Plenary, 20 Apr 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Official Report 423KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business, as always on a Wednesday, is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is Imam Habib Ur Rahman Rauf, of the Central Mosque in Glasgow.

For today's time for reflection I have chosen a few verses from the Holy Qur'an. These verses point out that mankind was once a united community, which had no divisions and disputes. It was only later that it split itself into various groups. Why? And what prevents it from reuniting? And for some other issues surrounding the human race let us listen to these verses.

Bismillah-hir-Rahman-nir-Rahim. Allah the Almighty says:

"Mankind were but one community, then they differed later; and had not it been for a word that went forth before from your Lord"—

that He will not punish anyone until the evidence is established against him and that He would not punish the wrongdoers without giving them a chance to repent—

"it would have been settled between them regarding what they differed.

And when we let mankind taste mercy after adversity has afflicted them, behold! They take to plotting against our message. Say to such people, Allah is more swift in planning. Certainly our appointed angels record all of that which you plot.

It is He who enables you to travel through land and sea, til when you are in the ships and they sail with them with a favourable wind, and they are glad therein, then comes a storm and the waves come to them from all sides, and they think that they are surrounded by the storm. Then they invoke Allah, making their faith pure for Him alone, saying, ‘If you, O God! deliver us from this, we shall truly be grateful.'

But when He delivers them, behold! They rebel in the earth wrongfully. O mankind! your rebellion is against your own selves: the enjoyment of worldly life, then unto us is your return and we shall inform you of what you used to do.

Verily the likeness of life is as the rainwater, which we send down from the sky; so by it arises the intermingled produce of the earth of which men and cattle eat: until when the earth is clad in its adornments and is beautified, and its people think that they have all the powers of disposal over it, our command reaches it by night or by day and we make it like a clean-mown harvest, as if it had not flourished yesterday. Through such parables do we explain our message in detail for the people who reflect.

Allah calls to the home of peace and guides whom he wills to a straight path."—chapter 10, verses 19, 21-25.

O Creator of the heavens and the earth! Guide us to the straight path, path of those whom you favoured, not of those who earned your anger nor of those who went astray.

Amen.