Do you have any advice to atheists who would like to live however they wish?
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 Qur’an:
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 Qur’an 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 un-bearable 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 count-less
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 anesthesia. 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 him-self 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 what-ever 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 play-thing 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 beau-ties 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 Qur’an, 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 Qur’an 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 Qur’an 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 Qur’an 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 Qur’an. Look at it with the light
of belief so that in place of your mind, which gives light like a firefly,
each of the Qur’an’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 load-ing 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 Qur’an 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 Qur’an 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 se-cures 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 Qur’an 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 who-ever 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 thou-sands 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.
In order to see in the language of the Qur’an 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 per-form
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.
The meaning of worldly life, and remedies for worldly misfortune In the
Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. We have made all that is on
Earth an ornament thereof that we may test them: which of them is best in
conduct. Verily, We shall make all that is thereon a barren mound. (18:7-8)
The life of this world is but a pastime, a sport. (6:32) [Note: This Word
consists of two exalted Stations and an Addendum of signal importance.] Two
stations First station: The All-Compassionate Creator, All-Munificent
Provider, All-Wise Maker shapes this world as a festival, a place of
celebration for the World of Spirits and spirit beings. He has decorated it
with His Names’ most wonderful inscriptions, and clothes each spirit in a
body equipped with suitable and appropriate senses so that it may benefit
from the innumerable good things and bounties therein. Each spirit is sent
here only one time. He divides the festival, which in terms of time and
space is very extensive, into centuries, years, sea-sons, and days, and then
certain parts. Each one is an exalted festival during which all animals and
plants promenade. Especially in spring and summer, Earth’s surface is a vast
series of festivals for small creatures, an arena so glittering and
attractive that it draws the gaze of angels and the heavens’ other
inhabitants, and spirit beings in the higher abodes. For those who think and
reflect, it is an arena for reflection so wonderful that we cannot describe
it appropriately. However, the manifestations of the Divine Names the Most
Merciful and the Giver of Life in this Divine festival are counterbalanced
by the Names the All-Overwhelming, the All-Crushing, and the One Who Causes
to Die through death and separation. This does not seem to be in line with
the all-embracing Mercy expressed in: My Mercy encompasses all things
(7:156). Nevertheless it is so in several ways, one of which is as follows:
After each group has completed its turn and the desired results have been
obtained, the All-Munificent Maker, the All-Compassionate Creator, causes
most of them, by His Compassion, to feel weariness and distaste with the
world. He grants them a desire for rest and a longing to emigrate to another
world. Thus, when they are to be discharged from their duties of life, He
arouses in them an enthusiastic inclination to return to their original
home. The Most Merciful One bestows martyrdom on soldiers who die in the
course of duty (defending their sacred values). He rewards sheep sacrificed
in His way with an eternal corporeal existence in the Hereafter, and with
the rank of being a mount for its owner on the Bridge—like Buraq.84
Therefore, it is not far from His infinite Mercy that other living beings
who die and suffer while performing their God-given duties, in accord with
their nature and obedience to the Divine commands, should receive a
spiritual reward and wage based on their capacities from His Mercy’s
inexhaustible treasuries. In that way, they will be pleased to depart from
this world. Only God knows the Unseen. The same is true with humanity, the
greatest beneficiary of these festivals as well as the one most immersed in
them. When death approaches, God, out of His Mercy, gives each person a mood
whereby he or she feels distaste with this world and longs to go to the
eternal world. Whoever is not lost in misguidance benefits from this mood
and dies with a tranquil heart. I will give five of the many reasons
leading to this mood:
- One: The Most Merciful One uses old age to show the
stamp of transience and decline on that which is beautiful and tempting in
this world, as well as the bitter meaning they have. By causing us to
be-come dissatisfied with the world, He causes us to seek a permanent
beloved.
- Two: Ninety-nine percent of our friends have died and gone to the
other world. By engendering within us a longing for the same place through
that heart-felt attachment, He enables us to meet death with joy.
- Three: He
causes us to feel our inherent infinite weakness and impotence, to
understand the great weight of our life’s burdens and responsibilities. Then
He implants within us a great wish for rest and a sincere longing to go to
another world.
- Four: Through the light of belief, He shows believers that
death is a change of abode, the grave is the door to illuminated worlds, and
this world is like a dungeon in comparison with the Hereafter. To be
transferred from this dungeon to the gardens of Paradise, from the
troublesome turmoil of bodily life to the World of Rest and the Realm Where
Spirits Soar, and to slip free of the distressing noise of creatures and go
to the Most Merciful’s Presence is a journey and a happiness to be desired
most earnestly.
- Five: By revealing the knowledge of truth in the Qur’an, as well as
the world’s true nature through the light of truth, He explains that love
for and attachment to this world are meaningless, for:
- The world is a book of the Eternally-Besought-of-All. Its letters
and words point to Another’s Essence, Names, and Attributes. So learn
and adopt its meaning, abandon its decorations, and go.
- The world is a tillage; sow it, harvest your crop, and preserve it.
Throw away the chaff, and give it no importance.
- The world is a collection of mirrors that continuously pass on, one
after the other. Know the One Who is manifest in them, see His lights,
understand the manifestations of the Names appearing in them, and love
the One they signify. End your attachment for those fragments of glass,
for they will break and perish.
- The world is a moving place of trade. Do your business and leave.
Don’t tire yourself by uselessly pursuing caravans that leave
you behind.
- The world is a temporary place of recreation. Study it to
learn what you need to know. Ignore its apparent, ugly face, but pay
attention to its hidden, beautiful face, which looks to the Eternal
All-Gracious One. Go for a pleasant and beneficial visit and then come back.
When the scenes displaying those fine views and beautiful things disappear,
don’t cry or be anxious.
- The world is a guest-house. Eat and drink within
the limits set by the Munificent Host Who has built it, and offer thanks.
Act and behave in accordance with His Law. Then leave and go away without
looking back. Do not interfere in it, or busy yourself with things that
leave you and do not concern you.
He shows the world’s real character
through such plain truths, and makes death less painful. He makes death
desirable to those awake to truth, and shows that everything He does has a
trace of His Mercy. The Qur’an’s verses also point to other particular
reasons. Second station: O helpless one, stop wailing over misfortune and
trust God, for wailing only com-pounds the misfortune and is itself a great
error. If you have found Him Who gives you the misfortune, it will be a gift
bringing pleasure and happiness. So stop wailing and thank God like the
nightingale, then all flowers will smile at you. If you do not find Him,
know that the world is pain and loss coming from that destitution. So why
wail over a small misfortune when you bear a worldwide responsibility?
Rather, trust God and, trusting Him, laugh in the face of the misfortune so
that it too will laugh. As it laughs, it will diminish and change. Know, O
selfish one, that happiness in this world lies in forsaking this world. If
you know and seek God, this is enough, for then all things will be for you
even if you abandon them. If you are selfish you will experience total loss,
for whatever you do, all things will be against you. So, in either case, you
should forsake the world. Forsaking the world means considering it God’s
property and dealing with it with His permission, in His name... The only
profitable business here is to make your mortal life eternal. If you seek
your selfhood, it is rotten and without foundation. If you seek the outer
world, upon it is the stamp of ephemerality. Nothing is worth purchasing in
this market of rotten goods. So pass on... Beyond it, the sound goods are
all lined up... |
