Follow the right path
JILAB, PLURAL JALABIB: an outer garment ; a long gown covering the whole body, or a cloak covering the neck and bosom. The object was not to restrict the liberty of women, but to protect them from harm and molestation. This types of dresses makes women more respectful and honourable and enabled them to protect them from the evil.
People often judge by quantity rather than quality. They are dazzled by numbers; their hearts are captured by what they see everywhere around them. But the man of understanding and discriminates judges by a different standard. He knows that good and bad things are not to be lumped together, and carefully chooses the best, which may be the scarcest, and avoids the bad, though evil many meet him at every step. "All that glitters are not gold".
Angels are not sent down to satisfy the whim or curiosity of the unbelievers. They are sent to bring inspiration to Allah's messengers and to execute Allah's decrees.
If the angels were to appear before the ungodly, it would mean that they came to execute just punishment, and then there would be no hope of respite possible for the ungodly.
The purity of the text of the Qur-an through fourteen centuries is a foretaste of the eternal care with which Allah's Truth is guarded through all ages. All corruption�s, inventions, and accretions pass away, but Allah's pure and holy Truth will never suffer eclipse even though the whole world mocked at it and were bent on destroying it.
Shiya'un, plural of Shi'atun = a sect, a religious division. Mankind sees fragments of Truth at a time, and is apt to fall into fragments and divisions. all true messengers of Allah come to reconcile these fragments or divisions, for they preach the true gospel, of unity. so cameAl-Mustafa to bring back to Unity the many jarring sects among the Jews, Christians, and Pagans. His mission was held up to ridicule, but so was the mission of his predecessors. Mockery itself should not discourage the preachers of Truth.
If evil and disbelief exist in the world, we must not be impatient or lose our faith. We must recognise that if such things are permitted, they are part of the Universal Plan and purpose of Allah, Who is All-Wise and All-Good, but Whose wisdom and goodness we cannot fully fathom. One consolation we have, and that is stated in the below paragraph:
Sects, divisions, and systems invented by men tend to pass away, but Allah�s pure Truth of Unity endures for ever. This we see in history when we study it in a large scale.
The spiritual kingdom is open to all to enter. But the entrance is mot a mere matter of physical movement. It is a question of a total change of heart. Evil, like Bottom the weaver, to be "translated" or in some way carried up to heaven, it would only think that the Truth was an illusion, and the reality was mere witchery. The taint is in its very nature, which must first be purified and rendered fit for the reception of light, truth, and bliss.
Evil having been described, not as an external thing, but as a taint of the soul, we have in this section a glorious account of the purity and beauty of Allah�s Creation. Evil is a blot on it, not a normal feature of it. Indeed, the normal feature is the guard which Allah has put on it, to protect it from evil.
In the countless millions of stars in the universe which we see, the first step in our astronomical knowledge is to find marvellous order, beauty, and harmony, on a scale of grandeur which we appreciate more and more as our knowledge increases. The first broad belt that we distinguish is the Zodiac, which marks the sun's path through the heavens year after year and the limit of the wanderings of the moon and the planets. We make twelve divisions of it and call them Signs of the Zodiac. Each marks the solar path through the heavens as we see it, month after month. We can thus mark off the seasons in our solar year, and express in definite laws the most important facts in meteorology, agriculture, seasonal winds, and tides. Then there are the mansions of the moon, the mapping out of the Constellations, and the other marvellous facts of the heavens, some of which affect our physical life on this earth. but the highest lessons we can draw from them are spiritual. The author of this wonderful Order and Beauty is One, and He alone is entitled to our worship.
Religion should be a source of strength and not of weakness in all our affairs. If we have to struggle hard and suffer hardships, those without faith have to do the same, with this difference, that the man of faith is full of hope in Allah, whereas the man without faith has nothing to sustain him.
The general thing is that the righteous man is faced with all sorts of subtle wiles; the wicked will try to appeal to his highest sympathies and most honourable motives to deceive him and use him as an instrument for defeating justice. He should be careful and cautious, and seek the help of Allah for protection against deception and for firmness in dealing the strictest justice without fear or favour. To do otherwise is to betray a sacred trust; the trustee must defeat all attempts made to mislead him.
Our souls are a sort of trust with us. We have to guard them against all temptation. Those who surrender to crime or evil, betray that trust. We are warned against being deceived into taking their part, induced either by plausible appearances, or by such incentives to partiality as that they belong to our own people or that some link connects them with us, whereas when we are out to do justice, we must not allow any irrelevant considerations to sway us.
The plot of sinners are known fully to Allah, and He can fully circumvent them if necessary, according to the fullness of His wisdom. the worked used is : compass them round: Muhit: not only does Allah know all about it, but He is all round it: if in His wisdom He allows it, it is not because He has not complete control over it, but because, having is as it were enclosed in a complete circle. He can use it to further His won Plan. Even out of evil He can bring good.
Sin is a sort of oppression of ourselves by ourselves:
Success or failure in this world comes to all at varying times: we must not grumble, as we do not see the whole of Allah's plan. But do not feel disheartened, try harder.
The essence of Islam is to serve Allah and do good to your fellow-creatures. This is wider and more comprehensive than "Love God and love your neighbour". For it includes duties to animals as our fellow-creatures, and emphasises practical service rather than sentiment.
Neighbours who are near: that is, in local situation as well as intimate relationships, just as neighbours who are strange includes those whom we do not know or who live away from us:
The Companion by your side may be your intimate friends and associates, just as the way-farer you meet may be a casual acquaintance on your travels. This last is much wider than the "stranger within your gate":
Arrogance is one reason why our deeds of love and kindness do not thrive. Another is niggardliness or selfishness. Allah does not love either the one or the other, for they both proceed from want of love of Allah, or faith in Allah. Niggardly is the worldly wise man who not only refuses to spend himself in service, but by example and precept prevents others from doing so, as otherwise he would be made odious by comparison, before his fellow-creatures. So he either makes a virtue of his caution, or hides the gifts which have been given him -wealth, position, talent, etc.
In Allah's overall scheme of things, bodies of salt and sweet water, which are adjoining and yet separate, have significant functions. Weaving a harmonious fabric out of these different fibres shows both Allah's power and wisdom. Incidentally, this verse points to a fact which has only recently been discovered by science. This fact relates to the oceans of the world: they meet and yet each remains separate for Allah has placed "a barrier, a partition" between them. the basis of all living matter in the physical world, protoplasm, is water:
Water is fluid, unstable thing: yet from it arises the highest form of live known to us, in this world, man. And man has not only the functions and characteristics of the noblest animals, but his abstract relationships are also typical of his highest nature. He can trace lineage and pedigree, and thus remember and commemorate a long line of ancestors, to whom he is bound by ties of piety, which no mere animals can do. Further, there is the union in marriage: it is not only like the physical union of animals, but it gives rise to relationships arising out of the sexes of individuals who were not otherwise related to each other. These are physical and social facts.
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