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QUESTIONS CONCERNING
PARADISE
In the Name of
God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate.
Give glad tidings
to those who believe and do good
deeds; for them are Gardens
underneath which rivers flow; every
time they are provided with fruit
thereof, they say: ‘This is what
we were provided with before,’ and
it is given to them in resemblance.
There for them are pure spouses and
they shall abide there for ever.
(2:25)
The descriptions in
the verses of the Quran about
Paradise, which are more beautiful than
Paradise itself, and sweeter than the
pleasant water of its springs, leave no
one anything to add. However, we shall
point out some steps in order to make
understandable those brilliant, eternal,
elevated, and beautiful verses, and
explain some fine points that are of the
kind of the flowers from that Quranic
paradise. We shall point to them through
five significant questions and answers.
What
does the defective, changing, and
unstable body have to do with eternity
and paradise? The elevated pleasures of
the spirit must be enough. Why should a
bodily resurrection take place for
corporeal pleasures?
Since, despite its
darkness and density in contrast to
water, air, and light, earth is the
means and source of all the varieties of
the works of Divine art, in meaning it
has some superiority to the other
elements. Also, despite its density, on
account of being comprehensive and
provided it is purified, man’s
selfhood gains some kind of superiority
to his other senses and faculties.
Likewise, man’s body is a most
comprehensive and rich mirror to the
manifestations of the Divine Names. It
has been equipped with the instruments
to weigh and measure the contents of all
of the Divine treasuries. For example,
if the sense of taste in the tongue was
not the origin of as many measures as
the varieties of food and drink, it
could not experience each and recognize
them; it could not measure them.
Furthermore, the instruments with which
to experience and recognize the
manifestations of most of the Divine
Names, and the faculties for
experiencing the most various and
infinitely different pleasures are also
in the body.
Since, as is
understood clearly from the conduct of
the universe and the comprehensiveness
of man, the Maker of the universe wants
through the universe to make known all
the treasuries of His Mercy, and all the
manifestations of His Names, and to make
us experience all the varieties of His
bounties, for sure, the world of eternal
happiness, which is a mighty pool into
which the flood of the universe flows
and a vast exhibition of the products of
the loom of the universe and the
everlasting store of the crops produced
in the field of the world, will resemble
the universe to a degree. The All-Wise
Maker, the All-Com-passionate Just One,
will give as wages for the duties of the
bodily organs and in reward for their
services and particular types of
worship, pleasures particular to each.
To think otherwise would be contrary to
His Wisdom, Justice and Compassion.
Why
are eating and sexual relations included
in the pleasures of paradise?
A living body is in
constant formation and deformation and
subject to disintegration; therefore it
cannot be eternal. Eating and drinking
are for the perpetuation of the
individual, and sexual relations are for
the perpetuation of the species. These
are fundamental to the worldly life but
there is no need for them in the world
of eternity. So why have they been
included in the greatest pleasures of
Paradise?
Answer:
Firstly, a living body is doomed to
decline and death because of the
imbalance between what it takes in and
what it consumes. From childhood to the
age of maturity, what it takes in is
more than it expends. Afterwards its
expenditure increases until it results
in the destruction of the balance and
death. In the world of eternity,
however, the particles of the body
remain constant and are not subject to
disintegration and reformation. Or the
balance between the body’s income and
consumption remains constant.2 Like
moving in perpetual cycles, a living
body gains eternity together with the
constant operation of the factory of
bodily life for pleasure. Although in
this world eating, drinking and sexual
relations between married couples arise
from a need and perform a function, a
great variety of excellent pleasures are
ingrained in them as an immediate wage
for the functions performed, which are
superior to other pleasures. Since in
this world of ailments eating and
marriage are means to many wonderful and
various pleasures, for sure, in
Paradise, which is the realm of
happiness and pleasures, those pleasures
will take on a most elevated form, and
with the addition to them as pleasures
of the otherworldly wages for the duties
performed in the world and of the need
felt for them in the world in the form
of a pleasant, otherworldly appetite,
they will become an all-encompassing,
living source of pleasure, appropriate
to Paradise and eternity.
This life of the
world is nothing but a pastime and a
game, but the Abode of the Hereafter, it
is all living indeed.
According to the
verse, all the lifeless and unconscious
substances and objects in this world are
living and conscious there. Like human
beings and animals here, the trees and
stones there will understand commands
and carry them out. If you tell a tree
to bring you such-and-such a fruit, it
will bring it. If you tell a stone to
come, it will come. Since stones and
trees will take on such an elevated
form, for sure and of a necessity,
together with preserving their bodily
realities, eating, drinking and marital
relations also will take on a form as
much higher than their worldly forms as
Paradise is higher than this world.
A
hadith says: ‘a person is with whom he
loves. ’ So, how can an ordinary
believer be together with the prophet in
paradise?
According to the
meaning of the hadith, , friends will be
together in Paradise. This requires that
a simple Bedouin who feels a deep love
for God’s Messenger in one minute’s
companionship with him should be
together with God’s Messenger, upon
him be peace and blessings, in Paradise.
But how can illumination and reward of a
simple nomad cause him to share the same
place with God’s Messenger, whose
illumination and reward are limitless?
Answer:
I shall point to this elevated truth by
a comparison. For example, in an
extremely beautiful and splendid garden,
a magnificent person prepared a vast
banquet and richly-adorned spectacle in
such a way that it included all the
delicious foods that the sense of taste
can experience, and all the beautiful
things that please the sense of sight,
and all the wonders that amuse the
faculty of imagination, and so on; he
included in it everything that would
gratify and please all the external and
inner senses. Two friends went together
to that banquet, and sat at a table in
the same pavilion. But the sense of
taste of one of them was very limited,
he received little pleasure. His power
of sight was weak, and he had no sense
of smell, and therefore he could not
understand the wonderful arts nor
comprehend the marvels. Proportionally
to his capacity, he could only benefit
from and take pleasure at that beautiful
place of recreation to the degree of a
thousandth or millionth. As for the
other man, since all his external and
inner senses, his intellect, heart, and
all his faculties and feelings, had been
developed to the utmost degree, he could
perceive and experience all the
subtleties and beauties, and marvels and
fine things in that exquisite garden,
and derive all varieties of pleasure
from them.
Since it is so in
this confused, painful and narrow world,
and there is as great difference as from
the ground to the Pleiades between the
greatest and the least who exist side by
side, for sure, in Paradise, which is
the abode of happiness and eternity,
while friends are together, it is more
fitting for them that each will receive
his share from the table of the Most
Merciful of the Merciful in accordance
with the degree of his abilities.
Besides, even though they are in
different Paradises or different
ëfloors’ of Paradise, it will not
prevent them from coming together. For
although the eight levels of Paradise
are one above the other, the roof of all
of them is the Supreme Throne of God.
Suppose there are walled circles round a
conical mountain, one within the other
and one above the other from its foot to
the summit, the circles are one over the
other, concentric with, and look to, one
another, but do not prevent each other
seeing the sun. (Indeed, there are
various narrations or hadiths indicating
that the levels or floors of Paradise
are in a manner like this.)
What
is the use of giving a single person a
place as large as the world in
paradise?
Some Prophetic
traditions say: ‘Some of the people of Paradise
will be given a place as large as the
world.’ What is the reason for
this and why and how does a single man
need this? What does this mean?
Answer: If
man was only a solid object, or was only
a vegetable creature consisting of a
stomach, or consisted only of a limited,
heavy, simple, and transient corporal or
animal body, he would not own, nor
deserve, so many palaces. But man is
such a comprehensive miracle of the
Divine Power that even in this transient
world and brief life, if he is given the
rule of the whole of the world with all
its wealth and pleasures, to gratify the
need of some of his undeveloped senses
and faculties, it will not be possible
to satisfy his greed. Whereas, a man
with an infinite capacity in an eternal
abode of happiness, who will knock on
the door of infinite Mercy in the tongue
of infinite needs, will of a certainty
and most reasonably receive the Divine
bounties described in hadiths. We shall
try to see this elevated truth through
the telescope of a comparison, which is
as follows.
Although, like this
valley garden, each of the vineyards and
gardens of Barla has a different owner,
each bird, each sparrow, each honey-bee
in Barla, which possesses with regard to
food only a handful of grain, may say:
‘All the vineyards and gardens of
Barla are my places of recreation.’
Each may take possession of Barla and
include it in its property. Others
sharing it does not limit its rule. A
man who is truly human may say: ‘My
Creator has made the world home for me,
with the sun as its chief lamp and the
stars, its electric lights. The earth is
my cradle spread with flowered carpets.’
He offers thanks to God. The other
creatures sharing it does not negate
this conclusion of his. On the contrary,
the creatures adorn his home and are
like its decorations.
If on account of
being human, a man in this narrow brief
world--even a bird--claims a power of
disposal over such a vast area and
receives such a vast bounty, how can it
be deemed unlikely that he will be given
the ownership of a property stretching a
distance of five hundred years of walk
in a broad and eternal abode of
happiness?
Just as in this
dense, narrow world the sun is present
at the same moment in numerous mirrors,
so too, a spiritually enlightened being
may be present in many places at the
same moment. For example, the Archangel
Gabriel, upon him be peace, being
present on a thousand stars at the same
moment he is at the Supreme Throne of
God, and in the presence of the Prophet,
upon him be peace and blessings, and in
the Divine Presence; and the Prophet
Muhammad, upon him be peace and
blessings, meeting with most of the
devoted, God-fearing members of his
community in the Place of Gathering
after the Resurrection at the same
moment and appearing in this world in
countless places at the same moment; and
a strange group of the saints known as abdal
(the substitutes), appearing at the same
moment in many places; and ordinary
people sometimes doing as much as a year’s
work in one minute in a dream or having
vision of it; and everyone being in
contact with and concerned in many
places at the same time in heart, in
spirit, and in imagination-all these are
well-known and witnessed. So, most
certainly in Paradise, which is of
light, unrestricted, broad, and eternal,
the people of Paradise, who will have
bodies of the strength and lightness of
the spirit and of the swiftness of
imagination, being in hundreds of
thousands of places at the same time,
and conversing with hundreds of
thousands of people, and receiving
pleasure in hundreds of thousands of
ways, is fitting for that eternal
Paradise, that infinite Mercy, and as
reported by the Truthful Reporter, upon
him be peace and blessings, is reality
and the truth. Nevertheless, these vast
truths cannot be weighed on the scales
of our tiny minds.
Question
What is the use of
such a vast and empty garden of
Paradise?
Answer:
If
you were able to travel throughout the
world and most of the stars with the
speed of imagination, you could assert
that the whole of the world belonged to
you. The fact that the angels, other
people and animals share this space with
you would not negate your assertion.
What
is the greatest blessing in paradise?
The result of belief
and love of God is the eternal life of
Paradise and vision of God. The people
of spiritual discovery and truth-seeking
have all agreed that a thousand years of
happy life in this world is not worth
one hour of life in Paradise, and a
thousand years of heavenly life is not
worth one hour’s vision of the
Majestic One in His absolute sacred
Beauty and Perfection free of all kinds
of defects. The seeing of Him is
established by the Qur’an and
authentic Prophetic traditions, one of
which says: “That vision far excels
all the other pleasures of Paradise, so
much so that it causes them to be
forgotten. After the vision of God the
people of Paradise will have increased
in beauty and loveliness to such a
degree that the couples will be able to
recognize each other with great
difficulty.”
Everyone feels in the
depths of his being a great longing to
see one like the Prophet Solomon, upon
him be peace, who is famous for his
magnificent perfection, and a great
yearning to behold one like the Prophet
Joseph, upon him be peace, who is
distinguished for his beauty. So, if you
can, compare how deeply desired and
yearned for, and with what degree of
passion, is the seeing of Him, in one
manifestation of Whose Beauty and
Perfection consists all the beauties and
perfections of Paradise, which are
thousands of times more elevated than
all the beauties and perfections of this
world.
Glory be to You!
We have no knowledge save what You
have taught us. Surely You are the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
O Lord! Do not
call us to account if we forget or
fall into error. O God! Bestow
blessings on Your beloved, who
opened the doors of Paradise through
being beloved by You and through his
prayers, and whose community You
enabled to open those doors through
calling Your blessings on him, on
him be blessings and peace.
O God! Enter us
into Paradise among the pure,
righteous ones, through the
intercession of Your chosen beloved.
Amen.
O God, provide us
in this world with love of You and
love of what will draw us near to
You, and with the uprightness You
command, and, in the Hereafter, with
Your Mercy and the vision of You.
O God! Bestow
blessings and peace upon him whom
You raised as a mercy for all the
worlds, and upon all his family and
Companions, Amen.
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