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Allah the Exalted states that He does not change the condition
of such nations that do not themselves want to change condition. As a nation,
we have lost sight of the laws created by Allah the Exalted and have limited
ourselves to the concept of reward and punishment. We have limited ourselves so
much that we have become completely oblivious of the creative formulas. The
Holy Quran is ours; Allah is ours. Allah the Exalted states in the Holy Quran
that, 'We have made subservient to you the earth and the heavens and whatever
is in between; we have made the sun subservient to you; we have made the moon
subservient to you; we have made the stars subservient to you.' While we are so
oblivious of it all that we have not even given a cursory glance towards the process
of conquest. The Holy Quran is ours and it states loudly and clearly that
within iron are many benefits stored for mankind. Obviously, the Holy Quran is
saying that, 'look for these benefits which Allah the Exalted has placed within
iron and when you find these benefits they will in turn be beneficial to
Allah's creatures, and thus you will receive honour and respect among Allah's
creatures.' Allah's law stands true in its place. Those who looked for the
abilities of iron gained respect on the national level; and we who ignored the
teachings of the Holy Quran, have been disgraced. Salaat [Obligatory prayer'],
Fasting, Hajj ['obligatory pilgrimage to Makkahâ] and Zakaat ['obligatory
monetary donation'] are important in their own place; obligatory, and necessary.
This is because fulfilling these acts of worship strengthen the spirit, and the
spiritual abilities are activated and awakened, But here the situation is
completely reversed in that then is no awareness at all as to whether spiritual
abilities even exist among us or not. The reason for this is that we do not
possess the quality of reflection. We act, but we pay no attention to the
reality and purpose of that action. When a servant of Allah, who has been
bestowed ilm-ul-yaqeen ['faith based certainty'], reflects upon the Holy Quran,
he is able to see, before him the history of the rise and fall of nations, and
he observes that the rise and fall of nations depends upon the fact that the
nations that reflected upon the words of Allah the Exalted became victorious,
and nations that refused reflection became enslaved. What a tragedy it is when
we see that within the progress of present-day science all those formulas are
at work that were left behind by our ancestors and which were our inheritance,
but since we did not pay any attention to that inheritance, others benefited
from them while we became a backward and beggarly nation.
KHWAJA SHAMS-UD-DEEN AZEEMI
Science has made immense progress, yet many believe that, even with all of the modern tools at our disposal, human beings function at no more than 10% of their mental capacity. This leads to the question of what exactly it is that comprises the remaining 90%. Yet another question that arises is this: If it has taken man four and a half billion years to be able to apply only 10% of his ability, how long will it take for him to make use of the remaining 90%?
