Once, when visiting a book fair, I felt as if I had entered a city of great learning. But there, I also saw a dog running around looking for food and obviously unaware of the fair, the books and the importance of knowledge. This sight reminded me of some verses of the Quran: 'Those who deny the truth may take their fill of pleasure in this world, and eat as cattle do, but the fire will be their ultimate abode.' (47:12). And another verse: ‘Those who are blind in this world will be blind in the world hereafter also.’ (17:72).
God’s signs—divine signs from which lessons may be learned—are visible everywhere, but most of us human beings move around in blind ignorance of them. I thought that the dog, being unaware of all that was contained in the books all around it, was similar to the way most human beings lead their lives. People are lost in the creation, and not in the Creator. God has given us wisdom, but we human beings do not apply it. For example, we seldom address ourselves to the biggest questions in life: “What is the Truth?”, “Who is the Creator?”, “What is the purpose of life?” and “What happens before and after death?” Man continues to be lost in the world of appearances, without even giving a thought to the real world.
We should understand what God wants from us by understanding His divine signs and then lead our lives accordingly. We should remember that God expresses His mind in the Universe and that the Universe is thus full of divine intelligence. We must, therefore, observe it and extract spiritual lessons from it. It is wrong to imagine that one man can know everything by oneself. We need God, the Creator, to guide us here, as everywhere else, for the human mind is not sufficient. Without God’s guidance, man cannot acquire knowledge.
In the world as God envisaged it, there would be no malice; there would be universality rather than exclusivity; there would be no intolerance, no anger and no negative thinking. A world where everyone existed peacefully would be of benefit to all. But such a world will come into being only when human beings develop their personalities in accordance with God’s likes and dislikes. While the world of nature has no choice but to exist in a state of harmony, we human beings, with our freedom of will, must choose deliberately, and of our own accord, to live in this way. What we need to do, as the Quran says, is colour ourselves ‘in the dye of God.’
Source: Spirit of Islam, February 2014
