144. This constitutes the proclamation appointing the religious community
(ummah) consisting of the followers of Muhammad to religious guidance and leadership
of the world.
' And it is thus', which precedes this proclamation, contains two allusions.
It alludes, in the first place, to that Divine Guidance which enabled the followers
of Muhammad to know the Straight Way so that they could attain progress to the
point of being proclaimed 'the community of the middle way' (or 'the mid-most
community' or 'the community justly balanced' - Ed.) In the second place there
is an allusion to the change in the direction of Prayer from Jerusalem to the
Ka'bah. People of limited intelligence could see no significance in this change
of direction although the substitution of Jerusalem by the Ka'bah amounted to
the removal of the Children of Israel from their position of world leadership
and their replacement by the ummah of Muhammad (peace be on him).
The Arabic expression which we have translated as 'the community of the middle
way' is too rich in meaning to find an adequate equivalent in any other language.
It signifies that distinguished group of people which follows the path of justice
and equity, of balance and moderation, a group which occupies a central position
among the nations of the world so that its friendship with all is based on righteousness
and justice and none receives its support in wrong and injustice.
The purpose of creating 'the community of the middle way', according to this
Qur'anic verse, is to make it stand as witness 'before all mankind and the Messenger
might be a witness before you'. What this means is that when the whole of mankind
is called to account, the Prophet, as God's representative, will stand witness
to the fact that he had communicated to the Muslims and had put into practice
the teachings postulating sound beliefs, righteous conduct and a balanced system
of life which he had received from on high. The Muslims, acting on behalf of
the Prophet after his return to the mercy of God, will he asked to bear the
same witness before the rest of mankind and to say that they had spared no effort
in either communicating to mankind what the Prophet had communicated to them,
or in exemplifying in their own lives what the Prophet had, by his own conduct,
translated into actual practice.
This position of standing witness before all mankind on behalf of God, which
has been conferred on this community, amounts to its being invested with the
leadership of all mankind. This is at once a great honour and a heavy responsibility.
For what it actually means is that just as the Prophet served as a living example
of godliness and moral rectitude, of equity and fair play before the Muslim
community, so is the Muslim community required to stand vis-à-vis the whole
world. What is expected of this community is that it should be able to make
known, both by word and deed, the meaning of godliness and righteousness, of
equity and fairplay.
Furthermore. just as the Prophet had been entrusted with the heavy responsibility
of conveying to the Muslims the guidance which he had received. in a like manner
a heavy responsibility has been laid on the Muslims to communicate this guidance
to all mankind. If the Muslims fail to establish before God that they did their
duty in conveying to mankind the guidance they had received through the Prophet
they will be taken to task seriously and their honourable position as the leaders
of the whole world, far from being of any help to them, will spell their disaster.
They will be held responsible along with the protagonists of evil for all the
errors of belief and conduct which have spread during their term of leadership.
They will have to face the grim question: What were they doing when the world
was convulsed by storms of transgression, injustice and error?
145. One purpose of this change in the direction of Prayer was to find out
who was blinkered by irrational prejudices and chained by chauvinistic attachment
to land and blood, and who, having liberated himself from those bonds, was capable
of rising to the heights and grasping the Truth.
On the one hand were the Arabs who were steeped in their national and racial
arrogance. For them, taking Jerusalem as the direction of their Prayer (as originally
practised by the Prophet) was too hard a blow to their national vanity to be
accepted with equanimity. On the other hand, the Jews were essentially no different.
They, too, were obsessed with racial pride so that it was difficult for them
to accept any other than the direction of Prayer which they had inherited from
the past. How could the people whose hearts were full of such idols respond
to the call of the Messenger of God? Hence, God saw to it that the worshippers
of such idols were distinguished from the genuine worshippers of God by first
fixing Jerusalem as the direction of Prayer. This was bound to alienate all
those who had worshipped the idol of Arabianism. Later, the fixing of the Ka'bah
as the direction of Prayer led to the alienation of those who were engrossed
in the worship of the idol of Israel. Thus there were left with the Prophet
only, those who truly worshipped none but the One True God.