{Allah is He Who created the heavens and the earth and sent down water from the clouds, then brought forth with it fruits as a sustenance for you, and He has made the ships subservient to you, that they might run their course in the sea by His command, and He has made the rivers subservient to you.} (14:32)
In the modern day, reading a verse like this can feel a little too distant. Especially that last part about ships. How many times have we ever went on a cruise or a ship for a journey? Yeah, I know we use them, but its mainly like for cargo or fancy cruises. It's not like I get to go on ships every day and become grateful all of a sudden.
I was just reading Taqi Usmani’s (the author of Maaraful Quran) tafsir commentary regarding this matter, and he mentioned something really profound. The demonstration of making the ships subservient to us can be seen as symbolism for the modern human manufacturing and technology. Just like how ships were designated to be under our full control, Allah has also placed other assets of technology under our control over the centuries. Factories, engines, automobiles, planes and everything to the very cell phone or device you are controlling to read this post. They all share this very crucial aspect of subservience. We don’t have a terminator situation, everything is subdued for our own will.
This is really important. You see, all that human beings invented as a means of convenience, comfort, and security in some shape or form by technology was only a gift of Allah as Taqi Usmani puts it. These things need praise just as we would give praise to Allah for the beautiful nature He had created for us beforehand.
This makes us see inventions and “human creations” are really under Allah’s control at the end of the day. He was the one who sparked these ideas and thoughts into people’s minds and enabled to reach its fruition in its final form. Whether its a medical discovery, a communicative platform, or a means of transportation.
This perspective, I believe, opens leeway in how to be grateful to Allah in the postmodern world we live in today. Instead of dissociating Allah from being part of modern technology and solely linking it to their human inventors, we begin to see them as an extended bounty from Allah to allow such things become under our command in the first place.
When we take it back to the source, we should start feeling a sense of responsibility, a sense of gratitude in how to really tackle and deal with these newly given assets in the best manner possible. All praise to Allah. The One who made all this comfort, security and ease subjugated to us through brilliant minds for the whole of human history.
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