Towards Better Understanding of the Qur'an

Revolutionary Transformation in the Society through the Qur’an

Another aspect of the miraculousness of the Qur’an which has had a great effect is the revolutionary transformation it brought about in human civilization. A matter calling for serious attention in the study of Islam is the fact that it received no assistance from factors external to itself when it began to create the nucleus of a universal society out of a scattered and disunited people that lacked all science and free thought and did not even seek to unify its constituent tribes; and when it began, moreover, to found a uniquely, vast and spiritual civilization.

All the factors for changing the world, for putting forward an international law with the slogan of unity among races, peoples, and social classes, for creating a movement for the liberation of thought and the ennobling of knowledge, were derived from the very text of the Qur’an, from the culture that emerged from the Qur’an and from the Islamic order. Islam never relied on a government or a power situated outside the society it had itself brought into being.

Even the aggressors, for example the Mongols, who attacked the Islamic lands and triumphed over the Muslims, thanks to their military superiority, lost their dominance in the end when they were confronted with the spiritual power of Islam, and they adopted the religion of the people they had conquered. This history of nations does not record any other example of a victorious aggressor adopting the religion of the people it had defeated.

Holy Qur’an can Shape the Destiny of the Human Race as a Whole

Therefore, Qur’an is specially essential for those scholars who are interested in the study of man and society, since this book has been effectively instrumental not only in moulding the destinies of Islamic societies, but also in shaping the destiny of the human race as a whole.

A brief glance over history would be enough to provide sufficient proof of the claim that there has been no such book that has ever influenced human societies to the magnitude of the Qur'an. It is for the same reason that the Qur'an automatically steps into the precincts of sociological discussions, and becomes the elemental constituent of the subjects of research in this discipline. This means that any deep study and profound research in the field of world history of the last fourteen hundred years, is impossible without the knowledge of the Qur'an.

Smith writes in his - Muhammad and Islam: “The teachings of the Qur’an, which mentions knowledge and the pen in its opening verses, brought about a tremendous transformation. Islam proclaimed study to be a religious duty, and made the blank ink of the scribe and the scholar to be superior to the red blood of the martyr.

“Thanks to the teachings of the Qur’an and its emphasis on the cultivation of knowledge, countless scholars made their appearance and wrote innumerable books. Different scientific disciplines were derived from the Qur’an and spread across the world by Muslim thinkers. The world was illumined with the light of the Qur’an and culture of Islam”.