I stood by the place of Ibrahim (a.

I stood by the place of Ibrahim (a.s.) and recited the following verse from the Qur'an: “And strive hard in (the way of) Allah (such) a striving as is due to Him: He has chosen you and has not laid upon any hardship in religion; the faith of your father Ibrahim; he named you Muslims before and in this, that the Messenger may be a bearer of witness to you, and you may be bearers of witness to the people; therefore keep up prayer and pay the alms and hold fast by Allah, He is your Guardian, how excellent the Guardian and how excellent the Helper.” (Holy Qur'an 22:78) Then I started calling our master Ibrahim or rather our forefather Ibrahim, as the Qur'an calls him: “O Father, you, who called us Muslims.

your off spring have disagreed after you, some of them became Jews, others Christians and some others became Muslims; and the Jews were divided among themselves into seventy one groups the Christians were divided into seventy two groups and the Muslims were divided into seventy-three groups; all of them are in darkness, as you told your son Muhammad (saw) but only one group stayed faithful to your oath. O Father!

Is it the way that Allah wants it to be for His creation, as the fatalists believe, so Allah assigns to each soul its destiny, to be Jewish or Christian or Muslim or atheist or polytheist; or is it for the love of this world and deviation from Allah's commands, that they forget Allah, so that He makes them forget themselves.” I could not make myself believe in fatalism, and that Allah assigns a destiny to each individual, rather I tend to believe that Allah has created us and inspired us to understand what is right and what is wrong, and sent us His messengers to explain the complicated matters and to show us what is right or wrong.

But man fell under the spell of this life's temptation and with all his arrogance, selfishness, ignorance, curiosity, stubbornness, injustice and tyranny deviated from the right path and followed the devil. He distanced himself from the Merciful, so he lost his way, and the Holy Qur'an expressed that in the best way in the words of Allah: “Surely Allah does not do any injustice to men, but men are unjust to themselves.” (Holy Qur'an 10:44) O our father Ibrahim!

We cannot blame the Jews nor the Christians for not following the right path after they have been shown the way.