In the brief span of our own lifetime, we have experienced

two wotld wan and are now as r matter of coum looking for-
ward to a third. It is true that those who came out victorious in

the first, talked of ending dl wan and created a machinery of
me, the League of Nations, and when that proved of no avail
1 they found themselves cngagd in another war, a more
ious affair than tbe first, a~d were triumphant a'pin, they
rated to their talk of ,ending wars, and set up another machi-
#y, the United Nations Organbation, holding out tbe hope
~t things would improve and the world return to peace. That
~ce it still eluding us
The achievements of science had shattered for as she old
rrp'cn sf time and spaa and reduced tbis globe of ours into bat
mall bowe wherein even whispers could be heard Gom Corner
comer. Never before was tbtte so great an opportoaity lor
nkind to come cla.;e together md demonstrate that they were
-1s "Children of God"- as Christ caaceived, or one single family,
the "Family of God"1 as did tbe hvhet of Islam, 6qesc~p man,
a brother unto every otherW.a had yet even this small boose
runds divided, a victim to two powerful eoafliaing forces, one
represented by Soviet Russia, and the other by Cae U.S.A., curie
ocrsty both memben of one and the same pace organ t sation
How loeg is tbit sate ad atbin to last? The coaRio, is Hs
stated, is one ofk~m1ogks. b if so? E~uea Bike the Ammican,
the %Get Bloc Bas its ewn vctcabtsl~ry of pe.ra, making im
appeal to the same natnsal fear nf war and orhh for stcurisy.

The So:.&t rulers, mn as thee who hold the reins of GOVC~R-
meas on the otkr side, talk of peop8r'a dcmsmaclrp and profess to

entctta;nrr a lfks distaste fcr impirialists and waramonares ;a
citk as, the p104ksed sbjeaiae is a hi$9cr,mnd~re8' of !iw9ag

for the common man. Given mat& &-will, it should not be
impassible to reconcile two such ideologks as profess a common
purpose. hidetd, if reconciliatiolo on every detail ir not possible,
smely, the two systems can work ide by ride on the bads of
mlermce and possible co-operation. And yet the organisation of
the United Nations whose function it was to eliminate friction
between its members and effict a rapprnachement has so far made
no visible move to bring about a reconciliation between the twa~.
Under its very nose armaments are piling up every day in either
ap. A 'cold war' is already on.
Frankly, this is ne conflict in favour of the economic uplift
of tbe common nian. In fact, there is no ideology involved here.
At all events. the common man is not the centre of thought in
either company. What is it ail about then i I may not persuade
myself to exclaim with the Duke of Albany in King Lerr: '' 'Tis

the timer' plague, when mad mrn lead the blind.'. Still, my fiel-
ing is that the answer lies somewhere in the neighbourbood of

that utterance. The s&hin shalt inherit the earth"8, says tht
Qur'an, men who maintain poise in life and protect it from e~cy
form of exploitation.. It is they who function as the 'Vicegerents
of God9sn earth and create and sastain therein the order that
subsists in the Univarse.4 Could it be that there is a dearth of
this type in our midst t Could it !x that the conflict is in troth a
race betwee& those who lead the blind?
The cult of nationalism is now staiking in the land with its
emphasis on the interests of individual nations and its reluctance
to spread that emphasis equably on the interests of mankind as a
whole. Interwoven with the texture of modern democracy, it

has given a degraded aspect to the democratic principle of suff-
rage and thwarted she rise of safehin to helm the affairs of every

country, and in consequence prevented humanity from growing
into the Propbet's vision of ose world, of a fold "every member
af which shall be a shepherd unto every other, and be accountable
for the welfare sf the foldm'.s It is this shepherd mind that we
need today to make a success of the U. N. 0. El~c, even this
or~anizati~n will go the way its forbears have gone, strotting

fop a while as bat a clearing bow of iatemidd espionage
The cause of unity aad of dvilhtioa is mod hgly neither by
capitalism nor by comnaunism which is but a violent reaceion ta
it, bat by a harry interaction sf the two, both rdned and
tarnuraped by the sew-same spirit of nationalinn.
The task of rooting out tbis evil or of humanizing it, is r
spiritual function; and it is for the religions of the wodd to show
the way. Of late, :hey have been relegated into the background,

and ia their place, the idol of seculaldsm has been i~stalled every-
where, as if secularism in any form can endure for long without

some spiritual basis to it. That basis will have to be furnished by
religioa ultimately. Else, secularism divorced from spirituality
will multiply the evils proceeding from nationalism and vitiate
humaq life still further. A return to the unifying clement in
every religion is the only refuge for man today, rod that is
gossibld only when it is cleared of accretions. The unity of God
stressed by religion, is according to the Qur'an, to express itself
in the ualty sf man,@ or in a peaceful order of existence for man.
That is its true role. It is for those who share this view to study
and disclose the potentialities that lie latent in their several faiths
to &velop the shepberd mind the world needs, and create a band
of &&hin in every part of the world, who may conjointly and=-
vour to restore poise to human lifc and pave the way to one
world.
Born to the faith of the Qur'rm and grown in itsatmosphere,
it has been but natural for me, and easy to study the possibi]itia
furnished by it to mould this shepherd mind for the world of
teday. Snictly speaking, my study is a study in introspection, a
bringing to mind of the values of life wbich in the course of
bistory have been very largely laid aside bv my brethren i.n faith.

The task has been undertaken in humility and in full coqscious-
ness of.my limitations. In the pursuit of it, I confess. I have had

to tread on deIicate ground and try to negotiate with certain
deep-seated sentiments entertained byshem. My only justification
is my urge to lift, as far as 1 could, the veils that have been
Jlowd to mt on the Qur'an, red to let it #peak for iesclf unbin-

Book THE MIND ALQUR'AN BUILDS author :