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Abd al-Aziz university in Mecca, says in his exegetical work Safwat at-tafasir in a comment on the same verse and quoting Mujahid, famous among those of the generation which succeeded that of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (Gbpwh), the following: "The word 'pair', zawjan, zawjayn, signifies muqabilat, that is 'things or beings who oppose each other or form contrasts or occupy a certain position with regard to each other' such as man and woman, heaven and earth, sun and moon, night and day, light and darkness, good and evil." I was satisfied, because I had found my criterion and I was convinced.
But I wish to stress something else in the Koranic text and in the tradition of prophetic utterances which in my view is of the greatest importance in the whole structure of the religion of Islam: God's forgiveness and His grace and mercy. It is certainly correct to say that these words and their significance pervade the whole Koran. There is a connection between them and the notion that, although man was created in the best of moulds (95:4), he was created weak (4:28), and (24:10): Were it not for God's grace and His mercy - (implied) were would you be? No other divine attribute has been given such importance in the Koran. In verse 12 of surah 6 we find this expression: …God. He inscribed for Himself [the rule of] Mercy, of which there is an echo in verse 54 of the same surah. The words which serve as an introduction to each surah except the 9th, are: bismi 'llahi 'r-rahmani 'r-rahim (In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful!) and there is one surah, the 55th, which bears the title "The Most Gracious". It seems to me obvious that the epithets "the Forgiving" and "the Most Gracious", "the Most Merciful" correspond perfectly to what Christians have in mind when they speak of God's "love", a term for which the early theologians chose the Greek word agape, distinguishing it from human love (known as eros); is not the word "love", after all, out of place when it comes to describing a divine attribute? The forgiveness which God may grant a sinner whose repentance is sincere and the grace and mercy with which He receives His creatures regardless of their merits or demerits, the bi-ghayri hisab of the Koran, are on the other hand entirely appropriate.
In order to make my thinking perfectly clear, I shall quote a prophetic utterance, sound and certain, according to which God says: [On the Day of Resurrection] those who have merited Paradise will enter Paradise and those who have merited Hell will enter Hell. God will thereafter say [to the angels]: Go into Hell and seek out those in whose hearts there was as much faith [or good] as a grain of mustard-seed and bring them out. And they will be brought out, scorched and blackened, and thrown into the river of life: you have seen how the faded, yellow grass of last year pushes out new shoots of a tender green on the river-bank, and so they too will revert to life.- This seems to me a beautiful illustration of divine mercy in action, about which verse 156 of the 7th surah says that it embraces all things and, according to another prophetic utterance, declared sound, God says: Surely, My mercy overtakes My wrath.
When I have the opportunity to talk to non-Muslims about Islam, I like to stress the following points:
Islam is the religion of the middle course and rejects all extremes. The Koran declares (2:256): There is no compulsion in religion. No thought, no action of ours is of value in the sight of God, if it is not born by an inner conviction and the result of a free choice.
It is the religion, of equilibrium, of balance. We must give to others, to the needy, of the good things God has put at our disposal, but not at the expense of our own or our family's legitimate needs. We must not wallow in extravagance and luxuries, but nor should we make asceticism our goal. We work and fast in the daytime during Ramadan, but rest, eat and enjoy ourselves after sundown and, at all hours, we thank God for His bounties and glorify Him. If somebody attacks us, we have the right to defend ourselves, paying back the attacker in his own coin, but the Koran speaks to us many times about the merit of forgetting what harm we may have suffered and returning good for ill.
It is the religion of simplicity. It has no dogmas except this: There is no other god than God and Muhammad is His Prophet, that is: of the long line of God's messengers, he is the last and foremost who brought us the last and definitive message, the Koran. Islam has no clergy and no sacraments and sees man standing alone before God as he indeed shall stand before Him at the end of time to be held accountable for his actions in this life.
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