Islam offers the clearest Path to God

By studying the Quran any student of comparative religious studies or anyone who is seeking spirituality leading to the Creator’s pleasure will, no doubt, come to the conclusion that the Path of Islam to God is the most simple, easiest and convincing way to arrive at belief. What Islam has done is to remove any human influence on the essential aspects of God’s cornerstone teachings. Islam’s logical belief system appeals to people’s common sense, presenting, as it does, a clarity of understanding for the purpose of life and satisfying the normal human need for spirituality.

Belief in the Creator is the guiding factor in understanding the purpose for this life. It sets the tone and opens the way into a more discerning pattern of human belief. The life giving Creator is Almighty and Most Powerful but grants people the freedom to choose their path and whether to submit willingly to Him or not. 

Islam does not create a web of superstitious beliefs or indulge in the dysfunctional practice of meaningless acts. Nor does it attempt to drain human intelligence to the point that it no longer appears worthwhile trying to understand some aspects of the complexity of the belief system. This is what the Prophet Mohammad, peace and mercy of Allah be upon him, indicated in this hadith, saying: ‘I have left you on the clearest (White) Path, its night is as its day, no one would deviate but one who is destined to perish’. 

From this we should understand that no innovative religious practices are allowed in Islam. This is intended to ward off any possibility of human interference by changing Allah’s teachings. However, Islamic teachings and the fundamentals of Islamic Jurisprudence necessitate functions of ‘Ijtihaad’, or independent legal reasoning and interpretations of Islamic laws to facilitate human life and provide for the constant need for innovation and development.

Islam starts from a necessity of belief in the Creator of all and everything in this existence and then to submit our will to Him willingly, without any doubt or question. Achieving this enlightened humility will lead us onto the rest of the Path.

Islam also teaches that all prophets and Messengers were sent down by Allah with messages from Him and that any person who claims to submit to God must believe in all of them. The Quran says:

‘There are those who disbelieve in Allah and His Messengers and seek to differentiate between Allah and His Messengers, and say: ‘we believe in some and deny others’, and they seek to strike a way between the two. It is they, indeed they, who are, beyond all doubts unbelievers, and for the unbelievers We have prepared a humiliating chastisement.

For those who believe in Allah and His Messengers, and do not differentiate between them, We shall certainly give them their reward. Allah is All-Forgiving, All-Compassionate’. S4 V150-152

There are ongoing relentless studies of Islam and its holy Book ‘The Glorious Quran’ carried out by national and international research institutions and intellectual circles. Continual studies of the Quran can provide some people with a huge pool of guided spiritual direction. Many individuals who have been led to read the Quran, whether from sheer curiosity or with a critical mind, have derived satisfying spiritual guidance about God: indeed some have fully embraced its teachings and entered Islam.

The Quran has remained protected in its serene original form of revelation, in sharply distinctive contrast to other religious scriptures. The envious originality of the Quranic text is a pleasurable source of guidance to the Path of God.

Islam includes a system of five daily prayers called ‘Salaah’ through which submission to Allah is made five times a day. It helps to remember Allah, the Creator of everything, and provides an opportunity to discharge, willingly, divine obligations which are markedly missing from many superstitious beliefs or religions that have been influenced by people. Obligations are a compulsory divine test to demand involuntary submission of people to Allah. That’s why fulfilling ‘Salaah’ brings huge rewards from Allah and becomes a pleasurable duty to discharge.

Ramadan, a season of fasting obligation for Allah, is one most manifestly exhausting submissions to the Will of the Creator. It is also the pride of Islam, after Salaah, that provides commitment towards Allah the Almighty with a clear spiritual and physical outcome.

Islam provides clarity in all its obligations and aspects of its practices that always make sense to a believer.

Even the obligatory almsgiving called Zakah and the pilgrimage of Hajj have clear purposes and expected rewards. A conscious sense of Allah in our hearts enlightens the Path and makes it easier to discern the Path of submission and differentiate between what may please Him from what may not.

Allah the Almighty has always provided the clearest Path for people to walk to their Creator but humans, in their vain attempts to attain power, have always attempted to tamper with God’s guidance. Islam has not been tampered with and so it still provides the clarity that is essential if we are to follow the Path.

Allah says:  ‘Such are the ones who believe and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah. Surely in Allah’s remembrance do hearts find rest’. S13 V28