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MAN
HAS NOT BEEN LEFT TO HIS
OWN DEVICES TO
LIVE HOWEVER HE WISHES
Left
without a support on which
to build his misguidance
and atheism the
representative of the
misguided reveals his real
intention, saying:
The
real nature of atheism
‘Since
I seek the pleasure and
happiness of the worldly
life, advancement in
civilization and
perfection of art in
denial of God, not heeding
the Hereafter, love of the
world, being free to live
however I wish and
self-assertiveness, I have
drawn most people onto
this path through the help
of Satan, and continue to
do so.’
Answer
I
say in the name of the
Quran:
O
helpless man! Come to
yourself! Do not listen to
the representative of the
misguided. If you listen
to him, you will suffer
such a great loss that
imagining it causes the
spirit, mind and heart to
shudder. There are two
paths before you:
Two
paths before man
One
is the path to which the
representative of the
misguided points and it is
a path full of dangers.
The
other is the one which the
wise Quran describes and
it is a path that brings
happiness. You have
already seen many
comparisons between these
two paths in The Words,
primarily in the first
nine short ones. Now heed
only one among a thousand,
which befits the occasion.
The
path of misguidance, and
associating partners with
God and of dissipation and
transgression of Divine
Commands, causes man to
fall to bottomless depths
of degradation, and loads
an unbearable burden onto
his weak back and his
heart with boundless
sorrows. For if a man does
not recognize Almighty God
and put his trust in Him,
he becomes like an
extremely weak and
impotent and an infinitely
poor and destitute animal,
a mortal afflicted with
pains and grieves and
subject to countless
calamities. Throughout his
life he suffers
incessantly from
separations from the
things which he loves and
has had connections with,
and leaving his friends
and relatives remaining in
life in pains of
separation, he enters into
the dark depths of the
grave alone.
Also,
he struggles in vain, with
a limited will, little
power, a short life-span
and a dull mind, against
infinite pains and
ambitions. He strives to
realize his countless
desires and goals without
any considerable result.
While he is unable to bear
the burden of his own
being, he loads his
miserable mind and back
with the tremendous burden
of the world. Before going
to Hell, he suffers the
torments of Hell.
In
order to be able to endure
that sort of painful
spiritual torment, a
misguided one leads
himself to the drunkenness
of heedlessness as some
sort of anaesthesia.
However, when he has
approached the grave, he
begins to feel it most
acutely. For since he has
refused to become a true
servant to Almighty God,
he supposes himself to be
the owner of his self.
Whereas he is unable to
govern his being in this
tumultuous world with his
limited free will and
insignificant power and
encounters numerous
enemies from harmful
microbes to earthquakes
ready to attack him. In
painful fear and terror he
looks to the door of the
grave, which always
appears terrifying to him.
Furthermore,
on account of being human,
he is related to humankind
and the whole of the
world. But since he does
not believe the world and
mankind to be at the
disposal of the One Who is
All-Wise, All-Knowing,
All-Powerful,
All-Compassion-ate, and
All-Munificent, and
attributes their existence
and lives to chance and
nature, the fearful events
of the world and the
conditions and experiences
of mankind always trouble
him. Together with his own
pains, he also suffers
from the troubles of other
creatures. The
convulsions, earthquakes,
plagues, calamities,
deaths and famines, which
visit the world, inflict
upon him unbearable
torments.
A
man in this position does
not deserve mercy and
affection for it is
himself who throws himself
into such a terrible
state. As is pointed out
in The Eighth Word,
comparing the states of
the two brothers who
happened to fall into
wells, if a man who, not
content with an agreeable
and lawful enjoyment and
entertainment in a fine
banquet among honest
friends in a beautiful
garden, has become drunk
with foul wine for the
sake of a disagreeable
pleasure, imagines himself
to be surrounded by wild
beasts in a dirty place on
a winter day and begins to
tremble and cry in fear,
he will not deserve pity.
For he is imagining his
honest friends to be wild
beasts and insulting them,
and supposing the
delicious foods as foul
and the clean, fine plates
and bowls as worthless,
dirty stones, is breaking
whatever he touches, and
judging the invaluable
meaningful books which
have been brought to read
and study to be ordinary
meaningless collections of
sheets, is tearing them up
and throwing them around.
Rather than compassion and
pity, such a man deserves
punishment.
Similarly,
since through the
drunkenness of unbelief
and insanity of
misguidance arising from
the abuse of will-power, a
man asserts that the
All-Wise Maker’s
guest-house of the world
is a plaything of chance
and nature, and that the
transference of beings to
the world of the Unseen
after each has completed
its duty of refreshing the
manifestations of the
Divine Names is going into
absolute non-existence;
since he judges the
glorifications of beings
and their recitations of
the Divine Names to be
outcries of deaths and
eternal separations, and
those sheets of creatures
which are each a missive
of the Eternally
Besought-of-All to be
confused, meaningless
collections; since he sees
the door of the grave,
which is opened on the
world of mercy, as the
opening of a dark world of
non-existence and death
(while it is in fact an
invitation to re-union
with friends and beloved
ones), as absolute
separation from all
friends and beloved ones;
he makes himself subject
to alterable and painful
torment, and since he
denies, rejects and
insults both creatures and
the Divine Names and His
inscriptions and missives,
he in no way deserves pity
and compassion, rather he
deserves a severe
punishment.
Do
science and technology
compensate for the
darkness of death?
So,
O unfortunate people of
misguidance and
dissipation! Which
progress and evolution of
yours and which sciences,
which technology and
civilization of yours can
compensate for such a
terrible loss and collapse
and crushing hopelessness?
Where can you find the
true consolation which the
human spirit needs first
of all and most urgently?
What nature, what
causality and whatever
else on which you rely and
to which you attribute the
works of God and His
bounties and favors, and
what discoveries and
inventions of yours and
what idols and fetishes,
can save you from the
darkness of death, which
you suppose to be eternal
extinction, and take you
across the boundaries of
the intermediate world of
the grave and the place of
the Resurrection and
Gathering and over the
Bridge to the Abode of
Eternal Happiness?
Whereas,
since you are unable to
close the door of the
grave, you are bound to
traverse, to tread this
way which reaches the One
under Whose command and at
Whose disposal are all
those worlds and abodes.
The
potential of loving
misspent
Also,
O unfortunate, misguided
and heedless people! Since
you use unlawfully in love
of your selves and the
world, the potential of
loving and knowing which
was given to you to know
and love God and His
Attributes and Names, and
your body and faculties
granted to you to worship
and thank Him, you are
suffering the punishment
which you deserve. Since
you assign to your selves
the love which must be
felt for Almighty God, you
are suffering the troubles
which your selves cause
you. You do not provide a
true peace and happiness
for that object of your
adoration, which is your
carnal self. Since you do
not submit it to the
Absolutely Powerful One,
the True Beloved One, with
utmost trust in Him, you
always suffer pains. Since
you assign to the world
the love belonging to the
Names and Attributes of
Almighty God, and
attribute the works of His
art to causality and
nature, you are getting
your deserts. The things
among which you share out
your love either leave you
without saying good-bye or
do not recognize you. Even
if they recognize you,
they do not love you. Even
if they love you, they
give you no benefit. You
suffer from incessant
separations and deaths
without hope of re-union.
This
is the reality of what the
misguided call happiness
of life and human
perfection and beauties of
civilization and pleasures
of freedom. Dissipation
and drunkenness are a veil
which may temporarily keep
them from feeling those
sufferings and pains.
As
for the light-diffusing
highway of the Quran,
it heals the wounds with
which the misguided are
afflicted, with the truths
of belief, and disperses
all the darkness
enveloping them. It closes
up all the doors of
misguidance and wasting.
How
do man’s essential
weakness and destitution
the
source of his real power
and richness?
The
way of the Quran
removes the weakness and
impotence of man and his
poverty and neediness
through trust in an
All-Powerful One of
Compassion. In this way
man submits the burden of
his being and life to His
Power and Mercy and rather
than being loaded with
that burden, he makes his
self and life a mount for
himself. This way teaches
him that he is not a
speaking animal but a true
human being and a welcomed
guest of the All-Merciful
One. Showing the world as
a guest-house of the
All-Merciful One and the
creatures in it as the
mirrors of the Divine
Names and ever-recruited
missives of the Eternally
Besought-of-All, it heals
perfectly the wounds
caused by the transience
of the world, decay of
things and love of
mortals, and saves man
from the darkness of whims
and fancies.
The
way of the Quran shows
life to be the prelude to
re-union with the friends
and beloved ones who have
already gone to the other
world, and thereby heals
the wounds of death, which
the misguided regard as an
eternal separation. It
establishes that that
separation is in reality
the re-union itself.
By
demonstrating that the
grave is a door opened on
the world of mercy, the
abode of happiness, the
gardens of Paradise and
the luminous realm of the
All-Merciful One, the way
of the Quran removes
the greatest fear of
mankind and shows the
journeying in the
intermediate world which
is, in appearance, most
depressing and
troublesome, to be most
pleasant and exhilarating.
It demonstrates that the
grave is not like a dragon’s
mouth but a door opened on
the gardens of Divine
Mercy.
It
says to the believer:
Seeing that you have a
most limited will-power,
then leave your affairs to
the universal Will of your
Owner. If you have a
slight, insignificant
power, then rely on the
Power of the Absolutely
Powerful One. If you have
a short life, consider the
eternal life. If you have
a dull mind, enter in the
sun of the Quran. Look
at it with the light of
belief so that in place of
your mind, which gives
light like a firefly, each
of the Quran’s verses
gives you light like a
star.
If
you have endless ambitions
and pains, boundless
rewards and an infinite
mercy are awaiting you.
The
world is not the place
where all aims and
desires can be
fulfilled
If
you cherish limitless
desires and aims, do not
be anxious for them. The
world is not the place
where you can realize all
of them. You can realize
them in another realm, and
the One Who has given them
to you is One other than
you.’
It
also says: “O man! You
do not own yourself. You
are one owned by One
infinitely Powerful and an
infinitely Compassionate
One of Majesty. That being
so, do not give yourself
trouble by loading your
being and life onto
yourself, for the One Who
has given you your life is
He, and the One Who
governs it is again He.
“Then
the world has an Owner,
Who is the All-Wise and
the All-Knowing. Whatever
He does, He does it out of
compassion. Even His wrath
is based on His Compassion
in many respects. You are
His guest in His world, so
do not interfere with what
is beyond the realm of
your power and
responsibility.
“Next,
living beings like men and
animals are not free, left
to themselves. They are
officials charged with
certain duties, and
controlled and favored by
an All-Compassionate
Ruler, Who has preferred
them over most of His
creatures. He is much more
compassionate towards them
than you.
“Furthermore,
all things and events from
microbes to catastrophes
like plagues, floods,
droughts and earthquakes
which, in appearance, are
hostile to you, are
controlled and governed by
that All-Compassionate
Ruler. He is the All-Wise,
doing nothing useless, and
the All-Compassionate, in
every act of Whom is a
kind of grace.”
This
world is transient but
the necessities of the
afterlife are obtained
in it.
It
adds: “This world is
transient but the
necessities of the
afterlife are obtained in
it. It is doomed to decay
but it yields everlasting
fruits and displays the
manifestations of the
Eternal Names of a
Permanent One. In return
for its few pleasures it
causes one to suffer many
pains and afflictions but
the favors of the
All-Merciful,
All-Compassionate One are
true and lasting
pleasures, and its pains
are the cause of obtaining
many spiritual rewards.
Since the sphere of the
lawful is sufficient for
the enjoyment and
pleasures of the spirit,
heart and carnal self, do
not enter the sphere of
the unlawful: any illicit
pleasure results in
numerous pains. It also
causes one to lose the
favors of the All-Merciful
One, which are pure,
lasting pleasures.
“In
the way of misguidance man
falls so low that no trend
of philosophy, nor
scientific development, no
human civilization and
progress can pull him up
out of that deep pit of
darkness. Through belief
and righteous deeds, the
wise Quran takes man
out of that lowest of the
low and raises him to the
highest of the high. It
fills up that deep pit
with the steps of
spiritual progress and the
means of spiritual
perfection.
“The
way of the Quran
facilitates man’s long,
troubling and stormy
journeying in the
direction of eternity. It
shows him the means with
which to traverse in a day
the distance which would
normally take him fifty
thousand years to cover.
“Also,
by enabling man to know
the majestic Being, Who is
the King of Eternity,
uncontained by time and
space, it honors him with
the position of being a
dutiful servant and guest
of His, and secures him an
easy and comfortable
journeying through the
world and the mansions of
the intermediate world of
the grave and the
Hereafter. Just as a
righteous, dutiful
official of a king travels
in his domain in security
with fast vehicles of
transport like planes or
trains or ships and
crosses the boundaries of
its provinces without
encountering any
difficulty, so too a man
who is connected with the
Eternal King through
belief and shows his
obedience to Him through
righteous deeds, travels
through the mansions, and
across the boundaries, of
the world and the realms
of the grave and the
Hereafter with the speed
of lightning or Buraq, the
mount of Paradise, and
finds eternal happiness.
The Quran proves the
truth of this decisively
and purified religious
scholars and saints can
see it clearly.”
The
Quran also says: O
believer! Do not use your
infinite capacity of
loving in favor of your
carnal self, which is
ugly, defective and evil,
and harmful to you. Do not
adore it and do not follow
its desires and fancies as
if it were an object of
worship. Use the infinite
capacity of loving given
to you in favor of the One
worthy of infinite love,
Who does you infinite good
and will make you
infinitely happy in the
future, Who through His
favors makes happy those
with whom you have
connections and whose
happiness pleases you; One
with infinite perfection
and infinitely sacred,
transcendent, pure,
perfect and undecaying
beauty, Whose every Name
radiates numerous lights
of beauty and grace and
the beauty of Whose Mercy
and the mercy in Whose
Beauty are displayed in
Paradise, and Whose Beauty
and Perfection all the
beauty, grace and
perfection in the universe
which are lovable, point
to and are signs of: love
Him, and make Him the sole
object of your worship.
Do
not use your infinite
capacity of loving in
loving impermanent
beings.
Furthermore
it says: O man! Do not use
your infinite capacity of
loving, which has in fact
been given to you to love
His Names and Attributes,
in loving impermanent
beings. For whatever or
whoever other than Him is
mortal. Whereas the Divine
Beautiful Names manifested
on mortals are permanent
and constant. Each of
those Names and Attributes
has thousands of degrees
of favouring and thousands
of levels of perfection
and love. Consider, for
example, the Name the
All-Merciful: Paradise is
a single manifestation of
it, and the eternal
happiness, a single
radiance, and all the
provisions and bounties
bestowed on creatures in
the world are a ëdrop’
of it.
In
order to see in the
language of the Quran
the difference between the
way of the Qur’an and
that of the misguided,
which we have so far been
trying to elaborate,
consider the verses,
Surely,
We have created man in
the fairest form and
the best pattern of
creation. Then We have
returned him to the
lowest of the low,
except those who
believe and do
righteous deeds.
and
the verse which points to
the end of the misguided,
Neither
the heavens nor the earth
wept over their
destruction.
and
see in what elevated and
miraculous style they
express the difference!
The
verse explicitly states
that the heavens and the
earth do not weep over the
death of the misguided.
Therefore, it implies that
when a believer dies, the
heavens and the earth shed
tears over them.
Since
the misguided people do
not know the meaning of
the heavens and the earth
and do not recognize their
Maker, and since they deny
their duties and reduce
their value, and thereby
insult them and show ‘hostility’
toward them, when they
die, the heavens and the
earth do not weep over
them, rather they are
pleased with their death.
But they weep over the
death of believers because
the believers know the
duties of the heavens and
the earth and affirm the
reality they bear. Through
belief they know the
meaning they have and
admit: how beautifully
they have been created!
how well they perform
their duties! The
believers acknowledge
their value and pay them
their due respect. They
love them and the Names to
which they are mirrors in
the name of Almighty God.
It is for this reason that
the heavens and the earth
are grieved for their
death.
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