ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Al-serat (a Journal of Islamic Studies) Revelation and Salvation Towards an Islamic View of History Mahmoud A. Ayoub Islam is a conscious act of submission of the creature to the will of the creator. I use the words 'conscious act' deliberately to distinguish between inherent islam, which is the law of God for all created things in nature, and voluntary islam, which is the human faith-commitment to affirm the Oneness (tawhid) of God and obey His will.

Faith and obedience, however, presuppose knowledge and knowledge requires communication. This communication of the divine will to humankind is what Islam calls wahi, or revelation. Yet revelation is not simply the issuance of edicts which must be unquestionably obeyed. It is rather a relationship of intense involvement of God in human history and of man in the divine challenge as God's viceregent (khalifa) in the earth. [^1].

God, the Qur'an tells us, [^2] communicates to all creatures what we may call their instincts of survival. He communicates through normative laws to the sun and the moon, to the stars, and to day and night to follow a predetermined course and not to overstep their limits. [^3] In this general sense, all things are 'muslims', submitters to the will of God. This universal islam is presented in the Qur'an as a challenge to man's willful rejection of faith.

How would you, humankind, reject faith in God when to Him have submitted all that is in the heavens and on the earth voluntarily and by coercion? (3: 38). Thus what we term the laws of nature, such as the law of gravity, are according to Islam the ways in which nature expresses its islam to God. Angels, like the rest of creation, are muslims by nature or, in some sense, by compulsion. They lack the faculties which distinguish man as a volitional being from the rest of creation.

Angels cannot disobey God or commit acts of evil and sin. I believe Satan was not an angel even though, under the influence of Jewish and Christian tradition, some Qur'an commentators and tradi- tionists have argued this only as a possibility. [^4] Nor is Satan's power to do evil beyond the divine will and decree. He is simply given respite to the day when they (humankind) shall be raised up (15: 28-35).

Hence human evil-the only true evil in the world because it is an act of voluntary choice can be overcome by divine guidance which is the task of prophets, the recipients of divine revelation.