Islam insists...

Islam insists, both in the Qur'an and prophetic, hadith tradition, that every human being is born with an innate knowledge of God. This knowledge is not so much awareness or information, rather it is a state of innocent faith, a state (fitra) of the original creation expressed anew in every child. 'Every child,' the Prophet is said to have declared, 'is born in the (state) of fitra; then his parents make him into a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian (i.e., Zoroastrian).

' In another version of the same tradition, the Prophet adds: 'And if (the parents) are Muslims, then a Muslim.' [^5] The Qur'an states, even more precisely, that this state is the fitra in which God created humankind, there is no changing of God's creation (30: 30). Man is therefore created with a primitive but wholesome knowledge of God. The role of the prophets is to guide humanity through revelation to live the full implications of this knowledge.

History is, according to the Islamic view of revelation, the history of God's dealing with humanity through His prophets. Yet revelation in its primordial beginnings belongs to metahistory, the time when we were all in the realm of atoms, ideas in the mind of God.

On that primordial day, the Qur'an states, God took from the children of Adam, from their loins, their progeny and made them bear witness against themselves, saying: 'Am I not your Lord?' They answered: 'Yes, we hear and we witness' (7: 172). This primordial act of divine revelation was the covenant which God made with all human beings to 'hear and witness' to His absolute sovereignty and lordship over all creation.

The rest of human history continues to echo, through the prophets whom God sent to every nation, this divine challenge. History is, moreover, the stage on which we act out our response to this primordial question. In yet another Qur'anic verse we read: We have offered the trust (amana) to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refuse to bear it and cowered before it. Yet man bore it, for man is truly wrongdoing, foolish (33: 75).

This trust is, according to tradition, divine Oneness with all the implications of this knowledge for human life and history. Man is foolish not because he is unable to bear the trust he voluntarily chose to bear, but rather because he continuously wrongs his own soul by knowingly breaking his covenant with God through the sin of association (shirk) of other things with Him, yet God is All-Merciful and Compassionate.