The Sunday Guardian | February 23, 2025

The Quran states:

Have you not seen that God sends down water from the sky, guides it to form springs in the earth, and then, with it, brings forth vegetation of various colours, which later withers, turns yellow before your eyes, and then He makes it crumble away? There is truly a reminder in this for those who possess understanding.

Anyone whose heart God has opened up to Islam possesses a light from his Lord. But woe betide those whose hearts have been hardened against the remembrance of God! Such people are in obvious error. (39:21-22).

The breathtakingly astonishing system of rains on earth, then the growth of vegetation from it, then the bringing forth of crops—all these material happenings have innumerable lessons to teach. But only those who are capable of going deeper into the subject will learn anything from them.

God has planned the external world in such a fashion that everything in it serves as a sign of the Higher Reality. Man has, moreover, been endowed with such capabilities as help him to read those signs and understand them. Now those who keep their natural faculties alive and, by availing of them, ponder over the things of the world, will unlock the doors of realisation within themselves. While those who allow the intellect to become sluggish will be unable to learn lessons from anything. They will see, but this will not be the seeing of realisation; they will hear, but this will not be the hearing of realisation.

In this present world everything that begins is heading towards its pre-destined end. For instance, a seed, once sprouted, starts its life as a tiny plant then gradually develops into a sapling, then into a fully grown tree. The same is true of the things of this world.

This happening serves as a divine lesson for man. In this way God tells man that he is also heading from beginning to end: childhood followed by youth and old age. Afterwards death will lead us to a new and eternal existence.

Source: Simple Wisdom