Maulana Wahiduddin Khan I The Sunday Guardian I January 19, 2014

It is a fact that every being of the universe lives in satisfaction. The material world, the plant and animal kingdoms, all the creatures are living in satisfaction. It is strictly a human phenomenon that man lives with the sense of dissatisfaction or incompleteness.

The reason is that man is born as an idealist or perfectionist. This is the nature of every man and woman, but the world in which they live is imperfect or less than ideal. It fails to fulfil the requirements of human nature. Every human being lives with this sense of incompleteness, and in a very short time he dies without experiencing the fulfilment which had been his cherished goal.

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This sense of incompleteness was not created by man himself, it is a creation of God. When we observe that all creatures of the universe are living with the sense of completeness except man, we will realise that this phenomenon is not a defect of creation instead it gives us a clue to the fact that the divine scheme of things regarding man is different from that which is for other parts of the universe. That is, other creatures of the universe are born with their counterparts, but man lacks his counterpart. The Quran tells us that man's counterpart was also created by God just as He created counterparts for other things, but in case of man, this gift requires eternity. That is, man's counterpart exists in the eternal world of the Hereafter and not in this limited world.

The Quran tells us that when man shall make entry into Paradise, the angels will announce: "Rejoice in the [good news of the] Garden that you have been promised" (41:30).

Sense of incompleteness in human nature is in itself a good tiding. It tells us that a day will come when man will surely enjoy the experience of completeness, that is, in eternal paradise.