Page 52 - Islam and Buddhism

Islam and Buddhism

them. Thus idol worship, no matter how illogical, can be a kind of so-

cial activity remembered from childhood and not regarded as
strange, even in the most modern societies.
In the Qur'an (27: 24-25), God says that the people of Sheba
(Saba') were idolaters, just like the people of Abraham:
I found both her [the Queen of Sheba] and her people prostrating
to the sun instead of God. Satan has made their actions seem good
to them and debarred them from the Way so they are not guided
and do not prostrate to God, Who brings out what is hidden in the
heavens and the earth, and knows what you conceal and what you
divulge.

These verses draw our attention to another important point: that
Satan has made idolatrous religions seem valid and meaningful to
people, to bar them from God's Way. Satan knows, for example, that
the sun is not a god to be worshipped; but a creation of God like all
the rest of the universe. In other words, every idolatrous religion that
opposes God's revelation is actually based on the revelations of Satan,
who does this so that men and women will not prostrate themselves

before God.
Another example of idolatry that God gives In the Qur'an con-
cerns the Children of Israel. While they were escaping Pharaoh and
his people with Moses (peace be upon him), they met a people that
worshipped idols and they wanted Moses to make them a similar
idol. In the Qur'an (7: 138-139), God tells about this:

We conveyed the tribe of Israel across the sea, and they came upon
some people who were devoting themselves to some idols that
they had. They said, "Moses, give us a god just as these people
have gods." He said, "You are indeed an ignorant people. What
these people are doing is destined for destruction. What they are
doing is purposeless."

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