Surah al-A`raf (The Elevated Places) 7 : 131

Explanatory Note

When human nature turns away from faith, it cannot see God’s hand conducting its affairs, or His will initiating events. At this stage, it loses all its appreciation of the constant laws of the universe. It starts to give events isolated, disjointed interpretations and accepts all sorts of superstition, which lack even the slightest degree of coherence. A simple example is the statement made by Khrushchev, the advocate of scientific socialism, explaining poor harvests in the Soviet Union as the opposition of nature to the socialists. Those who try to explain events in allegedly `scientific’ terms, while denying God’s will, provide another example. What is singular is that some of them still claim to be Muslims when they deny the foundations of faith altogether.
 
It was in the same vein that Pharaoh and his people interpreted events. Good fortune was their due, and it came to them because they deserved it, while affliction was the ill-omen Moses and his followers brought about.

Whatever happens to human beings has the same source, because it is decreed by God. It is to this source that their trial with affliction is attributed, as well as their trial with affluence: “We test you all with evil and good by way of trial. To Us you all must return.” (21: 35) The same source causes their punishment when they are punished for their misdeeds. But most of them do not recognize this. These ancient unbelievers were the same as those who in our present day claim for themselves `scientific pragmatism’ in order to justify their denial of God’s will and His control of what lies beyond our world. Similar to them are those ‘scientific socialists’ who attribute their poor harvests to an antagonistic nature! All of them are ignorant, devoid of knowledge.