From Doubt to Faith: Discovering Islam

Part 2: Conclusion

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As this second part of the series comes to an end, here is a recap of the assumptions I once held about faith, revelations and the Quran in particular:

• Religion is an institution created by people in power to push their agendas in society
• Religious people are inflexible and need external guidelines to navigate life
• Believing in and following God’s rules limits our lives while human life experiences are individual, and thus our sense of right and wrong is ultimately individual
• Scriptures must be ancient legends written by humans and prophets are mythical figures whose existence is questionable
• The Quran is for Arabs only or for people culturally or historically related to them
• Reading and following the Quran’s message threatens to erase one’s national identity

Having read the Quran, I now see that all these assumptions came more from a place of ignorance than from engaging with the relevant sources on my own.

What I once dismissed as ancient fables and fictional figures revealed the Creator, Who continuously reached out to people through His messengers and timeless guidance. The Quran presents itself as the final revelation to humanity, continuing and confirming earlier scriptures. This makes its message universal, rather than tied to a single ethnicity. While each revelation came to a specific people, in its own time and language, its fundamental truths are universal. The challenge is to apply its underlying principles to our present-day context.

On the question of navigating life with or without divine guidance, the Quran makes one central point: that “God has not created the heavens and the earth and everything in between them in vain” and everything in creation“belongs to Him, follows His order and will return to Him.” Knowing this, it’s hard to resort to a position that sees human existence as completely detached from its Maker. Anything that deviates from His design and order inevitably comes at a cost of losing balance and harmony in all aspects of our lives — individual, societal or global.

As for my assumption of seeing religion as an institution created by people in power to control the masses and advance their agendas in society, now in hindsight, I see that it might be partially true. Historically, religion has indeed been manipulated and used as an instrument: religious institutions and states have formed alliances, rulers or interest groups have legitimised their actions in the name of God. Yet divine revelation is not defined by the uses (or abuses) to which it is put.

In fact, if someone wanted to create a system for controlling the masses, Islam would be a surprisingly inefficient choice: it asks people to wake up before dawn, pray five times daily, fast an entire month, give obligatory alms, avoid usury, restrain sexuality, avoid intoxication. None of it flatters human desires. If someone wanted to maximise social compliance through pleasure and distraction, they would probably design something very different.

We often think freedom means “doing whatever we want” or “satisfying our desires.” The Quran presents freedom very differently: true freedom lies in submitting to the will of the One God alone. Yet the reality of the human condition is that we all end up serving or submitting to something or someone, willingly or unwillingly: public opinion, career, status, ideology, social norms, our ego or our lower self. The question is who or what we choose to submit to.

Who has the ultimate authority over our hearts?

Only when we align ourselves with the divine order can we liberate ourselves from the lesser masters of this ephemeral world and find peace with the Creator.

To close, a few final thoughts on the Quran itself. While only a small portion of its content is legislative, the vast majority of the Quran is about the nature of the human being, the purpose of our existence, the signs of His creation, our relationship with God and our inner transformation. It addresses the human intellect, urging us to reason, reflect, and seek answers through independent thinking. The depth of the Quran is endless. No matter how many times one returns to its verses, one will never reach the bottom; there is always something new and profound to discover:

Say, ‘If the whole ocean were ink for writing the words of my Lord, it would run dry before those words were exhausted – even if We were to add another ocean to it.’ (18:109)

Photo credit: Silas Baisch / Unsplash