Uniformity of the Laws of Allah

[N. Truth Seeker]

 


A very common question skeptics ask: "If God protects those who obey Him, then why do believers suffer while many disbelievers triumph over them?"

This issue has been discussed very articulately and comprehensively in Marmaduke Pickthall's tafsir of Surah Ar-Rum (30th Surah of the Quran).

With reference to Surah Ar-Rum, Pickthall explains as follows.

About 6 or 7 years before Hijrah, the Persians had defeated the Christian Romans.  The pagans of Mecca were very happy about the Persian victory because Persians then were idol worshippers unlike the Romans who were followers of the Divine Faith.  They taunted the Prophet saying that the power of Allah could not be supreme since the forces of a pagan empire had defeated Allah's worshippers.

"The Prophet's answer was provided in this grand assertion of Theocracy which shows the folly of those who think Allah as a partisan. 

The laws of nature are expounded as the laws of Allah in the physical sphere, and in the moral and political spheres mankind is informed that there are similar laws of life and death, good and evil, action and inaction, and their consequences - laws which no one can escape by wisdom or cunning.  His mercy, like His law, surrounds all things, and the standard of His judgment is the same for all.  He is not remote or indifferent, partial or capricious.  Those who do good earn His favour, and those who do ill earn His wrath, no matter what maybe their creed or race;  and no one by the lip profession of a creed is able to escape His law of consequences."