Page 25 - Those Who Do Not Heed The Qur'an

WHY PEOPLE AVOID THE QUR'AN 23

and ships. This person's conservative behaviour leaves him/her de-
prived of these blessings of technology. The same is true for those
suffering from rigid thinking; they are deprived of Allah's blessings.
The fixed ideas that people hold to are not limited to their reli-
gious viewpoints. It can be seen in all aspects of their lives: their fail-
ure to change the style of their interior decoration; their prejudiced
approach to new technological products and refusal to take advan-
tage of them; their dressing in the same way year after year; and
their laughing at the same jokes, are just a few examples of these fix-
ations. Because of this for years they cling on to the same ideas, even
though they are incorrect, and they retain the same black and white
ideas of right and wrong. Because of this straitjacket, they cannot
think freely and easily, they do not read books that put forward new
ideas or learn about these, take no pleasure from innovations, and do
not make even the slightest improvement to their standards of living.
The clearest examples of this come from materialist and commu-
nist circles. It is possible to recognise these people right away. Their
style of dress, hairstyles, ways of speaking and the arguments they

put forward have not changed for years. They support outdated ar-
guments, present these ideas as ultimate truths and give their own
personal experiences as examples.
For decades they have taken Karl Marx's Das Kapital, Charles
Darwin's Origin of Species and Mao's Little Red Book as their bibles
and read these books again and again, underlining passages. It is as
if they learn them by heart. These books present ideas that have
been outdated by scientific progress and the events of the twentieth-
century, but these loyalists cannot accept that they contain any defi-
ciency, mistake or incorrect information. They still believe that the
teaching of these books is "correct" and "scientific" because they do
not follow what is happening in the world and do not monitor sci-