ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Seal of the Prophets and His Message Lesson Twenty-one: An Answer to the Materialists The materialists say to us: "Since change and development are regarded as the most fundamental and pervasive law of nature, nothing in the world enjoying stability, the principles of change cannot be reconciled with the claim of Islam to eternal validity." The first part of this statement is correct and entirely defensible.

However, it does not represent the entire truth of the matter. It is true that everything in the world is subject to change, but that which is changing in nature and destined to disappear is matter and the phenomena arising from it, not the laws and systems prevailing in nature. Both the natural order and the social order (insofar as it corresponds to natural norms) are exempt from change; universality and temporality are among the defining characteristics of laws.

It is these properties that give laws the ability to retain their validity. Stars and planets come into being, rotate, disseminate light and energy, and finally are extinguished. However, the law of gravity that governs them remains in force. The human being enters the world, in accordance with a Divine custom and norm and the general movement of all things toward perfection, and after passing through his allotted lifespan, weakens and dies.

Death is the inevitable end of every human being, but the laws that govern the human being and the world that surrounds outlive him. Numerous sources of heat, at different temperatures, appear in the world and then become cold, but the law of heat is not extinguished.

If natural man is the object envisaged when drawing up laws and his fundamental structure and disposition are kept in mind by the lawgiver, temporal changes can never induce the slightest change in this kind of law, because the essence and fundamental substance of the human being is unchanging. The founder of Islam has closed his eyes on the world, but the Divine Law he brought remains eternally valid, because it draws on the very nature of the human being.

This is the secret of the stability and permanence of the laws of Islam. Islam is not a political and social phenomenon. It represents a series of principles, together with their derivatives, that are illumined by the primal light of all existence. It is a law and a worldview which in the very nature of things cannot change its character.