Can the Qur'an again, be a living, relevant force, as powerful for us now 1400 years away, as it was then? This is the most crucial question that we must answer if we wish to shape our destiny afresh under the guidance of the Qur'an. There appears, however, to be some difficulties. Not least of which has to do with the fact that the Qur'an was revealed at a certain point in time. Since then we have travelled a long way, made gigantic leaps in technological know-how, and seen considerable social changes take place in human society.

Moreover, most of the followers of the Qur'an today do not know Arabic, and many who do have little idea of the 'living' language of the Qur'an. They cannot be expected to absorb its idioms and metaphor, so essential to exploring and absorbing the depths of the Qur'anic meaning. Yet its guidance, by its own claim, has an eternal relevance for all people, being the word of the Eternal Allah. For the truth of its claim, it seems to me, it must be possible for us to receive, experience, and understand the Qur'an as its first recipients did, at least in some measure and to some degree. We seem to almost have a right to this possibility of receiving Allah's guidance in its fullness and with all its riches and joys. In other words despite historical incidence of the revelation in a particular language at that particular time and place, we should be capable of receiving the Qur'an now (because its message is eternal), capable of making its message as much a real part of our lives as it was for the first believers and with the same urgent and profound relevance for all our present concerns and experiences.

But how do we do this? To put it very forthrightly, only by entering the world of the Qur'an as if Allah were speaking to us through it now and today, and by fulfilling the necessary conditions for such an encounter. Firstly, then, we must realize what Qur'an as the word of Allah is and means to us, and bring all the reverence, love, longing and will to act that this realization demands. Secondly, we must read it as it asks to be read, as Allah's Messenger instructed us, as his Companions read it. Thirdly, we must bring each word of the Qur'an to bear upon our own realities and concerns by transcending the barriers of time, culture and change.

For the first addressees, the Qur'an was a contemporary event. Its language and style, its eloquence and rationale, its idiom and metaphor, its symbols and parables, its moments and events were all rooted in their own setting. These people were both witnesses to and in a sense, participants in the whole act of revelation as it unfolded over a period of their own time. We do not have the same privilege; yet, in some measures, the same ought to be true for us. By understanding and obeying the Qur'an in our own setting, we will find it, as far as possible, as much a contemporary event for ourselves as it was then. For the essence of man has not changed; it is immutable. Only man's externalities – the forms, the modes, the technologies – have changed. The pagans of Makka may be no more, nor the Jews of Yathrib, nor the Christians of Najran, nor even the 'faithful' and the 'unfaithful' of the community of Madina; but the same characters exist all around us. We are human beings exactly as the first recipients were, even though may find it extremely difficult to grapple with the deep implications of this very simple truth.

Once you realize the truths and follow them, once you come to the Qur'an as the first believers did, it may reveal to you as it did to them, make partners of you as it did of them. And only then, instead of being a mere revered book, a sacred fossil, or a source of magic-like blessing, it will change into a mighty force, impinging, stirring, moving and guiding us deeper and higher achievements, just as it did before.