Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | December 12, 2020
Initially, all religions start off as God-made religions but slowly, over the ages, they turn into man-made religions. This is true of every religion including Islam. With Islam, however, there is one difference. Other religions have been corrupted in both practice and substance: that is, people have fashioned both their actions and their scriptures according to self-made precepts; religion as revealed by God has been succeeded by religion made by man. With Islam the practice has altered but the substance remains the same. Human interpolations have altered the way religion is observed; but no one has been able to tamper with the Quran and Hadith: they are present now in the very form they were found in 1400 years ago, when the Prophet of Islam first taught them to the world.
Religion in its true form is to realize that the universe has one Lord and Maker: God, before whom man will one day have to answer for his actions. Discovery of God on the one hand, and realization of one’s own answerability before Him on the other, are integral parts of religion. Religion, then, is a spontaneous outpouring which wells up from the depths of man’s soul.
One blessed with true religious feeling of this nature becomes a completely different person from what he was before. Filled with thoughts of the Supreme Reality, he forsakes all delusions of personal grandeur. When he speaks, it is with control and self-restraint, for he knows that God hears what he is saying. When he acts, it is in a principled and responsible fashion, for he knows that God sees what he does. His thoughts are always on pleasing God. His dealings with mortals are conducted as if with God Himself, so scrupulous and honest is his behaviour.
This is true religion, and it is this true religion that every prophet has brought to the world. What people did afterwards, however, was change God’s religion into a religion moulded by their own saints and scholars. This is as true of Muslims as it is of other denominations. But with Islam, God has Himself arranged for the preservation of the Quran in its original state. Those who wish to know what their Lord requires of them should read the Quran, for there they will find the untainted word of God. There is no other way to find God, for all other scriptures have been altered by the hand of man.