The Holy Qur'an occupies
a place of such eminence in Arabic literature as is not
and cannot be enjoyed by any other piece of literature.
The place so occupied by it has not been attained at any
time by any other book anywhere. This Book has not only
remained admittedly the standard of the language in which
it is revealed, but has also originated a world-wide language
which became the mother-tongue of vast countries and mighty
domains. It produced a literature which is the basis of
the culture of powerful nations from one end of the world
to the other.
There was no literature
properly speaking, in Arabic, before the Holy Qur'an. The
few pieces of poetry that did exist never soared beyond
the praise of wine or woman, or horse and sword, and can
hardly be called literature at all. It was with the Qur'an
that Arabic literature originated, and through the Qur'an
that Arabic became a powerful language spoken in many countries
and casting its influence on the literary histories of many
others. without the Qur'an, the Arabic language would have
been nowhere in the world.
There are other considerations
which entitle the Holy Qur'an to a place of eminence to
which no other book can aspire. This book gives a masterly
exposition of the fundamental truths of religion and a complete
scheme of life, the existence and unity of God, the principles
or reward and punishments for evil, the inevitability of
life after death, the existence of heaven and hell, the
truth and necessity of revelation, etc., etc.
It offers a solution of
the most bewildering problems of man's life on this earth,
such as: the distribution of wealth; the relationship between
individual and society; the question of man's true status
and station in life; the balanced relationship between man
and woman; whether his freedom is unbridled or he is accountable
and answerable for his deeds; and all such other questions
on which depends in any degree the happiness and advancement
of man, and about which the human intellect cannot present
a balanced and satisfactory solution, and which have been
a major, rather the only source of all human misery and
suffering throughout the long history of mankind.
More wonderful still is
the effect which the Holy Qur'an produced on the life of
the Arab people. The transformation wrought by its influence
is unparalleled in the history of mankind. The most revolutionary
change was brought about in the lives of an entire people
in an incredibility short span of time, that its, a period
of not more than twenty-three years. The Qur'an found the
Arabs as worshippers of idols, of trees and of heaps of
sand; yet in less than a quarter of a century the worship
of One God became the creed of the whole land, and polytheism
in all its conceivable aspects had been wiped out from one
end of the country to the other.
It swept away all superstitions,
and in their place, gave the most rational code of life
the world was thirsty for. The Arabs who had stooped to
take pride in ignorance were, as if by a magician's wand,
transformed into the lovers of knowledge, drinking deep
at every fountain of learning. And this was directly the
effect of the teachings of the Qur'an which not only appealed
to reason, but also declared man's thirst for knowledge
to be insatiable.
The Holy Qur'an did not
accomplish the transformation of the individual alone. Equally,
it brought about a transformation of the family, of society,
of the entire peoples. Out of the warring elements of the
Arab race, the Holy Qur'an welded a nation, united and full
of life and vigour, before whose onward march the greatest
kingdoms of the world crumbled!
This way the Holy Qur'an
effected a transformation of humanity itself, a transformation
material as well as moral, an awakening intellectual as
well as spiritual. There is no other book which has brought
about a change so deep and everlasting in the lives of men.
By:
Begum A. B. Wakf
[From: Islam, An Introduction]www.islamweb.netnet
