ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Revelation and Prophethood Chapter 4: Religion Or Religions The scholars of divinity and the writers on the history of religion usually discuss their subject under the heading of religions. For example, they talk of Prophet Ibrahim's religion, the Jewish religion, the Christian religion and the religion of Islam. They regard every Prophet to whom a code of law was revealed as the founder of a separate religion.

But the Holy Qur'an has its own terminology and its own style. From its point of view there has been only one Divine religion from the beginning to the end. All Prophets irrespective of the fact whether they had or had not an independent code of law, had the same mission and preached the same message. Their basic principles called religion were the same.

Their teachings differed only in rules and subsidiary matters of secondary importance which varied according to the requirements of the time, the peculiarities of the environment and the characteristics of the people whom these Prophets addressed. But in spite of the difference in the form of their teachings, all Prophets visualized one single goal. Apart from the difference of form there was a difference of level also.

The Prophets who came later, their teachings were of a higher level in keeping with the stage of the human development. For example, there is a vast difference in the level of the teachings of Islam and those of the earlier Prophets in respect of the genesis of man, the Hereafter and the conception of the world. In other words man vis-a-vis the teachings of the Prophets is like a student who is brought up step by step from class I to the highest class.

This process signifies the development of religion, not the difference of religions. The Holy Qur'an has nowhere here used the word religion in a plural form. From the point of view of the Holy Qur'an what has existed is the religion, not the religions. There exists one big difference between the Prophets and the great philosophers and other outstanding social leaders. Each eminent philosopher has had his own school. That is why so many schools of philosophy have always existed in the world.

In contrast, the Prophets have always corroborated and never contradicted each other. Had any one of the Prophets lived in the time and environment of another Prophet, he would have preached the rules of law and conduct similar to those preached by the latter.