ISLAM - Creator of the Modern Age by Maulana Waiduddin Khan - page 77

Islam Creator of the Modern Age
2. Holding Sacred that which is not Sacred
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is considered holy, this is the wrong application of a
real, natural feeling. And this is the root cause of all
kinds of evils. When man holds the non-holy as
holy, he closes all manner of doors to progress.
There are two aspects of holding the non-holy as
holy. One is to consider all of nature as being
sacred, while the other is to revere certain
individuals as being sacrosanct. Both kinds of evils
have been found all over the world since ancient
times. This has been the greatest reason for man’s
thinking having remained unscientific.
The notion of holiness is deeply rooted in human
psychology. To define in a phrase such a
psychology is extremely difficult, for the words
used to express profound psychological states are
more often symbolic than realistic. I would simply
agree in principle that the concept of holiness is the
focal point of religion. The existence of holiness, is,
nevertheless, real and not imaginary, as modern
scholars of religion would have us believe.
The truth is that the urge to worship is a natural
instinct, which every man is born with. Man,
because of this deep inner urge, wants actively to
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