DO the Quran and Sunnah provide a tangible and material basis for building the structure of a political and economic system that can satisfy the requirements of today’s world? This brings us to another question: What is the function of a prophet primarily with regard to the fulfilment of the mission assigned to him by God? The second question will partly answer the first question as well.

No other book, except the Quran, claims to represent a faithful record of the Creator’s own words for humans to read and reflect on. Thus, the Quran is the most unique document that acts as a window for an insight into the Maker’s scheme the inscrutable order of things that includes the purpose of man’s creation as well.

Since we are, currently, concerned with man’s duties to God, we will touch upon this theme briefly as a starting point to launch the discussion. The Quran tells us that God created two forms of life, gifted with reasoning, rational intellect and freedom of action — the Jinn and the humankind — “only that they may worship Him” (51.56). There are a large number of verses to the effect that God wants Himself and Himself alone to be worshipped by man — the paragon among His creations. It is on this account that he will not be inclined to forgive any one who attributes partners to Him. In other words, all sinners may be pardoned but not the polytheists.

We proceed further and see what the Quran says about the primary function of God’s prophets. There are, again, a large number of verses throwing light on this subject too. The one that appears to be comprehensive states that “God sent no messenger who was not inspired with the true conviction that “there is no worshipful being except Allah” (21:25). Another excerpt from the Quran will lend confirmation to this one. In plain language, it implies that “undoubtedly, God raised in every nation a prophet proclaiming that Allah should be served and false gods shunned” (16.36).

‘Allah’ is the Arabic word for omnipotent, omnipresent, non-physical Creator, corresponding to the Hebrew word Jehovah or Yehveh for God. After creating a rational and intelligent species by “breathing his own