Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | Feb 25, 2018
The Quran says: “Give just weight and measure and do not defraud others of their possessions. Do not corrupt the land after it has been set in order. “ (7:85)
According to this verse, the world made by God is a perfect world, where everything is set in order. Everything in it functions as it ought to.
This disciplined system provides a model for man. He should follow the pattern of nature in all his actions. Only then can he establish a just and peaceful society. His refusal to follows nature’s pattern results in a corrupt society, and a degeneration of a previously orderly system.
In a world which has been subjugated to the will of God, the only man has a will of his own. The problems which he encounters in life are in fact the price that he has to pay for his freedom.
The entire universe conforms to the will of God, and functions in a system of exemplary harmony. Man, however, mis¬uses his freedom and strays from the path that God has laid down for him. All his problems can be traced to this fundamental deviation.
There are multiple problems facing man today: the nuclear arms race, the danger of a third world war and the inevitable holocaust that would ensue the economic recession which has led to unprecedented unemployment in the industrial countries, inflation, crises in industrial relations, and pollution to name just a few.
All these problems can be traced to one funda¬mental source: man’s misuse of his freedom. Man does not keep to his own sphere; he does not restrict his freedom to the area which has been allotted to him. He continually infringes upon the domain of others; he is not ready to confine himself to the sphere where the ‘nose’ of the other begins.