Badges mark quoted or attributed material (Qur'an, hadith, another author, an opposing view). Unbadged passages are Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's own words.
Foreword
The literal meaning of Islam is submission, that is, submission to God’s will. Submission, in fact, is the name of that natural response from a person to God, the response that is expressed by human beings after their realization of God. It is with this submission that that life has developed which is called a religious life.
What is realization of God? The realization of God is the realization of that Being who has created man, who has granted man with a personality which is unique throughout the vast universe, Who has created the planet earth for man and who has established a unique arrangement for man’s survival which is called the life support system.
A person’s quest does not stop here but rather becomes a part of his life in the form of a process of discovery. Now, he discovers his relationship with God. He grasps the reality that he is not free but is under the command of God.
He realizes that the purpose of creating a human being in this world is to give him the opportunity to be the most superior of the creatures so that he may be credited with being one of those special beings who bound himself to living a principled life, in spite of having no compulsion to do so.
All things in this world are subjected to God. The stars and planets in space revolve in their orbits totally under the command of God. The trees, the rivers, the mountains— all these things strictly follow the plan laid down for them by God. On a parallel with this, the animals follow the pattern determined for them by their instincts. They are totally governed by their instincts. In this world human beings, as an exception, have been granted the blessings of freedom and power.
This freedom offers two different paths to a person. One leads him to becoming arrogant and insolent, and leading an unrestricted life. This would mean his failing in his test paper.
On the other hand will be those who make right and proper use of their freedom. Although there is no compulsion for them to adhere to divine principles, they will be successful in their test. They will be given rewards by God, such as no other creature can merit. They will be held to be those of God’s servants, who have earned nearness to God. And they will live a life of comfort and happiness eternally in Paradise.
When man realizes that he is not free but has to act at God’s behest and be accountable to Him, he starts living a God-Oriented life. Death for such a person is not the end of his life, but the beginning of an eternal life, where he will stand before God, so that God may declare His final decision about his eternal future.
This process of discovery continues until he realizes that the end of his life is going to culminate in the form of either eternal Paradise or eternal Hell. This quest makes him extremely serious about the course his life should take. Now he plans his life anew. Now he redefines everything. If at first all his activities were self-oriented, now they are God-oriented. It is this very lifestyle which is called Islam.