On the contrary, it is a Book which contains a message, an invitation, which generates a movement. The moment it began to be sent down, it impelled a quiet and pious man to abandon his life of solitude and confront the world that was living in rebellion against Allah.

It inspired him to raise his voice against falsehood, and pitted him in a grim struggle against the lords of disbelief, evil and iniquity. One after the other, from every home, it drew every pure and noble soul, and gathered them under the banner of truth. In every part of the country, it made all the mischievous and the corrupt to rise and wage war against the bearers of the truth.

This is the Book which launched a glorious movement, with the voice of a single individual, and continued to provide guidance to it for twenty-three years, till the establishment of the Kingdom of Allah on earth. At every stage during this long and heart-rending struggle between truth and falsehood, this Book showed its followers the ways to eradicate the old order and usher in the new.Is it, then, possible to reach the heart of the Qur’an merely by reading its words, without ever stepping upon the battlefield of faith and disbelief, of Islam and Ignorance, without passing through any stage of that struggle?

No, you can understand the Qur’an only when you take it up, begin to act upon it, and call mankind to Allah, and when every step you take is in obedience to its guidance.

Then, and only then, you will go through all the events and experiences which occurred during the course of its revelation.

You will then pass through Makkah, and Habasha, and Ta’if; you will face Badr, Uhud, Hunain and Tabuk.

You will encounter Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab; you will meet with hypocrites and Jews; you will come face to face with those who instantly responded to this call as well as those who were drawn into Islam seeking some gain.

You will come across all of these human models; you will deal with all of them. This is a path different from the so-called ‘mystic path’, which I name the ‘Quranic path’. Such is this ‘Quranic path’ that, as you pass through its various stations and stages, certain Surahs and Ayahs will disclose their full message to you, and tell you that they were revealed precisely for this stage and station that you are passing through.

You may miss some linguistic and grammatical subtleties, you may miss certain finer points in the rhetoric and semantics of the Qur’an, yet it is impossible that the Qur’an will fail to reveal its full and true spirit to you.

In the same way, no person can ever understand the legal injunctions, the moral teachings, and the political and economic directives of the Qur’an, unless and until he puts them into practice. Neither the individual who lives independently of the Qur’an nor the nation which runs its institutions in violation of its guidance can discover the spirit of the Qur’an.