|
Question revealing the real
reason of atheism in most of the atheists
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, and continue to do so.
Two paths before humanity
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:
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.
The path of misguidance
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. 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.
Which progress, which
science, which technology can compensate for
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.
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.
The way of true guidance
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.
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.
The Quran declares:
If
you have endless ambitions and pains,
boundless rewards and an infinite mercy
are awaiting you.
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.
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 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.
What the way of true guidance
offers
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 Qur’an
proves the truth of this decisively and
purified religious scholars and saints can
see it clearly.
The Quran continues:
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,
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 favoring 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 ‘drop’ of
it.
Consider the verses:
In order to see in the
language of the Quran the difference between
the way of the Quran 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.
(95:4-6)
and the verse which points to
the end of the misguided,
Neither the heavens nor
the earth wept over their destruction.
(44:29)
and see in what elevated and
miraculous style they express the difference!
We will make a few remarks on
the exalted truth contained in the other verse:
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.
A reflection on the Oneness
of God
I
was once reflecting on the Singleness of God
when I looked at the fruits of the tree in front
of my room. A series of reflections occurred to
me in Arabic. The following are its translation.
Glory
be to Him Who has made the garden of His earth a
display-hall of His Art, the place of exhibition
of His Wisdom, and the place where His Power is
manifested, His Mercy blossoms, the seeds of His
Paradise are sown, and His creatures call on and
depart according to a measure.
Adorned
animals, ornamented birds, fruit-bearing trees,
flowery plants are all the miracles of His
Knowledge, the wonders of His Art, the gifts of
His Munificence, and offerings of His Favoring.
Flowers smiling because of the beauty of fruits,
birds singing at the breeze of dawn, rain-drops
glittering on the cheeks of flowers, and the
compassion of mothers for their infants-all this
is because the All-Loving One wills to make
Himself known, the All-Merciful One wills to
make Himself loved, the All-Compassionate One
wills to make His Compassion known, and the
All-Favoring One wills to make His Affection
recognized, by mankind and jinn and by angels
and other spirit beings.
All
the fruits and the seeds in them are each a
miracle of Divine Wisdom, a wonder of Divine
Art, a gift of Divine Mercy, a proof of Divine
Oneness, and a sign of God’s bounties in the
Hereafter. They are true witnesses of the
all-comprehensiveness of His Power and
all-inclusiveness of His Knowledge.
The
fruits and the seeds in them are mirrors to His
Oneness in this world of multiplicity in that
each says in the tongue of its being: ‘All
this elaborate tree is included in me. Do not be
absorbed in its elaboration. All its parts and
features are encapsulated in me’. A seed is
like the heart of the fruit and a mirror to
Divine Oneness. In the tongue of its being, it
‘recites’ in heart the Divine Names which
the elaborated tree recites manifestly.
Like
mirrors to Divine Oneness, those fruits and
seeds are signs of Divine Destiny and embodied
symbols of Divine Power. Through them Destiny
indicates and Power alludes to the fact that
that elaborate tree has grown from a single seed
and thereby points to the Oneness of its Maker
with no partners in its creation and fashioning.
After it has fully grown and elaborated itself,
it encapsulates all its laws and realities and
its life-history in a fruit. It makes all its
meaning contained in a seed. In this way, it
shows the wisdom of its Majestic Creator in His
creation and government. Like that tree, the
tree of creation has also the source of its
existence and growth in Oneness. Similarly,
being the fruit of the universe, man points to
Unity in the multiplicity of beings and his
heart sees the meaning of Unity in multiplicity
with the eye of belief.
Those
fruits and seeds are also the tablets of Divine
Wisdom. Through them Wisdom speaks to conscious
beings like this: ‘All the life of this tree
and the efforts spent for its growth are aimed
at its fruits. For a fruit represents it and is
the aim in growing it. The life of the tree is
also aimed at the seeds, because like an index,
a seed bears all the meaning of the tree. That
means the One Who creates the tree and the
necessary conditions for its growth aims all the
manifestations of His Names concerned with the
whole life of the tree at the fruit, which is
the raison d’ętre of the tree’s existence.
Furthermore, that huge tree is sometimes pruned
so that its growth may be controlled and yield
better fruits for long years, (and when it is
too old or diseased to yield fruits any longer,
it is cut back but continues to live through the
new shoots from its seeds). Similarly, being the
fruit of the tree of creation, man is the reason
for the creation and existence of the universe,
and his heart is the most illumined and
comprehensive mirror of the Maker of the
universe. It is for this reason that both
himself and the world in particular and the
universe in general have undergone frequent
pruning-convulsions, revolutions, upheavals and
changes both physical and social for betterment
or reformation, and when the world gets to state
of utter decay where it will no longer be able
to yield ‘fruits of belief and morality’,
the universe will be destroyed but continue to
live in a completely new form where man will
reap the harvest of his deeds in the previous
one.
Reflection continuing on the
Resurrection.
The
whole universe will have to be destroyed and
a new one be built for the judgment of man,
and there is a Power which will do that.
However, there are stages and steps in the
Resurrection. We must believe in and acquire
knowledge of some of those stages. For the
perception and knowledge of other stages, we
must evolve spiritually and intellectually.
In order to prove the simplest stage firmly
and decisively, the wise Quran draws
attention to a Power which will open up the
broadest sphere of the Resurrection. This is
the simplest stage which all people must
know and believe in:
When
men die, their spirits go to other abodes.
Their bodies rot away in earth but a tiny
part of them, which may be regarded as the
seed of each, remains intact. It does not
rot away; during the Resurrection God
re-creates man from it and returns his
spirit into it.
This
stage of the Resurrection is so easy that
millions of examples of it are observed
every spring on the earth. In order to
convince men of this, verses of the Quran
draw attention to the operations of a Power
which will gather and then disperse all
particles. Sometimes they show the works of
a Power and Wisdom which will send the whole
of the creation into non-existence and then
re-create it. Sometimes they describe the
same Power and Wisdom as rending the heavens
asunder and scattering the stars. Sometimes
they show the operations and manifestations
of a Power and Wisdom which will make all
living creatures die and then revive them
all together at once through a single call.
Sometimes they demonstrate the works of a
Power and Wisdom which will pull up the
mountains and throw them in the air, destroy
the world utterly and level it and then
reshape it in a new, more beautiful form.
This means that, together with the phase of
the Resurrection in which men will be
re-created and which all people must believe
in and have knowledge of, Almighty God will
carry out all the other events of the
Resurrection with the same Power and Wisdom.
|
|
