The Ultimate Truth


Faten Sabri

Truth is clear, and false is clear:


One day, someone told me, “There is no absolute truth” as there is no true religion; all religions are equal and correct. All paths lead to God. There is no right or wrong for anything in existence. All principles in reality are relative, not absolute.


I told him: Are you entirely sure about that?


He said: Yes.


I told him: You just mentioned an absolute statement - and this itself confirms the existence of the absolute.


He said: The absence of absolute truth is the only truth. A person can believe whatever he wants as long as he does not impose his convictions on others.


I told him: Your statement itself is a belief about what is right and wrong, and you are trying to impose it on others. You adopt a standard of behavior and force everyone to abide by it, and in doing so, you violate the same thing that you claim to be clinging to. You are contradicting yourself. 


He said: Tolerance is the only absolute, and accordingly, intolerance is the only evil. Your insistence that your Islamic faith is the absolute truth is against tolerance, and even the greatest crime.


I told him: Tolerance is about respecting the will of choice that God has bestowed upon everyone, and not recognizing the disgraceful behavior itself and accepting it as right.


The existence of various theories and convictions among humans does not mean that there is no truth. No matter how many people’s concepts and perceptions exist, it does not negate that there is only one fact. For example, about the transportation that I use every day to commute; I own a black car. If the whole world thinks that my car is red, their belief does not make it red. There is one fact which is: I own a black car. Only the correct is clear, even if the whole world is agreed on its invalidity. The error is as clear as the sun, even if everyone thinks that it is true.


You are only adopting this view out of your desire to relinquish your responsibilities for your actions. The existence of absolute truth inevitably means the presence of fundamental principles of right and wrong, along with the presence of responsibility for these principles. This responsibility is what you are shying away from.


Evidence for the existence of Absolute truth:


Conscience: (The Inner Consciousness) is a set of moral guidelines that restrict human behavior, and evidence that the world works in a certain way, and that there is right and wrong. These ethical principles are social obligations, which cannot be disputed or become the subject of a public referendum. They are social facts that are indispensable to society in their content and meaning. For example, a lack of respect for parents or theft are always seen as a despicable behavior, and it cannot be justified as honesty or respect. This is always generally true for all cultures.


Science: Science is the perception of things as they are real; it is knowledge and certainty. Therefore, science necessarily depends on the belief that there are objective facts in the world that can be discovered and proven. What can be studied if there are no fixed facts? How does one know whether the scientific results are real? The scientific rules themselves are based on the existence of absolute truths.


Religion: All religions in the world give a perception, meaning and definition of life as a result of the human’s urgent desire for answers to the most in-depth questions. The human being searches for his source and destiny through religion for inner peace, which can only be achieved by obtaining answers to these questions. The existence of faith proves that man is more than just an advanced animal, unlike what Darwin’s theory states. The existence of faith also proves the presence of a higher purpose for life, which is acknowledging that there is a Creator who created us for a certain wisdom, and implanted in the human heart a desire to know Him. Indeed, the existence of the Creator is the criterion of absolute truth.


Logic: All human beings have limited knowledge and limited minds, so it is logically impossible to adopt absolute negative expressions. A human cannot logically say: “There is no God” (although many may say that), because for a person to say such a phrase, he must have absolute knowledge of the entire universe from beginning to end. Since this is impossible, the most that a person can logically do is say: “With the limited knowledge that I possess, I do not believe in the existence of God.”


Compatibility: Denying the ultimate truth leads to:


-    Contradiction with our certainty of the validity of what is in the conscience, experiences and reality.


-    Lack of right or wrong for anything in existence. If I had the right to ignore traffic rules, for example, I would put the lives of those around me at risk. Consequently, there is a collision in the standards of right and wrong among humans. Based on that, it is impossible to be sure of anything.


-    The human being obtaining absolute freedom to do crimes as he pleases.


-    It is impossible to lay down laws or achieve justice, as the majority do not have the right to impose principles on the minority.


-    A person with absolute freedom becomes an ugly being, and as it has been proven beyond any doubt that he is incapable of bearing this freedom. The wrong behavior is wrong, even if the whole world is unanimous in its validity. The only truth is that morals are not relative and do not change with time or place.

Order: The absence of absolute truth leads to:


Chaos. For example, if the law of gravity is not a scientific fact, we wouldn’t be able to trust us standing or sitting in the same place until we were moving again. Also, we will not trust that the sum of one and one is two at a time; the impact on civilization will be grave. The laws of science and physics would be irrelevant, and it would be impossible for people to buy and sell.


The absolute truth of the source of existence:


The presence of humans on planet earth carrying them in space, is like passengers of different cultures gathered on a plane that is travelling on an unknown-direction and anonymous flight. They would be forced to serve themselves and endure troubles onboard.


They received a letter by one of the cabin crew who received it from the pilot. The letter explains to the passengers the reason for their presence, the location they took off from and their destination. Also, it demonstrates his characteristics and the way to communicate with him directly.


-    The first passenger said: Yes, it is logical that the plane has a captain and he is kind, because he sent the envoy to answer our questions.


-    The second said: The plane has no captain, and I do not believe the envoy. We came from nothing, and we are here without a goal.


-    The third said: No one brought us here; we were randomly gathered.


-    The fourth said: The plane has a captain, but the envoy is the son of the captain, and the captain came in his son’s form to live among us.


-    The fifth said: The plane has a captain, but he did not send anyone. The captain of the aircraft comes in the form of everything to live among us, and there is no destination for our flight. We will stay on board.


-    The sixth said: There is no leader, and I want to take for myself a symbolic leader.


-    The seventh said: The captain exists, but he put us on board and got busy. He no longer interferes in our affairs or the plane’s affairs.


-    The eighth said: The captain exists, and I respect his envoy, but we do not need laws on board to determine whether an action was good or bad. We want references in dealing with each other due to our passions and desires, so we do what makes us happy.


-    The ninth said: The captain exists, and he is my captain alone, and you are all here to serve me. You will not reach your destination in any case.


-    The tenth said: The presence of the leader is relative, as he exists for those who believe his existence, and he does not exist for those who deny his existence. All passengers’ perceptions about this captain, the purpose of the flight, and the way the plane’s passengers deal with each other are correct.

We understand from this fictional story, which gives a glimpse of actual human perceptions that currently exist on planet earth about the origin of existence and the purpose of life that:


-    The plane has one pilot who knows how to drive the plane and leads it from one side to the other for a specific purpose. No one will disagree on this axiom.


-    The person who denies the existence of the pilot, or has multiple perceptions about him, is the one who is required to provide an explanation and clarification, and his perception may be right or wrong.


God is the ideal. Suppose we apply this symbolic story to the reality of the Creator’s existence. In that case, we find that the diversity of theories of the origin of existence does not negate the presence of one absolute truth, which is:


-    There is one and only God, the Creator, Who has no image known to humankind. He is independent of His creation. Hence, if the whole world wanted to believe that the Creator takes the form of an animal or a person, for example, this does not make this perception correct.  


-    The Creator is just. It is the Creator's justice to reward and punish. Hence, He sent messengers to guide people to the right path which is: Worshiping Him and resorting to Him alone without a priest, saint, or any mediator. Whoever deserves the reward is the one who took this path, and the punishment for those who went astray.


This is called the “religion of Islam”.


The uniqueness of the Islamic Civilization:


The Islamic civilization has dealt with the Creator well and put the relation between Him and His creations in its correct standard. In contrast, other human societies have mistreated the way they dealt with their Creator. Some people have worshipped others apart from Him. Other people disbelieved in Him. They have dealt in ways far from what He deserves in Glory and Grace.


A true Muslim doesn’t mix between matters. He knows how to establish a balance between ideologies and sciences, along with differentiating between:


-    Civilization elements, which are represented in the ideological and mental evidence, morals, and ethics.


-    Civil elements, which are represented in scientific discoveries and industrial achievements.


A Muslim deals with them in a framework of faith and morals.


    The Greek civilization believed in God, but denied His oneness and described Him as a god who does not benefit or harm.


    The Persian civilization before Islam worshipped the sun, prostrated to fire and sainted it.


    Hindus stopped worshipping the Creator and worshipped created gods, which are incarnated in the holy trinity that is composed of three gods: Brahma the creator, Vishnu who preserves the universe, and Shiva who destroys the universe.


    Buddhism denied the Creator and worshipped a created god (Buddha).


    The Sabeans, who were people of the book (have divine revelation), but then denied their Lord and worshipped the stars and planets, except for some Muslim monotheistic groups that are mentioned in the Qur’an.


    The civilization of the pharaohs had reached a peak in monotheism during the time of king Akhenaten. Yet, the civilization still symbolized God in some of His creations such as the sun, which was the main symbol of God. After that, disbelieving in God also reached its peak in the time of Moses peace be upon him when the Pharaoh claimed to be God.


    The Arabic civilization stopped worshipping God and worshipped idols instead.


    Christianity denied the oneness of God and worshipped Jesus peace be upon him along with his mother. They believed in the trinity which is represented in three co-eternal, consubstantial persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.


    The Roman civilization denied the Creator before Christianity and gave partners to Him in Christianity by worshipping idols and symbols of power.


    The Jewish civilization rejected God and chose a god of its own. They also worshipped the calf and gave God human attributes in their book. 


While these civilizations have decayed, the previously explained Christian and Jewish civilizations turned into atheist communistic and capitalistic societies. These two civilizations reached a peak in civil, industrial, and scientific developments, which are not the basis of assessing the result of a nation. But the way they dealt with God and life based on an ideological and intellectual context is considered backwards-minded, brutal and characterized with immortality.


The correct civil development standards that should be used to assess nations depend on mental evidence, and how these nations deal with God, life, man, and the universe. Real civil development should lead to a correct way in regarding God and His relationship with His creations, and that puts this relation to its right level. From this, we conclude that the Islamic civilization is the only indeed developed civilization because it merely achieved this required balance.


Why did Muslims fall behind?


The Arabs lagged when they left the correct religion and turned to science in the wrong way when they were driven after the Western method of thinking and blindly imitated them. Muslims’ alienation from their true religion and their inability to properly spread the principles of Islam has contributed in recent decades to an increase in the number of atheists, sceptics and perplexed people in the world. People in the West advanced when they abandoned the wrong beliefs, which were based on the distorted religion they had; they adopted the method of science and logic. But, with their approach to science in a proper way, they had lost the values, morals and purpose of their existence by neglecting to embrace the correct religion.

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