The Qur’an For All Humanity
Voluntary Submission
~ 44 ~
words, is the tacit understanding that the
subservience which God exacted from the stars
and the planets will be offered to Him by man of
his own volition.
In this universe it is only God who is Lord and
Sovereign. All other things are His subjects. It
was God’s will that a creature should come into
being which does what God wants him to do,
without any compulsion, of his own free will.
This voluntary submission is so subtle a test that
even the heavens, the earth, and the mountains
cannot bear it. However, man despite great
apprehensions of his failing to fulfill the
responsibility, accepted it. Now man in this
world is the repository of one of God’s trusts. He
has to impose on himself what God has imposed
on other objects in the universe. He has to
rigorously apply the commands of God to
himself. Man is in a state of trial and the present
world serves as a vast trial ground for him.
This ‘trust’ is an extremely delicate responsibility,
for the matter of reward and punishment is based
on its fulfillment. Other creatures have no