Secular Civilization, Spiritual Civilization
God has created the jinn and mankind so that they may discover God. The way to God-realization is through contemplation. That is, to discover God through the reflection of His creation and then build one’s life accordingly.
In the Quran, God said, “I created the jinn and mankind only so that they might worship Me” (51: 56). ‘Worship’ in this verse means realization. God has created the jinn and mankind so that they may discover God. The way to God-realization is through contemplation. That is, to discover God through the reflection of His creation and then build one’s life accordingly.
There is a famous saying regarding the purpose of creation: “God said that He was a hidden treasure, then He wanted to be known, so He created man for this purpose.” (Kashful Khifa, Hadith No. 2016) This saying of an Arif (one who has realized God) is, in fact, a commentary on this verse of the Quran.
God first created jinn. He desired that they discover the hidden secrets of nature and proclaim God’s glory. But the story of Iblis, the chief of the jinns, shows that they adopted the attitude of ‘I am better than he is’ (7:12) and failed to realize God’s greatness and glory. In other words, the jinns glorified themselves but failed to discover God’s glory. Subsequently, God created man to succeed the jinns and accomplish the task of realizing God. But the angels could not understand this point at that time. So they raised doubts, saying that just as the jinns had failed to fulfill their creation’s purpose, so would man fail to do so.
To remove the doubts of the angels, God gave a demonstration, which is briefly mentioned in the Quran: “He taught Adam all the names” (2:31). In this verse, “names” refer to the knowledge of things. By way of additional blessing, God granted man knowledge of all things. He inculcated the knowledge of all creation in his nature. In this way, at the unconscious level, man became potentially conscious of all things. God temporarily demonstrated this before the angels, and they were satisfied.
From these verses of the Quran, we learn that the jinns were given brains but not knowledge of things. They were required to use their brains to discover the marvels hidden in the universe. They had to turn their ignorance into knowledge by pondering over things. But they failed to do so.
Later, God created man with additional qualities that would enable him to discover the universal phenomena that had already been instilled in their unconscious minds. This is mentioned in the Quran: “But the Quran is a revelation that is clear to the hearts of those endowed with knowledge.” (29:49). All the objects to be realized already exist in the unconscious mind of man. So now, man is only required to convert the unconscious into the conscious.
