Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | December 28, 2020
Several verses in the Quran explain how everything in the universe is constantly engaged in praise and remembrance of God. One such verse is given below: “Do you not see that whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on the earth, as well as the sun and the moon, and the stars and the mountains, and the trees and the beasts and many human beings—all submit to God? But many have become deserving of punishment. Whoever God disgraces, will have no one to honour him. Surely, God does what He wills.” (The Quran, 22: 18).
The Quran says natural phenomena like the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, trees, and animals, etc. are objects of God’s creation. They provide mankind with a perfect model for his worship of his Lord. Whereas nature follows the divine pattern universally and perfectly, only part of mankind follows suit. A man should look closely at the way nature operates so that he too can mould his life in accordance with the pattern that his Creator has prescribed. The Quran unharnessed the human intellect by stressing that the sun, moon, and stars–the very things that the polytheists had considered objects of worship, were in fact objects of investigation. This encouraged man to research their function and properties. By refuting polytheism and setting up monotheism in its place, the Quran put paid to the idea that the phenomena of creation were sacrosanct. It then became possible to look at them as topics for scientific research. It was for this reason that the Muslims of the early centuries of the Islamic era were at the forefront of every field of scientific learning. Their contributions to scientific progress were a sign of their having become imbued with the spirit of the Book of God.