The Resurrection

For example, in spring, all trees are clothed like the hūrī in garments as fine as silk, and adorned with blossoms and fruits. With their branches, like the delicate hands of a servant, they offer us the most delightful and excellent kinds of fruit. From the hands of a poisonous honeybee, we receive healing and the sweetest honey. From a silkworm, we receive the finest and softest fabrics. Moreover, a great treasury of blessings is preserved for us in a tiny seed. This clearly shows that all of this is the work of wondrous generosity and subtle mercy.

Furthermore, all creatures, from the sun, moon, and earth down to the smallest being—with the exception of humans and certain wild animals—perform their duties and functions with utmost precision; they do not overstep their limits by even a finger’s breadth and submit with profound awe. This shows that they all act by the command of a Lord Who possesses great majesty and honor.

And furthermore, in the care of powerless and weak young plants, animals, and humans—who are cared for with tender love by their mothers and nourished with subtle food such as milk—a comprehensive manifestation of mercy is clearly seen.^[1]

Since the Ruler of this world possesses boundless generosity, mercy, majesty, and honor, His majesty and honor require the punishment of rebels, His generosity requires the granting of countless favors, and His mercy requires a bestowal worthy of Himself. Yet in this transient world and brief life, we see only one manifestation out of millions of these, like a drop from the ocean. This means that there is a world of eternal happiness corresponding to the reality of this generosity and mercy. Otherwise, one would have to deny the existence of this mercy, which would be like denying the existence of the sun that fills the day with its light. For the idea that death brings eternal separation would turn shafqa into misery, love into hatred, favor into punishment, pleasure into torment, and the intellect into a disastrous tool. As a result, one would necessarily have to assume that the true reality of His mercy comes to an end.

Moreover, there will be a place of punishment befitting His majesty and honor. We see that wrongdoers and oppressors leave this world unpunished and without consequence, while the innocent and oppressed leave it in deep misery without seeing justice. This means that their reckoning is being left entirely to a court of ultimate judgment; it is not being overlooked. Sometimes they are even punished in this world. The punishment inflicted upon rebellious and stubbornly disobedient peoples in earlier ages shows that human beings are not left to their own fate. At any moment, they may be struck by the wrath that corresponds to His majesty and honor.

Is it at all possible that Dhāt-i Dhul-Jalāl —Who has entrusted man with an important duty among all existence and granted him an important capacity, Who makes Himself known to him through all His well-ordered artistic creatures, Who makes Himself loved by him through the many wondrous fruits of His mercy, and Who shows His love and mercy to him through all these many and diverse blessings— would leave man to himself without punishment and prepare no place of punishment if he does not recognize his Lord through īmān, does not make himself beloved to his Lord through worship, and does not honor his Lord with gratitude and praise?

Indeed, the fact that a hungry lioness prefers her helpless cubs over herself and gives up a piece of meat she has caught for their sake; that a timid hen dares to attack a dog or even a lion to protect her chicks; and that a fig tree nourishes its fruits—its offspring—with pure milk while itself subsisting on mud, clearly shows to anyone who is not blind that they act on behalf of a Lord who is infinitely Merciful, Generous, and Compassionate. Likewise, the fact that unconscious plants and animals carry out such remarkably conscious and purposeful actions clearly demonstrates that there is an All-Knowing, All-Wise One who sets them to work, and that they act by His command. ↩︎