The Most Precious Gift of Allah to Mankind is the Intellect (Part 3)

The Most Precious Gift of Allah to Mankind is the Intellect (Part 3)

On Gambling

Gambling is, perhaps, the most wide-spread evil of our times. It has countless forms and names. Chess, cards, bridge, pool, sweepstake, raffle, lottery, roulette and various other plays are just plain gambling – by whatever civilized name they may be called. And these are the standard entertainment of our times.

Gambling, however mild, has been forbidden in Islam. Some people play such games to ‘kill time’. They fail to understand that the ‘life’ given to them is just a span of ‘time’ – so many hours or days or years. ‘To kill time’ means, in more clear language, ‘to kill life’ and life was not given to us to be destroyed.

Others indulge in such activities in expectation of some monetary gain. It is true that the urge to get something for nothing is very old; but Islam does not encourage it. After all, forgery, robbery and fraud also are the manifestations of the same urge; but nobody ever thought of legalizing such practices on the plea that they are the result of a ‘natural urge’. So why tolerate gambling?

On Future – Reading

﴾(God alone is) the knower of the unseen; He does not reveal His secrets unto anyone, except unto that of the Apostles whom He chooses ………………..﴿ (Qur’an, 72:26-27).

East Africa is teeming with "wise men" who claim to know the destiny of every person (except their own, of course). People talk about African or pagan superstitions; but, in fact, this is a field which has no racial or religious bar. Muslims, Christians and pagans; Indians, Africans and Europeans: all are victims of this hoax. There is complete "integration" of races and tenets in this area.

According to the Qur’an, only God knows the future; and He informs His chosen apostles of the coming events when and if He wishes. But in East Africa almost every book-shop (especially so, if it is owned by a Muslim) has one or more books purporting to reveal the future of anybody who can afford a few shillings. The operative word is "shillings".

There was a time when primitive people believed that their lives were governed by the sun, moon and other natural phenomena. They started worshiping the sun and/or moon. That superstition gave birth to astrology, which claimed that the destiny of every person was governed by seven "stars" which rotate around 12 ‘houses". Thus the destinies of the whole mankind (numbering more than 3,000,000,000 persons, at present) are listed under 12 groups.

Man, thy name is naivety. Many people believe in such forecasts, though all must be aware that the destiny of one man is as different from the entire world as his thumb-impression.

These "wise men" know the weakness of human nature. They know that if they forecast 100 events, at least a certain percentage will come out to be true. (And this can be done by any shrewd person without any help from astrology). Then they bank their propaganda on the small percentage which comes to pass, conveniently forgetting what proved false.

Their forecasts, for the most part, are vague and capable of meaning whatever the astrologer would like them to mean in any future eventuality. There is a story of a "wise man" who informed his client that his wife (who was pregnant) would give birth to "son not daughter". Thus he made sure that he would prove right in any event. If she gave birth to a son, he would say: "I had already forecasted "son: not daughter". Otherwise, the prophecy would be interpreted as "son not; daughter".

^{* Source: imamreza.net}