The Law does not invade the privacy of man's inwardness, the relationship of the human soul to God, nor is it concerned with the way in which each in… - Gai Eaton

Not everyone - to say the least - seeks communion, dialogue with God; most of those who turn towards the heavens in prayer do so from desire or from fear, and those who do so from fear are in search of forgiveness. We are told that God does not greatly care about the motive so long as people do turn to Him and thereby establish the essential link. This is brought out in an astonishing hadith which might have been considered doubtful had it not been recorded by one of the most highly respected of mutahadithun: ‘By Him in whose hand is my soul, had you not sinned Allah would have removed you and brought a people who sin, then ask for Allah’s forgiveness and are forgiven.’ According to a hadith qudsi, ‘Allah has said: O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you what you have done and I shall not care. O son of Adam, though your sins reached the clouds in the sky, if you were then to ask for My forgiveness I would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins almost as great as the earth [itself] and then face Me, ascribing to Me to “partner”, I would bring you forgiveness in like measure.

The modern Westerner, persuaded that he has a right to 'think for himself' and imagining that he exercises this right, is unwilling to acknowledge that his every thought has been shaped by cultural and historical influences and that his opinions fit, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, into a pattern which has nothing random about it. Statements which begin with the words 'I think...' reflect a climate created by all those strands of belief and experience - as also of folly and corruption - which have gone to form the current mindset and to establish principles which cannot be doubted by any sane and reasonable man in this place and at this point in time.

A generous man is so because he reflects the qualities expressed in the divine Name al-Karim, 'the Generous'. The man who has beauty of character or the woman who has physical beauty reflects something of al-Jamil, and the strong man would have no strength were it not for al-Qawi, 'the Strong', and al-Qahhar, 'the All-Compelling'. But Allah is also and, indeed, essentially al-Ahad, 'the One'; One alone, One who has no partner, the unique, the incomparable. From this name is derived the relative uniqueness of each human being and the fact that each is - at least potentially - a microcosm, a totality.