high ideals which they professed. The Qur'an had brought into
existence a new type of man – self-respecting, self-reliant,
conscious of his worth and desirous of enhancing it and fired with
the ambition to set up a better social order in the world. These men
by their lives and actions testified to the value of the Qur'an the
spirit of which they had imbibed. The Nabi was fully justified in
pointing to these men as a living testimony for the truth of the faith
he preached. The astounding effect of the faith on the life of man
was the strongest proof of its truth and values:
Say: O my people! work in your own way. I too am working. Thus ye
will come to know for which of us will be the happy sequel, Lo! The
wrong doers will not be successful (6:136).
Such are tests which the Qur'an desires to be applied. Even bitter
critics will have to concede that the tests are crucial, practical and
provocative.
Again and again the Qur'an exhorts man to think and think hard.
The man who uses his reason is held up to admiration:
The blind man is not equal with the seeing, nor is darkness equal to
light, nor is the shadow equal with the sun's refulgence; nor are the
living equal with the dead (35:19-22).
Those who think rightly can find the light of knowledge and can
discover the path that leads to success:
Are those who know equal with those who know not? But only men of
understanding will pay heed (39:9).
Again:
Surely those who strive for Us, We guide them to Our ways, and verily
Allah is with those who lead a balanced life of goodness (29:69).
The Believers (Mo'minin), according to the Qur'an, are:
Those who, when the revelations of their Rabb are presented to them,
do not fall thereat deaf and blind (25:73).
This is Eiman! Not to accept even God's Revelations deaf and
blind.
References1. F. Mason, The Great Design, p. 35.- Ibid, p. 52.
- Quoted by Iqbal in the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, p.2.
- M. Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, pp. 126.
Islam: A Challenge to Religion 124