God Almighty has endowed me with continuous intellectual development. This development has happened through pain and hardship. I can say that throughout my life I have suffered intellectual torture. I never experienced physical torture, but I have been through intellectual torture throughout my life. This is how I have had intellectual development.
It has been my temperament to always think in the light of the Quran and Hadith. The Quran and Hadith are statements of fact from God.
According to a hadith: "The Prophets were afflicted with great hardship." (Musnad Ahmad 27079)
Did God have enmity with the prophets? Obviously, this is not true.
The prophets had to face difficulties. This means that difficulties must be seen positively. They should not be seen in a negative light. Difficulties are not evil or negative occurrences. Because God had the option to not give problems to prophets. This means that difficulties, hardship, adversity and stress are positive factors in life. They have a positive role to play. I decided to begin my thought process from here.
Two Ulema came to me. I explained to them the interpretation of two verses. These two read our books and magazine. One of the verses I discussed with them is: "They shall reply, 'We were not among those who prayed.'" (74:43)
The other verse is: "If the ocean became ink for writing the words of my Lord, surely the ocean would be exhausted before the words of my Lord came to an end -- even if We were to add another ocean to it." (18:109)
I had written articles on these verses before. But the explanation I gave to the two men now was far more meaningful than what I had written earlier. I am the same person who wrote the interpretation earlier, and the same person who gave the new interpretation now. God Almighty has endowed me with continuous intellectual development. This development has happened through pain and hardship. I can say that throughout my life I have suffered intellectual torture. I never experienced physical torture, but I have been through intellectual torture throughout my life. This is how I have had intellectual development.