The Fact: The Creator and The creation

A THOUGHT

(40:58) Never can the blind and the seeing be equal; nor those that
believe and act righteously and those that do evil. Little do you
understand.80
80. This is an argument for the necessity of the Hereafter. In the preceding sentence it
was said that the Hereafter can take place, and its occurrence is not impossible. In this it is
being said that the Hereafter should take place. It is the demand of both reason and
justice that it should occur, and its nonoccurrence is against reason and justice. After all,
how can a reasonable man believe it to be right that those who live like the blind in the
world and fill God’s earth with mischief by their immoral and wicked deeds, should not
see the evil end of their misdeeds and wrong conduct. Likewise, those people who pass
their lives in the world with open eyes, and believe and do good works, should be
deprived of seeing a good result of their righteousness? If this is expressly against reason
and justice, then the belief of denying the Hereafter also should be against reason and
justice, for the non-occurrence of the Hereafter means that the good and the bad should
both become dust after death and meet with one and the same end. For in this case, not
only are reason and justice destroyed but morality also is proved to be meaningless and
absurd. For if good and evil have one and the same end and destiny, then the evildoer
would be highly wise, because he gratified all his desires before his death, and the good
man highly foolish because he kept himself subjected to every sort of moral restoration
without any reason.
 The Formula for Success
ERASE : IMPURITY

(23:3) who avoid whatever is vain and frivolous;4

4. Literally, laghv is anything nonsensical, meaningless and vain, which is in
no way conducive to achieving one’s goal and purpose in life. The believers pay
no heed to such useless things and they show no inclination or interest for them.
If by chance they see such things being indulged in, they keep away and avoid
them scrupulously, or treat them with utmost indifference. This attitude has been
described in (Surah Al-Furqan, Ayat 72), thus: If they have to pass by what is
vain, they pass by like dignified people.
This is indeed one of the outstanding characteristics of the believer. He is a person
who feels the burden of responsibility at all times. He regards the world as a place
of test, and the life as the limited time allowed for the test. This feeling makes
him behave seriously and responsibly throughout life . so the believer also
spends each moment of his life on works which are useful and productive in their
ultimate results. So much so that even in matters of recreation and sport, he
makes a choice of only those things which prepare him for higher ends in life and
do not result in mere wastage of time. For him time is not something to be killed
but used profitably and productively. Besides this, the believer is a person who
possesses a right thinking mind, pure nature and fine taste. He has no inclination
to indecent things. He can talk useful and healthy things but cannot indulge in
idle talk. He has a fine taste of humor, but is not given to jesting, joking,
ridicule, etc. nor can he endure dirty jokes and fun. For him a society in which
the ears are never immune from abusive language, back-biting, slander; lying,
dirty songs and indecent talk is a source of torture and agony. A characteristic
of the promised Paradise is: Therein you will not hear anything vain or useless.
 INCREASE: GOOD DEEDS
(22:50) So those who believe and act righteously shall be granted
forgiveness and an honourable sustenance,95
95. The believers shall have forgiveness’ means that Allah will overlook their faults,
weaknesses, and acts of omission and commission. They will have honorable
provisions (in paradise) means that they will have excellent supplies which will be
given to them in an honorable way.

Increase Rememberence of Allah : 1. Obligatory Salah :

With deep n sincere concentration
On time
In Congregation
2. Nafl and Tahazzud :
3. Nafl Fasting :
4. Charity :
5. Wearing Pants Below ankle
6. Keeping Beard :
7. Engaging in Organizations and
personal Propagtion :
8. Supplication for duniya and akhira
daily many times :
9. Prescribed zikr from Quran and
Sunnah
 The Means :
1. Patience

(70:5) So, (O Prophet), persevere with gracious perseverance.6

A gracious patience: A kind of patience that behooves a magnanimous
person like you.

(2:45) And resort to patience and Prayer for help.60 Truly Prayer is
burdensome for all except the devout,

That is, if they feel difficulty in keeping to righteousness, the remedy lies in
resorting to Prayer and patience. From these two attributes they will derive the
strength needed to follow their chosen course. The literal meaning of 'sabr' is to
exercise restraint, to keep oneself tied down. It denotes the will-power, the firm
resolve and the control over animal desires which enables man to advance
along the path of his choice - the path that satisfies his heart and conscience -
in utter disregard of the temptations within, and of all obstacles and oposition
without. The purpose of this directive is to urge man to develop this quality and
to reinforce it from the outside by means of Prayer.

2. Gratitude
(7:10) We assuredly established you in the earth and arranged for your
livelihood in it. Little do you give thanks.

(2:152) So remember Me and I shall remember you; give thanks to Me

and do not be ungrateful to Me for My favours.

(76:3) Surely We showed him the Right Path, regardless of whether he

chooses to be thankful or unthankful5 (to his Lord).
That is, We did not just leave him to himself after giving him the powers of knowledge and
reason, but We also guided him so that he knows which is the path of gratefulness and
which of ungratefulness, so that whichever path he chooses in his later life, he himself is
responsible for it. In Surah Al-Balad, the same subject has been expressed, thus “And We
showed him both the conspicuous ways (of good and evil).” And in Surah Ash-Shams, thus:
“By the human self, and by Him Who balanced it (with all the external and internal powers),
then inspired it with its wickedness and its piety.” When all these explanations are kept in
view, and also those detailed statements of the Quran in which it has been stated what
arrangements Allah has made for man’s guidance in the world, it becomes evident that in
this verse “We guided him to the way” does not imply any one form of guidance but many
forms of it which are limitless and countless. For example:

(1) Along with the faculties of knowledge and reason, man has also been endowed with a
moral sense by which he discerns between good and evil, regards some acts and qualities as
evil even if he himself is involved in them, and regards some other acts and qualities as
good even if he himself is avoiding them. So much so that even those people who for the
satisfaction of their selfish motives and desires have invented philosophies by which they
have justified many evils for themselves, protest loudly when they are themselves treated
with the same evils by others, and then it becomes known that in spite of their false
philosophies they actually regard them as evil. Likewise, when a man himself is benefited
by a good treatment from another person, he is from within forced to commend and
appreciate it even though he might be looking upon good acts and qualities as ignorance
folly and antiquated things,

(2) In every man Allah has placed the faculty of conscience (the lawwamah), which checks
and pricks him every time he is about to commit an evil, or is in the process of committing
it, or has already committed it. However hard man may try to silence his conscience or make
it insensitive, he does not have the power to destroy it completely. He may become
shameless and prove himself to be absolutely devoid of the conscience, he may also try to
deceive the world by argumentation, he may even invent a thousand excuses to justify his
acts in order to deceive himself, but despite all this the censor, that Allah has placed in his
nature, is so active and powerful that it does not let remain hidden from an evil person what
he actually is. This same thing has been stated in Surah Al-Qiyamah, thus: “Man knows his
own self best even though he may offer many excuses.” (Ayat 15).

(3) In man’s own self and outside of him, from the earth to the heavens, there lie scattered in
the universe countless such signs which clearly show that all this could not happen without a
God, nor could there be many gods to create this life and control and administer it.
Likewise, these very signs, inside man and outside him, clearly point also to the
Resurrection and Hereafter. If man shuts down his eyes on them, or refuses to ponder over
them intelligently, or avoids to admit the truths which they point out, he himself would be to
blame. For Allah has shown no negligence in laying out every possible sign of the truth for
the guidance of man.
(4) Man does come across in his own life, and in the contemporary world and in the
experiences of past history, countless such incidents which prove that a supreme power is
ruling over him and the entire universe, before Whom he is absolutely powerless, whose
Will is dominant over everything and whose help he needs at every moment. These
experiences and observations which point to the truth do not exist only outside him but in
man’s own nature as well there exists the evidence of the existence of the supreme power on
the basis of which even the most confirmed atheist spreads out his hands in prayer before
God when in distress, and the most hardened polytheist abandons all false gods and starts
invoking One God only for help.

(5) Man’s intellect and his nature assert positively that crime ought to be punished and good
deeds ought to be rewarded. On this very basis in every society of the world a system of the
courts is established in one form or another. The services and works, which are regarded as
commendable are also rewarded in one way or another. This is a clear proof of the fact that
there is a necessary relationship between morality and the law of retribution, which man
cannot possibly deny. Now, if it is admitted that in this world there are countless such
crimes which cannot be punished at all to say nothing of punishing them fully and
adequately, and there are also countless such virtues, which cannot be rewarded at all, to say
nothing of rewarding them fully and adequately, there is no alternative but to acknowledge
the Hereafter. Unless, of course, a foolish person may assume, or a stubborn person may
insist on having the opinion, that man who has been endowed with the concept of justice,
has taken birth in a world which in itself is devoid of the concept of justice; and then it
remains for him to answer the question as to how and wherefrom this man, who was born in
such a world, obtained this concept of justice.

To reinforce these means of guidance Allah sent Messengers and revealed Books in the
world for the purpose of giving clear and definite guidance to man. In these Books it was
clearly explained what is the way of gratefulness and what is the way of ungratefulness and
unbelief and what will be the consequences of following either way. The teaching brought
by the Prophets and the Books has spread throughout the world in countless perceptible, and
imperceptible ways, on such a large scale that no section of human population has remained
unaware of the concept of God and the Hereafter, of the distinction between good and evil,
and of the moral principles and legal rulings presented by them, whether it knows or does
not know that it has obtained this knowledge only through the teachings of the Prophets and
the Books they brought. Even those who disbelieve in the Prophets and the Books today, or
are unaware of them, also are following many of those things which have reached to them
actually through their teachings while they do not know what is the real source of these
teachings. 4
3. Fear
(79:40) But he who feared to stand before his Lord, and restrained himself
from evil desires,

(79:41) most surely his abode shall be Paradise.

Here, in a few words, it has been told briefly what shall be the criterion of the final
judgment in the Hereafter. One kind of the conduct of life in the world is that transgressing
all bounds of service man should rebel against his God and should make up his mind that he
would seek only the benefits and pleasures of this world in whatever way they could be
sought and achieved. The other kind of conduct is that while man passes life in the world he
should constantly keep in view the truth that ultimately one day he has to stand before his
Lord, and should refrain from fulfilling the evil desires of the self only for the fear that if he
earned an unlawful benefit in obedience to his self, or enjoyed an evil pleasure, what answer
he would give to his Lord. The criterion of the judgment in the Hereafter will be which of
the two kinds of conduct he adopted in the world. If he had adopted the first kind of
conduct, his permanent abode would be Hell, and if he had adopted the second kind of
conduct, his permanent home would be Paradise.

4. Hope
(5:84) And why should we not believe in Allah and the Truth which has
come down to us when we do fervently desire that our Lord include us
among the righteous?'

(7:56) and call upon Him with fear and longing.45

'Calling upon Allah with fear and longing' conveys the idea that man should fear God alone,
and to Him alone he should look for the fulfilment of his wishes. While calling upon God
man should realize that he is totally dependent on God's favour and that he can attain
success only if God helps and guides him to it. Similarly, man should also bear in mind that
once he is deprived of God's support, he is doomed to utter failure and undoing.
(26:51) and we surely expect that Our Lord will forgive us our sins for we
are the first ones to believe."40

40. That is, we have to return to our Lord in any case. If you kill us now, we shall present
ourselves before Him just today, and we have nothing to worry about this. We rather expect
that we shall be forgiven our sins and errors because out of this entire gathering we were the
first to believe as soon as reality became known to us.

(32:16) Their sides forsake their beds, and they call upon their Lord in
fear and hope,27 and expend (in charity) out of the sustenance We have
granted them.28

27. That is, they worship their Lord instead of enjoying sensuous pleasures at night. They
are not like the worldworshipers, who seek entertainments in music and dancing, drinking
and merry-making, in the night in order to get relief from the day’s fatigue and labor and
toil. Instead, when they are free from their day’s work and duties, they devote themselves to
the adoration of their Lord, spend their nights in His remembrance, tremble out of fear of
Him, and pin all their hopes on Him. “Who forsake their beds” does not mean that they do
not sleep at all at night, but that they spend a part of the night in Allah’s worship.

28. In the original, rizq means lawful provisions. Unlawful provisions have nowhere been
called rizq by Allah. The verse therefore means: They spend from whatever little or much of
pure provisions We have given to them; they do not overspend and do not grab unlawful
wealth in order to meet their expenses.