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Arabic Qur’an can only be beneficial for the Arabs—this allegation could have been true had Allah only sent a book. But the reality is that Allah sent the book together with a guide. That guide first addressed a particular nation in whose language the book came. Then, according to the prescriptions laid in the book, he educated them, purified them, gave them practical training, and completely reshaped their lives in a full social revolution. Then he charged them with this responsibility that they, on his behalf, would transmit this guidance to other nations, educate them, purify them, train them, and reshape their lives the same way as he had done to them. Thus, once one nation adopts this ideal, it would bear the responsibility of taking it to other nations. This was the natural way for universalizing that teaching and guidance. Every great movement of the world that wanted to universalize its teaching has adopted this same method, be that a movement to establish God’s way or any other type of movement.
If one accepts the argument that a book is only beneficial for the particular nation in whose language it is written, then one will have to consider the history of all the sciences of the world as wrong. All the books of the world will need to be divided and segregated according to language. All the benefits of translations and various mediums of international mass communications will have to be denied. Yet, it is through these mediums that the messages of great world movements and the words of great leaders are reaching the far corners of the earth. Then what crime did the book of Muhammad commit that it has to be considered confined only for the Arabs just because it is in Arabic?
If one is still not assured after this and he thinks that Allah should have done things as he thought He should have, then he has the right to remain firm in his opinion. But the question is, if by putting up such questions as hindrance one does not benefit from a book or a message, then whose loss is it? This is not the policy of the truth seekers. They search for the ray of light everywhere and from all sources. If one closes one’s mind with one objection or another against every book or teaching, then one will not be able to make even a single step on life’s simple and straight path.
Excerpted, with some modifications, from Welcome Back, Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, Rasael wa Masael. Originally published in Tarjumanul Qur’an, July-October, 1944.
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