Playing God

"All rights of this book are reserved for the publisher and the author. This copy is for reading purpose only. This copy cannot be uploaded on any website except those of the publisher and the author." Playing God: Misreading a Divine Practice 20 spite of being involved in polytheistic practices, cannot be regarded as a polytheist. The reason is that a person might be doing something wrong without realizing what he is doing; all Christians whether of today or from the period of Jesus (sws) never admit to polytheism; trinity to them is in accordance with monotheism. Of course Muslims do not agree with them but unless they claim polytheism, it can o nly be said that in spite of claiming to be monotheists they are involved in polytheism. Their case is the case of a Muslim who goes to the grave of a saint to ask him to g rant a wish; such a Muslim cannot be called a pol ytheist; h e shall be told that what he is doing is something which is against monotheism to which he himself strongly claims adherence. Similarly, Christians cannot be called polytheists; however, they will be told that what they are doing is not in accordance with monotheism. It is precisely for this reason that the Qur’ ā n never called the People of the Book polytheists though they subscribed to certain blatant forms of polytheism. The Qur’ ā n only called the Ishmaelites polytheists because they admittedly subscribed and testified to the creed of polytheism. They strongly advocated that polytheism was the very religion the Almighty had revealed and claimed that they were strong adherents to this religion. Because of this very reason, they were called the mushrik ū n (the adherents to the creed of shirk ) by the Qur’ ā n. 4. Realization of the Divine Practice in the Preaching of Muhammad (sws) We shall now examine the details of the punishment that the Almighty administered to the disbelievers in the www.javedahmadghamidi.com www.al-mawrid.org