CHANGES
Time is the greatest teacher and mentor of
man. It is labeled in oriental lore as “Falak-i-Peer” (the old heaven). In the
bosom of time are contained tremendous accounts of nations’ rise and fall which
can be of great significance and value for people living now on earth.
This
planet has seen hundreds of nations in the past, rising slowly towards eminence,
consolidating their power for sometime and then degenerating and falling into
oblivion. How many nations took shape, reached their climax and then vanished
without a trace! Dozens of civilizations saw the light of day and, after
touching the summit of success and fame, decayed and were annihilated. Billions
and billions of human beings were born into this world and after having passed
through the stages of adolescence, youth, and old age, returned to dust.
Thousands built big empires by means of
massive military campaigns and conquests, some even went to the extent of
claiming divine and god-like status for themselves, and ordered their
subordinates to worship them. But at last they were all drowned in the ocean of
time.
The great historical episodes, alluded to by
the Quran in the brief ‘By (the token of) time’ were studied and expounded in
great depth and detail by scholars and commentators of the Holy Book. This
particular attempt towards understanding the meaning of the Quran assumed the
status of a separate branch of Quranic studies and was termed by Shah Waliullah
of Delhi (RA) as ‘Tazkeer bi Ayyamillah’ which means reminding or instructing
the reader of the Book by means of recounting the moral lessons inherent in the
events of past history.
The Quranic verse, ‘Verily men are in a state
of loss’, epitomizes the undeniable tragedy to which relics of history spread
all around the world bear witness. The real bitterness of this tragic fact will
however be experienced only in the life Hereafter. It is something to be
commended that very few persons have been gifted with a really keen and
sensitive heart, otherwise thousands of men like Buddha, at the sight of
mankind’s misery and exceedingly unhappy plight, might have turned their back
on worldly pleasures and gone into ascetic hide-outs.
On examining rather
critically and attentively the human condition, one will come to realize that
inspite of hard labour all day long, millions of the unprivileged classes do
not even get an adequate meal. There are tens of thousands of people who see
their relatives and dear ones dying before their eyes but cannot afford a
spoonful of medicine that might help in curing the disease. An unaccountable
number of human beings do not possess even the bare minimum of clothing and
shelter. Terrible and heart-rending afflictions are suffered by many.
Even the bright exterior of the life of men of
privilege and wealth only covers up their own tales of woe. Often the travail
and suffering of these men are more dreadful than that of the common run of
people. Inspite of having all conceivable luxuries of life, they crave for an
anxiety-free moment during the day and for peaceful sleep at night.
In this stage of terrestrial existence the
condition of most men is as pitiable as that of animals which are mercilessly
forced to carry back-breaking burdens throughout their life. Taking a more
judicious view of things, one can say that pangs of psychic anxiety and bouts
of spiritual agony suffered by human beings are much greater in intensity than
the purely bodily pains which, animals suffer.
But, still worse, man will see the climax of
his tragedy when, having experienced all these worldly hardship, grief and
afflictions, he will at last be brought before Almighty Allah for the last
reckoning of his deeds. The Quran describes this in these words:
‘O thou man! Verily thou art ever toiling on
towards thy Lord—painfully toiling–but thou shalt meet Him’ (LXXXIV: 6)
At that crucial moment of great trial man will
cry out:
‘Would that I were dust’! The noblest souls of
all humanity tremble and quiver at the very thought of that final trial and
some men even wish they were like a sparrow chirping on a tree or like a straw
of grass (so they might not be called to account for on the day of Judgement).
At that critical moment the reality of the
verse ‘Verily, man is in a state of loss’ will become manifest in the highest
degree, and the large majority of human beings will say in utter despair: ‘If
only my mother had not given birth to me’. As the Quranic verse tells us the
most real and obvious loss is the loss met on that Day in the life hereafter.
The last verse of Surah Al-’Asr “save those
who believe, do good deeds and exhort one another to uphold the truth and
exhort one another to constancy”, delineates the sole means of deliverance from
eternal hell-fire. It is, therefore, imperative that we should exercise utmost
diligence in understanding the full meaning of this verse.
Since this verse is inseparably linked with
the preceding one “Verily man is in a state of loss”, it must be studied
principally in this context. Both these verses describe most clearly and
distinctly the all-important truth that the success of human life depends upon
the following:
- ‘Iman’
or belief (in the metaphysical tenets of Islam).
- ‘AmaI-e-Saleh’
or good deeds.
- ‘Twasi
bil-Haq’ or mutual exhortation to truth.
- ‘Twasi
bis-Sabr’ or mutual exhortation to constancy and steadfastness.
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