Submission To The Will Of God example essay topic
The Koran elaborates on the ways in which the followers of the prophets, specifically the Jews and the Christians, have or have not lived up to the visionary messages. It issues instructions on how to live a life pleasing to God. It tells people that they should pray, fast, and take care of the needy. "If ye make your alms to appear, it is well; but if ye conceal them, and give them unto the poor, this will be better for you, and will remove some of your sins: and God is well informed of that which ye do (Kishlansky 146). This means if you give yourself to others you will be rewarded by God. It goes into great detail concerning human interrelationships - such as laws of inheritance and marriage in a manner reminiscent of parts of the Hebrew Bible but foreign to the New Testament.
It tells people that they should observe God's instructions purely for God's sake, not for any worldly aims. It warns those who deny God's message that they will be thrown into the fire of hell, and it promises those who accept the messages that they will be given the bliss of paradise. The Koran possesses an obvious power to transform those who try to approach it on its own terms. This is precisely what Islam is all about submission to the will of God as revealed in the Koran, but this is not simply a voluntary submission. The Koran establishes an existential submission in people so that they come to express its fundamental message through their mode of being, no matter how 'original' their interpretations may be. This is the purpose of the document and it was intended to persuade and serve (Kishlansky 145).
The Koran is a book that has its own unique genius. For Westerners, the Koran is an extremely difficult text to appreciate, especially in translation. Even for those who have spent enough years studying the Arabic language to read the original, the Koran may appear as disorderly, inaccurate, and illogical. However, there is enough evidence provided by Islamic civilization itself, and by the great philosophers, and poets who have commented on the text, to be sure that the problem lies on the side of the reader, not the book.
The text is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary ever put down on paper. Precisely because it is extraordinary, it does not follow people's expectations as to what a book should be.