Page 60 - The Vision of Islam

The Straight Path

loses that he will meet with nothing but failure in this world (6:153).
A true human being in the eyes of God is one who keeps to this
straight path. One who deviates from it descends to the level of
animals: “Is he who walks groveling upon his face better guided,
or he who walks upright upon a straight path? Say: it is He who
brought you into being, and made ears and eyes and hearts for you,
yet you are seldom grateful” (67:22-23)
Thus we learn from the Quran, that adhering to the straight
path means, that man makes proper use of the powers of hearing,
sight and heart. Now what are these powers? These are the things
which distinguish man from other creatures. It is these powers
which raise man from a level of a mere creature to that of a human
being. The animals on the contrary—though they too are living
beings—but lack these powers of feeling and reasoning which man
has been specially endowed with. Humans who misuse these God-
given capabilities degrade themselves to the level of animals. Such
men have therefore been likened to dogs (7:176); to donkeys (62:5);
to cattle (25:44). The most degraded among them are referred to as
monkeys and pigs (5:60) and even worse. “The worst creatures in
God’s eyes are those who are deaf and dumb, and who possess no
understanding.” (8:22)
Things that can be easily understood by reason, yet treating
that subject as if it was beyond the powers of human intellect and
understanding, such response makes one blind and dumb in the
eyes of God.
According to the 95th chapter of the Quran, God created man in
the best of mould, then he cast him down to the lowest of the low.
Only those are exceptions who believe and do good deeds (95:4-6).
By the former is meant the human level and by the latter is meant
the animal level. God created man with the status of humans, but
cast them to the animal state. This is the trial that man must go
through; he must raise himself from the lowly state of an animal to
the heights of humanity.
“If it had been Our Will, We could have used these signs to
exalt him, but instead he clung to the earth and followed his own
59