No Discrimination

Now the problem is that, although man was born with an ideal nature, and is an ideal-seeking animal—in the sense of wanting to have all the best things in life—the present world was not created for this purpose. In terms of personality development, the present world has enormous scope but, in terms of material achievement, the present world is very limited in its scope.

Those who want to fulfil their material desires in the present world will very soon find that they have failed to build the edifice of their dreams. Anything that they achieve seems to them less than ideal. This is a source of all kinds of tension and stress.

The problem is that people judge things by a wrong yardstick; they judge their achievements by an ideal yardstick. This is unrealistic. The realistic formula is: use the ideal yardstick only when judging your personality development. But when it comes to your material needs, use a different yardstick. Here, you have to realize that only less than ideal can be achieved.

If you want to have a tension-free life in this world, adopt the realistic approach. Don’t run after your desires, for, in reality, they are impossible to fulfil.

As in other societies of the world, the Arab people were also obsessed with colour and other differences among people. They discriminated against those who were apparently inferior to others. This was not only an Arab phenomenon: it was universal in that age. With this background, God Almighty revealed this verse in the chapter Al-Hujurat (The Apartments) of the Quran:

According to this verse, the Quran believes in global brotherhood and not just Muslim brotherhood. In fact, in all matters, the Quran adopts a universal rather than any kind of sectarian approach. There are many verses in the Quran that denote that the readers of the Quran are al-nas (mankind) and not merely a community.