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 Throughout the ages, people have considered,
debated and sought the answers to such questions as, 'What
is the meaning of and purpose behind life?' 'What happens
after death?' 'What are heaven and hell like?' 'How did everything
come into being?' 'What is the origin of life?' 'How can I
come to know the superior Creator of all, myself included?'
'What does the Lord want of me?' and 'What are good and bad,
right and wrong?' Philosophers and thinkers have developed
their own theories on these subjects and proposed various
ideas. Yet the true answers to such questions lie not in the
teachings of philosophers, but in the divine religions. That
is because man's reason and knowledge are limited. In the
absence of a divine guide it is impossible to provide a true
answer to those questions.
In fact, God has given people guidance, by
sending messengers at various times and sending down His books.
In that way, ever since the time of the first man, the Prophet
Adam, people have been aware of the existence of God and His
commandments. They have found the best and wisest explanations
of all those matters they needed in the divine religions.
 We now need to consider one very important
matter. Although the divine religions contain different rules
in the light of the climate and conditions in which they were
revealed, they essentially offer the same model of belief
and morality. They have all offered the same fundamental truths
regarding such matters as the existence, oneness and attributes
of God, how He should be served, the kind of behaviour He
finds pleasing, how one should live and behave, the concepts
of good and bad, right and wrong, how people should order
their lives in this world, and how one can obtain eternal
life.
An important part of the population of the
world consists of the members of two of the divine religions:
Christians and Muslims. Also, a great deal of the knowledge
Jews and Christians possess about Islam consists of hearsay,
as does much of what many Muslims know about Christianity.
To put it another way, such knowledge comes from family and
friends, various books and newspapers and the television.
Yet the attitude in question is one that generally leads people
to erroneous conclusions. There can be no doubt but that the
sources that people need to refer to are the Bible, the foundation
of Christianity, and that of Islam, the Qur'an.
ARTICLE 2.1
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