Contents
- Scottish Parliament Wednesday 8 December 1999
- Time for Reflection
- Local Government Finance
- Sea Fisheries
- Sea Fishing Grants (Charges) Bill
- Decision Time
- Hawick
Time for Reflection
Our time for reflection today is led by Dr Mona Siddiqui, lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Glasgow.
As a Muslim, I stand here proud to be representing a faith and a community, but humbled at the honour of this task. In giving recognition to the faith, the Scottish Parliament is giving recognition to a whole ethos and to different cultures, a commitment to religious communities and a willingness to show that Scottish society is a multi- faith society and is proud to be not just tolerant but accepting, to be not just aware but interested.
Our sacred books sometimes come with different stories, different social laws and even different routes to salvation, but one thing that they all share is a simple belief in God's love and mercy. As Muslims prepare for Ramadhan, the month of fasting, it should be borne in mind that Ramadhan is special not only for the fasting but for being the month in which the Qur'an was first revealed. This book contains within its infinite wisdom a simple but profound message: that of God's eternal compassion for mankind.
It is related in the Qur'an that, when God created man, he told the angels, "I will create a representative on earth." The angels were upset and questioned God: "Will you place therein one who will make mischief and shed blood whilst we celebrate your praises and glorify your name?" God replied, "I know what you do not know." Adam was not only given knowledge of things; he was made to be placed at the top of creation's hierarchy. It is this very knowledge that is man's unique gift, it is this very position that brings him close to God, a proximity that man needs and God cherishes:
I am as my servant thinks I am. I am with him when he makes mention of me. If he makes mention of me to himself, I make mention of him to myself. And if he makes mention of me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assembly better than it. And if he draws near to me a hand's span, I draw near to him an arm's length, and if he draws near to me an arm's length, I draw near to him a fathom's length. And if he comes to me walking, I go to him running.
And when man is rejected from the garden of Eden, removed from the miracle of God's paradise, he clings to the hope of once again pleasing his Maker, the hope of replacing wrong with right. Man treads wearily through life, stumbling his way through so much of the journey, searching and looking, anxious for solace, yearning for the truth. Through this relentless journey, there is one thing that is certain—God's everlasting mercy, His compassion for the humanity He so proudly created, His willingness to forgive error and sin:
O son of Adam, so long as you call upon me and ask of me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of me, I should forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to me with sins nearly as great as the earth, and were you then to face me, ascribing no partner to me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as the earth.