood, this
Book showed its followers the ways to eradicate the old order and
usher in the new.
'Is it, then, possible, to reach the
heart of the Quran merely by reading its words, without ever stepping
upon the battlefield of faith and disbelief, of Islam and Ignorance,
without passing through any stage of the struggle? No, you can
understand the Quran only when you take it up, begin to act upon it,
and call mankind to God, and when every step you take is in obedience
to its guidance.
'Then and only then, you will go
through all the events and experiences which occurred during the
course of its revelation. You will then pass through Makka, and Habash,
and Taif; you will face Badr, Uhud, Hunayn and Tabuk. You will
encounter Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab; you will meet the hypocrites and
Jews; you will come face to face with those who instantly responded to
this call as well as those who were drawn into Islam seeking some
gain. You will come across all of these human models; you will deal
with all of them.
This is a path different from the
so-called 'mystic-path', which I name the 'Quranic path' that, as you
pass through its various stations and stages, certain Surahs and Ayahs
will disclose their full message to you, and tell you that they were
revealed precisely for this stage and station that you are passing
through. You may miss some linguistic and grammatical subtleties, you
may miss certain finer points in the rhetoric and semantics of the
Quran, yet it is impossible that the Quran will fail to reveal its
full and true spirit to you.
'In the same way, no person can ever
understand the legal injunctions, the moral teachings, and the
political and economic directives of the Quran, unless and until he
puts them into practice. Neither the individual who lives
independently of the Quran nor the nation which runs its institutions
in violation of its guidance can discover the spirit of the Quran.'
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