springs from the direct experience of order, harmony and beauty in
nature. The Qur'an says that these are the visible signs of the
invisible Being:
Then in what besides Allah and His portents will they believe? (45:6).
According to the Qur'an, Eiman in God has a dual source.
Contemplation of the outer world of nature and of man himself
guides us to the power that manifests itself in both. By insisting that
nature provides a pathway to God, the Qur'an concedes the validity
of the so-called "natural religion." It adds, however, that Eiman
induced by the contemplation of nature, should be reinforced by
Revelation. It is the confluence of the two streams of influence that
produces the Eiman of a true believer, the Mu'min. The unbeliever,
the Kafir, is one whose mind is arid because it has not been irrigated
by either stream. Eiman is not a passive assent to a dogma. It is the
vivid sense of God's laws which set every fibre in the body vibrating
in unison with the infinite power immanent in the universe. When
Eiman is actually expressed in a way of life, and when it inspires and
informs the conduct of man, it is called Taqwa, in the language of
the Qur'an. The Mu'min, armed with Eiman and Taqwa, can defy
every destructive power:
Verily, in the alternation of night and day and in what God has created
in the heavens and the earth, are surely signs to people who abide by
Allah's laws and wish to be protected against destructive powers (10:6).
Drawing our attention to the starry firmament above, the Qur'an
kindles in our mind a sense of its infinitude. In contemplating the
heavens we are contemplating the infinite. Therein we have a value
experience of a high order, composed of curiosity, wonder, awe,
reverence, and feelings of sublimity and beauty. Who knows but
there may be life and reason in some of the countless galaxies in the
infinity of space:
And of His signs is the creation of the heaven and the earth, and what
He has spread abroad in both of them of living things; and He has the
power to gather them together (according to His plans) (42:29).
IV. Men of KnowledgeWe have seen that the Qur'an attaches prime importance to the
acquisition of knowledge. We have also noted that the Qur'an
applies the term "knowledge" neither to something which mere
Man and his Environment^288