Al-Hijr

The freedom enjoyed by man will last only for the duration of the period of testing. This is a very critical issue. If a man seriously thinks this problem over, he will feel that the period which is going to end tomorrow has, as it were, ended today itself. This thought will shake him terribly. But man lives his life in ‘today’. He does not pay attention to ‘tomorrow’. Reality lies exposed before him, but he remains engrossed in wishful thinking. He seeks out some imaginary supports of his own devising and thinks that they will help him on the Day of Judgement. But such wishful thinking will not come to his rescue when the period of testing is over and God’s angels come to take him away from the world of trial to the world of retribution. At a time like this, he starts remembering the occasions when he had tried to reject a genuine argument by mouthing false words; when he had ignored the voice of his conscience and followed the desires of the self; when purely out of self-interest he had ignored the divine preacher of truth, in spite of seeing glimpses of God in him. When he sees that no device of his has been of any avail, he will say, ‘Alas! I should not have done what I have done! I should have adopted the way of one who surrenders to the Truth instead of the way of one who rejects the Truth.’

The Quran.

The addressees of the Prophet Muhammad suspected him of being mad. What was the reason for this? The reason for this was his declaration that he was a representative of God; that one who accepted his word would be successful, while one who did not would remain a failure. But the addressees themselves actually perceived things to be just the opposite. They were of the view that the prevalent system had bestowed the position of leadership on them. On the contrary, the Prophet, due to his being a preacher of an unconventional religion, was a stranger and a man without a status in the prevalent system. Because of these apparent shortcomings, the addressees were emboldened to say that he (the Prophet) appeared to them to be a madman. They said, ‘God has given us all kinds of worldly glories, yet still you say that success lies with you and your supporters.’ But such thinking was caused by a difference in perception. The addressees regarded whatever was material in their possession as ‘rewards’, though all of these things were simply a means of trial, given to all and sundry on a temporary basis. They also used to say, ‘You claim that the angels of God come to you. Then why are these angels not visible to us?’ This comment too was due to a difference of point of view. An angel who comes to a prophet is the angel of revelation. He brings God’s words to the prophet. Besides this angel there are other angels of God who come to the people in order to uncover the reality to them. But they come after the process of conveying the truth to the people is over. And when they come, it is the time for judgement and not the time for calling people to the faith.

The Quran.

God’s prophets were scoffed at in every age. The reason for this was that people judged their worth as representatives of God by self-devised, imaginary standards. The contemporary prophets did not appear to match up to the said standards, and so were dismissed as objects of ridicule. In order to discover a new reality, it is necessary for a man to think with an open mind and be prepared to form an opinion purely on the basis of facts. Those who reject the truth do so mostly because the truth appears to them strange in relation to their own familiar standards. Over a long period of time those familiar standards permeate their hearts to such an extent that it becomes impossible for them to think of accepting alternatives. Till the last moment they are unable to emerge from the sphere familiar to them and recognize the truth. The result of this attitude in communities was that the people belonging to them, in spite of being shown miracles, did not embrace the faith. Once they judged a prophet to be an ordinary man, basing their opinion on purely material factors, the person so judged could never be anything more than ordinary in their eyes. Even if he performed supernatural feats in front of them, their ideas were so rooted in the earlier traditions that he went on seeming unimportant, and so they would hold that his feats were just magic or some optical illusion and not a proof of his being a representative of God.

This does not refer simply to the wonderful appearance of the sky at night. There are innumerable stars spread out in the universe, grouped in clusters, called constellations. Our own constellation is called the ‘Milky Way.’ During the night, when the atmosphere is free of clouds, dust, etc., when one stands on open ground and casts a glance at the sky, the array of twinkling stars in the vastness of the heavens is so wonderfully glorious that, on seeing it, man becomes overwhelmed by the feeling of God’s greatness and majesty. Those who used to tell the Prophet he should show an angel descending from heaven were asked, ‘Is the scene of the stars in the sky shown to you every day not enough to awaken your consciousness and is it not enough to melt your hearts? Must you then demand further miracles?’

Satan too has been allowed to settle along with human beings on the earth. Here, he enjoys full freedom to go wherever he likes. But in God’s world beyond this earth, insurmountable hindrances have been placed in the path of Satan, so that he is unable to go beyond a certain limit.

When initially deep seas and oceans were created on the earth, high hills emerged at various places on the earth in order to balance them. After this, vegetation and animals came into existence and flourished in profusion, each one of them having a great capacity to grow. But it is clear that there is a fixed measure for everything. Everything goes on growing but, at a certain limit, it stops; it is not able to go on any further. For instance, plants and trees have such an immense capacity for reproducing themselves that if one plant were allowed to grow in accordance with its internal capacity and without any restriction, within a few years that same plant would be seen covering the whole surface of the earth and there would be no room for anything else. But it is clear that there is a powerful Organizer, Who has control over everything. The same is true of animals. They too, have an unlimited capacity for procreation, but the number of offspring produced by each stops after reaching a certain limit. Similarly, the animals have the capacity to grow in size, but only to a certain degree. If a tiny fly were allowed to grow without restriction, it would be equal in size to an elephant. But natural control restricts its size to a certain limit. If the growth of these things was not restricted to certain limits, the life of man on this earth would be impossible. Human beings require innumerable things for their sustenance and for civilization to develop. All these things have been made available on earth in exact accord with human needs. The provision for all these things and the assurance of their continued existence is of God’s devising. If we were required to provide sustenance for ourselves, we would find it well-nigh impossible to do so.

The principle of keeping within limits is inherent in all the things of the universe. The wind, although sometimes developing into a gale or a tornado, never exceeds certain limits. Except for minor variations due to its elliptical orbit, the distance of the earth from the sun remains constant. If the earth were to move further away, it would become frozen like ice. If it were to come nearer the sun, it would become like a burning oven. The pull of gravity remains at the most suitable level. Had the size of the earth been double, its gravitational pull would have increased so much that man would have found it difficult to walk on the earth, as his weight would have pulled him down. And had the size of the earth been half of what it is now, its gravitational pull would have decreased to such an extent that man and his dwellings would have become too light to have any stability. This is the condition of all those things amongst which man lives. There are fixed parameters for everything: natural phenomena go neither above nor below fixed limits. The life of man and all living things on earth depend on water. From the underground reservoirs of water to the clouds spread throughout the atmosphere, the system of providing water is so complex and functions on such a large scale that its establishment could never be within the powers of man. This wonderful and gigantic arrangement is continuously maintained by God in exact accordance with human needs. The human being is an extremely delicate creature. Any difference in atmospheric pressure and composition would be enough to upset his existence. The atmosphere, in spite of having innumerable possibilities, is stable as regards its particular composition and pressure which are suitable for a creature like a human being. This balance and this proportion could not have been accidental. Certainly, this is so thanks to the earth’s most Majestic Creator and Sustainer. In view of this, one who does not accept God, or believes God to have partners, merely proves his own lack of reason and not the unreasonableness of the concept of the one God.

The settling of human beings in the world and then their being taken away from here are events which occur at the behest of God. Had this been dependent on the will of man, he could never have come here and after coming here, he would never have gone on to the world of the Hereafter. This also proves that before the creation of human beings, heaven and earth belonged to God and thereafter they will also belong to God. There are innumerable things on earth, but everything has its own individuality. Everything performs the special role assigned to it. This proves that the Creator of the earth has knowledge of each and every thing. He has allocated a particular function to everything, so much so that the thumb impression of one man is different from that of any other man. For such a Powerful and Knowledgeable Being (that is, God) it is not difficult to keep every man’s reckoning separately and deal with him in exactly the way he deserves to be treated.

The existence of man is a combination of two things—one is body and the other is soul. The body is totally made up of materials of the earth. The analysis of the body shows that it consists of the same elements that are commonly known as water and earth. In other words, as far as the body is concerned, man is the name of a completely lifeless and unaware existence. But when God infuses a soul into it through His Will, this very body suddenly becomes the possessor of such capacities as are not found in any other creation in the known universe. The other creatures here on earth are known as ‘jinn’. The jinn, rivals of human beings, are made out of fire. They are fiery creatures, and just as the earth keeps itself away from the fiery sun, so that it should not burn out, similarly, man should keep himself away from the jinn, otherwise they will scorch him in the spheres of morality and religion.

Satan’s ostensible reason for not prostrating himself was that a human being was lower in status than he. But, in fact, the real reason was Satan’s own inferiority complex. He resented it that all creatures were not made to honour him by prostrating themselves before him, as they did before Adam, considering that he had been created before Adam, a human being, whom he considered inferior to himself. He could not agree to pay homage to an undeserving being. It is this type of pride and envy which are collectively at the root of all evils. In the present world such circumstances confront man again and again. One who does not become envious on such occasions has, in effect, followed the example of the angels and one who becomes a victim of envy has, in effect, followed Satan.