In the Light of Surah Fatihah

1. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.

2. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all the worlds.

3. The Gracious, the Merciful.

4. Master of the Day of Judgement.

5. Thee alone do we worship and Thee alone do we implore for help.

6. Guide us in the right path ---

7. The path of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings, those who have not incurred Thy displeasure, and those who have not gone astray.

How can there be an occasion for war when no one is interdicted from fasting and praying and pilgrimage and payment of zakat nor from chastity and piety; nor has any disbeliever drawn his sword to force the Muslims to renounce their faith or to cut them into pieces? Justice demands that sword should be raised only to meet the sword and pen to counter pen. Today we grieve over the falsehoods that tongues and pens have broadcast. By means of falsehoods have the Books of Allah been maligned and their truths been covered up. The mansion of the Muslim people was attacked and demolished and it became like a town with its battlements breached, or like an orchard with its plants burnt out, or like a garden with its fruits and flowers destroyed and its buds plucked and scattered, or like a country that was once prosperous whose streams have now run dry, or like fortified castles now ruined with not a vestige left, the vandals having shattered them to bits. It began to be said about the Muslim people that it had perished, and the announcers pronounced its obituary and its story was told and the publishers gave it due publicity.

But every tide must ebb and every rise has a decline. As is well known when a flood reaches a firm mountain it halts; and when night approaches daybreak its darkness is dissipated as Allah, the Supreme, has said: Witness the night when it approaches its end, and witness the dawn when its begins to spread (81.18-19). Allah has made the break of dawn a necessary corollary of the extreme darkness of night. Similarly in His command: Earth, swallow up thy waters (11.45) He has made the height of the flood a sign of its decline. Accordingly, Allah resolved to restore to the believing Muslims the days of their earlier glory and to show them that He is their Lord and that He is Rahman (Gracious) and Rahim (Compassionate) and Master of the Day of Requital, the day when the dead will be raised.

You are certainly witnessing the Rabubiyyat (Providence) of Allah, the Bountiful, during this period and His graciousness for men and beasts in the physical sphere. You see how He has provided new means and beneficial resources. Industries and manufactures abound, the like of which was not known in the past, and wonders unparalleled in the earlier ages. You find a novelty in everything that concerns a voyager or a resident, a native or a stranger, a healthy person or a sick person, a belligerent or a forbearing peace-loving one, enjoyable things or hardships, as if the world has indeed undergone a total change. Doubtless all that is the manifestation of His Supreme Providence (Rabubiyyat) and pure Graciousness (Rahmaniyyat).

In the same way you witness this Rabubiyyat (Providence) and Rahmaniyyat (Graciousness) and Rahimiyyat (Compassion) in the sphere of religion. All these matters have been facilitated for the seekers of the knowledge of the Divine and the work of propagation and dissemination of spiritual sciences has been made universally easy and signs have been sent down for those who worship Allah and seek tranquillity from the Presence of the Supreme Being. The sun and the moon were eclipsed in the month of Ramadhan (in 1894) and camels have been discarded as a means of rapid transport, except in rare instances, and you will in a short while see new means of transport on the Mecca-Medina road. The learned and the learners have been helped with abundance of books and many means of acquiring knowledge; mosques are frequented and worshipers are protected and ways of peace and propagation of the faith have been opened up. All this is the grace of Rahimiyyat (Compassion). We are bound to testify that these facilities and amenities had no parallel in the past ages, that no ear had heard of their like not had any eye seen their equal.

Mark well then this Rahimiyyat of our Sublime Lord. It is due to His Rahimiyyat that we can now publish a whole lot of books on our religion in the space of days which our predecessors could not do in years; and today we are able to get news of the farthest parts of the earth in hours which our fore-runners could not have obtained except after years of hardships and effort. Verily, the gates of Rabubiyyat and Rahmaniyyat and Rahimiyyat have been opened wide for us for gathering every kind of good and the ways towards it have been multiplied to such a degree that it is beyond the power of man to compute them. When did such facilities ever exist for our predecessors, preachers and callers to Islam? Verily the earth has been given a good shaking for our benefit until it has disgorged its hidden treasures. Canals have been dug and rivers have dried up and new means of transport have been invented and camels have been discarded. Our forerunners did not see the bounties that we have seen and at every step there is a new bounty, so much so that they are beyond counting. With all this the hardening and death of hearts have become widespread, as if all men had died and there was not left aught of spiritual insight in them, except in a very few of him whose number is negligible because of its smallness. We have realized through these bright manifestations of the attributes of Rabubiyyat (Providence), Rahmaniyyat (Graciousness), and Rahimiyyat (Compassion) which are like portents by the multiplicity of deaths by the poison of misguidance that the Day of gathering and resurrection is certainly nigh, nay, is at the door, as has become manifest from the appearance of these facilities and signs.

Verily Rabubiyyat, Rahmaniyyat, and Rahimiyyat are billowing like the waves of the oceans and are manifesting themselves continuously, running like mighty rivers. Thus there is not the least doubt that the hour of gathering and of resurrection has arrived. This is the way of Allah, and it has manifested itself in the time of the Companions in the choicest of all creation, the Holy Prophet of Islam. Nor is there any doubt about its being the Day of Requital and the Day of Master and the Day of the total Lordship of the Lord of Heavens and of the manifestation of its signs in the hearts of the dwellers of the earth. There is no doubt also that this day is the day of the Messiah, the Judge appointed by Allah, the Best of judges, and verily it is the resurrection after the death of mankind and its parallel truly appeared in the time of Jesus and in the of the Seal of the Prophets. Reflect hard then and be not one of the heedless.

(Ijazul Masih, pp. 136-160)