Every religion revealed by God was, in its original form, eternal in character, just as the sun and the moon, the air and the water have a timeless character about them. Religion, in fact, is another name for eternal values, which in their nature are timeless and uniformly applicable in all situations and at all times.
A religion loses its relevance in succeeding ages when it is no longer preserved in its pristine form owing to human additions and interpolations. The Prophet of Islam who came in the 7th century, did not bring a new religion. His mission in fact was aimed at sifting the divinely revealed parts from the human additions, which had swept into the ancient religions over the ages and reveal them again in the form of the Quran – the preserved word of God.
The divine religion that God had sent throughout history through His prophets thus needed to be established in its original form. This was done through the Quran as revealed to Prophet Muhammad. This reality has been expressed thus in the Quran:
“I will show mercy to those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel, he enjoins on them good and forbids them evil, and makes lawful for them the good things and forbids them the bad things, and removes from them their burden and the shackles that were upon them. So those who shall believe in him, and honour and support him, and help him, and follow the light that has been sent down with him shall surely triumph.” (7:157)
In this verse “burden” and “shackles” mean human addition. It is these human additions, which make a religion irrelevant in succeeding ages. When a religion is purified of human additions, the question of irrelevance with the time automatically vanishes. Since Islam is free from all these additions, there is no possibility of Islam being irrelevant at any time or in any situation.
Many revelations had been made by God and committed to writing by His devotees before the advent of the Qur’an. Then what particularly distinguishes the sacred Islamic text from its forerunners? It is not just that it is complete and the other revealed books incomplete. To categorise the sacred scriptures in this way would amount to discriminating between the Prophets themselves which is certainly not right.
What then is its great distinguishing feature? There is only one. A simple, but a major one. The text of the Qur’an has never been tampered with, whereas all the other Books have long ago lost their original form and content, which has meant a serious loss of authenticity. It is this characteristic of the Qur’an – its perfect state of preservation –which singles it out from its predecessors as a unique vehicle for divine guidance and salvation, one which will retain its validity until Doomsday.
The preservation of the Qur’an was a laborious task requiring remarkable skill and dedication. As such, it was the most extraordinary undertaking of the age. This feat gains in importance when seen in the context of the loss of authority of previous texts which were not maintained in their pristine state. The Qur’an alone has survived as the completely preserved utterances of the Almighty.
The preservation of the Qur’an was a laborious task requiring remarkable skill and dedication. As such, it was the most extraordinary undertaking of the age. This feat gains in importance when seen in the context of the loss of authority of previous texts which were not maintained in their pristine state. The Qur’an alone has survived as the completely preserved utterances of the Almighty.
They succeeded in replacing the old world with a new world which, with its unassailable fidelity to truth, afforded an eternal guarantee for the preservation of the Qur’an.
The real and basic demand of Islam is that man should believe in one God. He should worship Him alone. He should embody truth, honesty, justice and other moral values. In short, within his own private sphere, he should fully obey God. Obviously, these teachings of Islam do not clash with the demands of modern times, which are equally practicable today.