Ramadan Day 12: Verses from the Quran
Sun Oct 16, 2005 at 10:08:55 PM PDT
Each day during
Ramadan, I am presenting a verse from the Quran with a few thoughts or comments. An introduction to this series is
here. Inshallah (God willing), I hope that this may be of benefit to any who are interested in learning a bit more about Islam and Muslim belief.
Quran 10:99:
If your Lord had willed, all who are in the earth would have believed together. How would you then compel humankind until they believe?
This is one of several places in the Quran where it states clearly that there is no compulsion in the religion.
Even if you force someone to adopt the outward forms of a religion, you cannot actually change what is in their heart or mind or compel them to believe in something that they didn't before. So it would profit you nothing and them nothing to do this.
But more than that, compelling others to religion is going contrary to God's will and command. Here, He points out that if He had wanted everybody to all be believers, it would already be that way.
In fact, He has given everybody free will. Not everybody will use it "correctly". If He does not force anybody to believe against their will, how then do we dare to do so? That would truly be the height of arrogance against Him.
