THE EIGHTH WORD

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحٖيمِIn the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

اَللّٰهُ لَٓا اِلٰهَ اِلَّا هُوَ الْحَىُّ الْقَيُّومُAllah—there is no god except Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting Sustainer of all. — The Quran 2:255

اِنَّ الدّٖينَ عِنْدَ اللّٰهِ الْاِسْلَامُIndeed, the religion with Allah is Islam. — The Quran 3:19

If you wish to understand the essence and value of the world and the human soul, and especially the value of faith for the human being; and if you wish to see that without true faith the world becomes a prison, that the human being without faith is the most wretched of creatures, and that

يَا اَللّٰهُO Allah

and

لَا اِلٰهَ اِلَّا اللّٰهُThere is no god except Allah.

are two phrases that save the human soul from darkness, then look at and listen to the following parable:

Once, two brothers set out together on a long journey. They continued on their way until they came to a fork in the road. At the fork they saw a serious man standing there. They asked him, “Which of the two roads do you recommend?” He replied, “On the road to the right, one is obliged to observe laws and rules. Yet the burden of those obligations brings safety and happiness with it.

On the road to the left, however, there are no obligations and one experiences freedom. But within that freedom lie danger and misery. The choice is yours.”

After listening to the man, the well-natured brother said,

تَوَكَّلْتُ عَلَى اللّٰهِI put my trust in Allah.

and took the road to the right; he had resolved to comply with order and rules. The undisciplined and foolish brother, however, took the road to the left purely out of his love of freedom.

In our imagination, we shall first follow this undisciplined brother, who outwardly seemed to be in an easy state, but in reality was in a difficult one.

This man crossed mountains and valleys and eventually came to a deserted wilderness. Suddenly he heard a terrifying roar. He saw a fearsome lion leap from the bushes and rush toward him. He began to flee and ran until he came upon a dry well sixty meters deep. Out of fear, he jumped into it, and halfway through his fall his hands struck a tree, to which he clung. This tree had grown out of the wall of the well and had two roots. He saw that a white mouse and a black mouse were gnawing at the two roots. He looked up and saw the lion waiting at the top of the well like a guard. He looked down and saw a terrifying dragon with a mouth as wide as the well. The dragon was approaching his feet, which hung thirty meters above the ground.