THE FLASHES

The Thirteenth Flash

Then they said to it, “Since you claim to be a camel, carry a load.” At that point it opened its wings and said, “I am a bird,” and escaped the burden of carrying loads. But without protector and without food, it became a target for the hunters’ attacks.

In exactly the same way, in the face of the Qur’an’s heavenly proclamations, the unbeliever abandons absolute unbelief and descends into doubtful unbelief.

If it is said to him: “Since you regard death and passing away as eternal annihilation, the gallows on which you will be hanged stands before your eyes. How can one who constantly looks upon it live? How can he take pleasure in life?”

That person, through a share he has received from the Qur’an’s universal aspect of mercy and its all-encompassing light, says: “Death is not annihilation; perhaps there is permanence.”

Or else, like the ostrich, he buries his head in the sand of heedlessness so that death will not see him, the grave will not look at him, and the passing away of things will not shoot its arrows at him.

In short, through doubtful unbelief, when he sees death and the passing away of things in the sense of annihilation, the decisive reports of the Qur’an and the heavenly books concerning belief in the Hereafter give him a possibility; the unbeliever clings to that possibility and does not take that dreadful pain upon himself.

At that moment, if it is said to him, “Since we shall go to an everlasting world, one must bear the hardship of religious duties in order to live beautifully in that world,” he says, through the doubt of unbelief, “Perhaps it does not exist. Why should I work for something that may not exist?”

That is, when he escapes the pains of eternal annihilation through the possibility of permanence given by the judgment of the Qur’an, and when the hardship of religious duties turns toward him through the possibility of non-existence given by unbelief mixed with doubt, he clings to the possibility of unbelief and escapes that burden.

Thus, from this point of view, he imagines that he takes more pleasure in this life than the believer. For he escapes the burden of religious duties through the possibility of unbelief, and he does not take the eternal pains upon himself through the possibility of īmān. Yet the effect of this satanic sophistry is extremely superficial, useless, and temporary.

Thus, the Wise Qur’an has a kind of mercy even with respect to unbelievers: it saves their worldly life, to a certain degree, from becoming Hell for them, and gives them a form of doubt by which they live. Otherwise, they would suffer even in this world a spiritual torment resembling the Hell of the Hereafter and would be driven to suicide.

So, O believers! Enter, with faith and confidence, under the protection of the Qur’an, which saves you from eternal annihilation and from the Hells of this world and the Hereafter; and with submission and appreciation, place yourselves within the sphere of the Sunnah of the Prophet (saw), so that you may be saved from wretchedness in this world and from punishment in the Hereafter.