HUMANITY

God created the universe so that He could be known and recognized in all His Names and Attributes, and so His creation includes one creature with free will: humanity. Of all creatures, only humanity can manifest the Divine Names the All-Willing, All-Knowing, and All-Speaking in the most comprehensive level. God then endowed us with the knowledge of things (“names”), and made us His vicegerent on the earth to inhabit and improve it according to His laws. As having free will means that one must choose, each person’s life consists of choosing between what is right and wrong. God endowed humanity with three principal faculties fundamental to our survival and carrying out our function as His vicegerent: an appetite for such things as the opposite sex, offspring, livelihood, and possessions; anger or forcefulness in defense and struggle; and reason or intellect. Since we are tested in this worldly life and are free to choose, God did not restrict these faculties. According to Islam, our individual and collective happiness lies in disciplining our faculties so that we may produce a harmonious and peaceful individual and social life. If they remain undisciplined, they may drive people to immorality, illicit sexual relationships, unlawful livelihoods, tyranny, injustice, deception, falsehood, and other vices. To prevent the ensuing chaos and suffering, we must submit to an authority that guides and regulates our collective affairs. Since one person will not accept the authority of another, humanity needs a universal intellect, a guidance from beyond human reason and experience, to whose authority all may assent freely. That guidance is the religion revealed and perfected by God through His Prophets: Islam.