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 2 retribution carried out by God Himself. The purpose of this worldly retribution is to make mankind mindful of the most important reality that it tends to forget: reward and punishment in the Hereafter on the basis of a person’s deeds. This reward and punishment, which is to take place in the Hereafter, is substantiated visually by the Almighty through the agen cy of His messengers so that mankind may always remain heedful of this reality. The court of justice which will be set up for every person on the Day of Judgement was set up for the nations of messengers in this world so t hat t he latter could become a visual testimony to the former. T o put it another way: before the advent of the greater Day of Judgement, several lesser days of Judgement were brought about in this world in which people were rewarded and punished on the basis of their deeds so that they could become a visual evidence to the judgement that will take place in the Hereafter. The Qur’ ā nic words used are: ! " ) $:&'( ( (so that mankind after the coming of these messengers is left with no excuse against the Almighty, (4:165)). The details of this practice abound in the Qur’ ā n. Although faint references to this divine practice can be found in the works of our previous scholars, Ham ī d al- D ī n al-Far ā h ī (1863-1930) was the first person to concretely point out this divine practice. Later, his pupil Am ī n Ahsan Isl ā h ī (1904-1997) consolidated the views of his mentor by providing copious references from the Qur’ ā n in his tafs ī r Tadabbur-i Qur’ ā n . Javed Ahmad Gh ā mid ī (b. 1951) a pupil of Isl ā h ī , has developed the views of his two illustrious predecessors and has www.javedahmadghamidi.com www.al-mawrid.org