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O men! Worship your Lord Who created you and those
before you so that you may guard (against evil).
This verse contains the first commandment and is
addressed to all mankind and not to the Arabs only. This indicates that Islam,
from the very beginning claimed to be a universal religion, which conceived
mankind as one brotherhood. Allah is full of pity to all His creatures and He
will never punish anyone as long as He does not send His Messenger.
If we, men, really we have a sensitive heart, recognising the beauty and value of Allah’s creation, realising that God gifted us with basic necessities of life for free for a limited time, so we have to worship only Him and not to associate anything or anybody to Him.
Some examples to illustrate the above verse:
Suppose you are seriously ill (God Forbid)
near to death, the doctor says that you do not have any time left, what will
you do? What will be your reaction? You feel very depressed, upset, worried,
you ask everybody even the Jamaat to pray for your health and for a
rapid recovery. It’s now that you are conscious that there is a God, A unique
One, the One in whose hands life and death lie; it’s at this particular time
that you realise the importance and value of that good health He gifted you.
What did you do at that time? You put a deaf ear to His words (in the Holy
Quran), turn your backs on prayers, and other acts of worship. You disregarded
His every commandment. Now that He removes His light and favour from you, look
at your state – unable to do anything except asking for forgiveness. But only,
Allah knows whether He will forgive you or not. Faith and forgiveness lie in
His Hands only; not in the dirty hands of creatures who try to behave like
great defenders of Islam.
Another
example:
You have a child, a charming child whom you love
with your heart. You want the best for him, thus you send him to high reputed
school or college or university so as he comes out first with flying colours.
But, to your astonishment, he does not want to learn, he kicks his books, he
spends most of his precious time in playing, riding bicycle, watching
television or in any entertainment. What will happen? Even his name he won’t be
able to write down or sign. When he reaches the age of adulthood, then he will
realise the importance of your good wishes for him, he will know the importance
of studying because when Allah had gifted him with ilm (knowledge), he
also kicked these favours.
This verse teaches us to worship only Allah the
Almighty because everything we need in this world and in the next life is in
His hands. The Holy Quran is the only complete guide for humanity. Allah wants
man to think over His Greatness and Might.
Another example to give you a glorious idea about
the Almighty: just visit a cemetery where your own blood relation, the dearest
people of your life may have been buried there. Will you be able to forget him
or her or will the late relative stick in your mind and heart till you leave
this world?
This is the main reason why our master, the Holy
Prophet (pbuh) asked his followers to visit the cemetery very often
so that you can think over and over the great creation of Allah, the Unique
God. When you think that some days back, that dearest and beloved one was
alive, caring for him etc., and now he is no more – his temporal body reduced
to dust. The Holy Quran contains 700 commandments of Allah which must be obeyed
without asking any questions. Insha-Allah!
Attention is then drawn to the fact that as the
Quran enables the righteous to make greater and greater spiritual progress;
everybody should try to become one of the righteous and earn the spiritual
benefits of the Quran. Here in this verse worship demands complete subjection
and the sense of subjection is generated in its perfection only when one’s
forefathers are all under obligation.
The verse is to make it clear that the object of
worship is not merely recognising and acknowledging God. If it were so, the
worship of idols, however unjust, would not be so injurious. God is worshipped
for the sake of attaining righteousness and spiritual perfection. How can false
Gods make man perfect spiritually, when they have not created him and have no
knowledge of his powers or limitations?
According to my construction the argument will be
as follows:
Adoration is the act of the highest and humblest reverence and worship. When you get into that relationship with Allah, Who is your Creator and Guardian, your faith produces works of righteousness. It is a chance given to you, will you not take it? If you do, your whole nature will be transformed.'
---[Extracted from Al Azim Tafsirul Qur'an: English Commentary of the Holy Qur'an, Volume I, pp. 148-151. To buy the Qur'an Tafsir online, click here].