ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Principal Signposts of the Islamic Message The General Characterestics of the Islamic Message PRELIMINARY The Islamic religion enjoys certain subjective characteristics and attributes that are inseparable from the nature of its legislation and message; the effects and spirit of which are discernible in every law, idea and concept.

In order to cast more light on these general characteristics and attributes, we should now study them with close attention, so as to elucidate the brilliant concepts embodies in these valuable characteristics: 1. EVERLASTING: Islam's eternity is the continuation of its existence and the extension of its message, as long as man continues his life on the surface of this planet. "Say (0 Muhammad): What thing is great est in testimony? Say: Allah is witness between me and you.

And this Qur'an which has been revealed to me to warn you therewith and whomever it may reach..." Holy Quran (6:19) Islam has to be everlasting, because it is the last of the religions and completes the divine message, as an expression of Allah's kindness and mercy to His creatures. Throughout history and in every period mankind has not been able to do without religion.

It has always been in need of a religion to guide it, and in need of a faith to save it from ignorance, the domination of despots, and deviant ways of life. Allah the Exalted willed that the religion, which was to accompany mankind in its forward progress and to encompass the aspects of renewal and growth in life, should be Islam, because it is the religion designed to throw light on straightest path. and to guide humanity towards good and righteousness.

How wonderfully Imam Au (a.s.) describes this eternal religion and the most practical system that had been revealed to the final messenger, Muhammad (s.a.w.), saying: "...then He revealed to him the Book, a light whose brilliance never goes out, a glow which never fades away, an ocean that is never fathomed, a path that never goes astray, and a ray whose light never becomes dark." (4) Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (a.s.) illustrates this everlasting and ever extending divine law in his saying: "The Qur'an is not dead; it is alive.

It goes on as do the day and the night, and the sun and the moon. It will be with our last as it had been with our first"(5).