Man, Know Thyself!
If scientists were one day to declare that the earth’s gravity had been reduced to zero, and that our planet was being pulled towards the sun at 6,000 m.p.h, the whole world would be stricken with panic, for this would mean that in a few weeks time all life would be burnt off the face of the earth.
This globe, in fact, is always in much greater peril even than this. But no one loses a moment’s sleep over it. What, actually, is this peril? It is the peril of the Last Day, to which the world from the moment of creation has been destined, and towards which we are rushing in the most reckless way. As a matter of faith, most of us accept this reality, but, strangely, we do not stop to give it any serious consideration.
If different people were asked what the topic of the greatest relevance for mankind was today, they would all give different answers. Some would say the spread of nuclear weapons, some would say too high a birthrate all over the world, while others might say that the most important of all was the production of wealth and the giving of fair shares to all. These widely differing opinions show that people in general do not properly recognize what they themselves are. If they did, they would all argue that what affects man most is his ignorance of his own nature, and his refusal to accept the fact that one day he must die, and, more terrible, be called to account, before his Maker. If we could only accept this reality, we would think less of the present world and more of the afterlife.
Today, most people do believe in God and in the after-world. It is not as if they deny these things; yet their actions do not conform to their beliefs. In practice, all people are concerned about is getting on in life.
If you stand in a busy shopping centre during the evening rush-hour you will soon become aware of what it is that people are rushing towards; they are rushing towards the satisfaction of their own desires. One need only look at them, and listen to them, to understand that buying and selling, acquiring objects or money, are what give them the greatest joy in life. The happiness or sadness we see in their faces are directly connected with success or failure in the fulfillment of material ambitions. No one cares about tomorrow. Everyone wants his share of the good things of life right this minute, and even being accepted and liked by other people would appear to depend on the type and amount of one’s possessions.
Everyone, in fact, wants the world. No one wants the afterworld. No one, indeed, even thinks about it. And this state of affairs is to be found not only in our big cities, but even in the tiniest of villages. Wherever one goes, people have the same obsessions. Male and female, rich and poor, young and old, townsman and countryman, religious or irreligious—all are running in this same direction. All are frittering away their precious time and talents on material gain. What an obsession! No sacrifice, however dubious in character, is too great if it brings them such things. Even faith and conscience are sacrificed at the alter of worldly gain. No compromise is too base.
Success of this kind, however, is trivial and without meaning, for it will be of no avail in the afterlife. One who assures his worldly position at the cost of his afterlife is like the man who does not care to save up for his old age while he is still young. Eventually a time comes when his limbs fail him, and he can no longer work for a living. It is only then that he realizes his predicament: he is without food, clothes or shelter, and he can no longer provide for himself. How many have we seen lying in rags, in the shade of some wall, with dogs barking and snapping around them, and boys throwing stones at them? We have seen many such pitiable sights, but we are not so shaken by what we see that we feel the need to take any precautions. None of us actually see ourselves coming to such an end, because we are too concerned with the present. Who cares for tomorrow?
When, in wartime, the air-raid siren announces the approach of squadrons of enemy bombers coming to blast us to eternity, we are chilled by this idea, and everyone immediately dashes to the air-raid shelters. In a matter of moments, the streets are deserted. Anyone who does not react to the alert in this way is considered idiotic, if not mentally deranged. But what happens when men of religion sound the Lord’s alert? “Mankind! Worship Me. Fulfill your obligations to one another and live in accordance with My will. I will punish those who fail to do this in a way that cannot be imagined. They will writhe forever in a torment from which they will never be able to free themselves.” What happens, indeed? Everyone has heard this warning, but no one acknowledges its force, its authority, its essential truth. The general attitude is to treat it as a matter of no consequence, to be thought about later, or perhaps not at all.
To gain worldly advantages, people do not stop at anything. In this way the caravan of life is hastening onwards to a point of no return. People start in response to the siren’s wail but ignore the warnings of the Lord of the Universe. Far from hastening to do what is right at the very sound of it, no one even alters his pace.
What is the reason for this very strange state of affairs? It is simply that the siren warns us of the dangers of this world, the consequences of which will immediately be felt, whereas the danger signals given by the Lord relate to the after-life, which is very far ahead (so we think!) in the future. Between us and these perils there stands the wall of death, which no human eye can penetrate.
We do not see behind it the engulfing smoke and fire of Hades. Although people respond immediately to the air raid siren, they remain unaffected by divine warnings of calamity: The absolute certainty of their doom has no immediacy and, this being so, they do not feel any urge to begin leading righteous lives to atone for their sins.
God Almighty, however, has given us not only our two eyes with which to perceive the external world, but also a ‘third eye’ with which to scan the invisible realities beyond the normal limits of human perception. This third eye is the intellect. People remain in a state of doubt and ignorance, because they do not care to use this ‘third eye.’ They reckon that the total reality is what they can see with their own two eyes. If they were just to give the matter some earnest thought, they would become even more certain about what remains unseen than about what is visible.
What is the one reality that everyone has to acknowledge? The obvious and unanimous answer to this is death. Death is a reality to which everyone, big or small, great or humble, has to reconcile himself. Everyone realizes that death can overtake one at any moment, but whenever this thought takes shape, people think only of what will happen to their children after they die, and what domestic and financial arrangements they should make for them. So much of their time is spent in safeguarding their children’s interests in this life, that they make no efforts to ensure themselves for the life beyond the grave. They do not appear able to project their minds beyond the point of death. They behave as if only their children will survive them; as if they themselves will be non-existent and will, therefore, have nothing to prepare for.
People behave as if they are totally unaware of the fact that there is a life after death, whereas, in fact, the real life only commences after death. If they could only realize that when they enter the grave, it is not just to be buried, but to be ushered into another world, their concern would be more for their own fate than for their children’s future. Even those who expect to find a life after death more consequential than the present one, do little to prepare themselves for it. This goes both for the religious-minded and the agnostics.
There are two factors, which arouse doubts about life after death. Firstly, on dying, all human beings turn into dust, and all traces of their bodies eventually disappear. Once this has happened, how can they possibly be revived? Secondly, we cannot actually see the life after death. And if no one has ever seen it, how can we be certain that it exists? How can we know that when we die, that life will be there for us to step into? Let us look at both these objections in turn.
Life After Death
“When I am dead, will I then be raised up again?” This question may arise in a vague kind of way in the minds of even those who do not have any strong beliefs in life after death as a reality. But the fact remains that very few people give their direct attention to this question. The plain fact that tomorrow’s life is not the subject of eager and wining enquiry is surely a sign that people have conscious or sub-conscious doubts as to its existence.
If, however, we give serious thought to this reality, it ceases to be difficult to understand. God–wishing to put us to the test—has not told us the secrets of life after death. But He has scattered His signs throughout the world, and it is then for us to mark them, think earnestly about them, and in this way find a true picture of the essence of all things. This universe is, indeed, a mirror in which we can gaze upon the image of the next world.
It is well known that human beings pass from a prior state to their present state. Man takes shape from a substance which, itself formless, grows inside the mother’s womb until a fully-fledged human being develops, ready to enter the outside world. This process of change, which turns an invisible, unfeeling, valueless substance into a six-foot tall human being, is an every day event, so why should there be any difficulty in understanding how the tiny particles of our bodies, after being scattered in the ground, will once again take on a human form?
Every individual that one sees walking around is, in fact, an accumulation of countless atoms which had previously been dispersed throughout the earth and atmosphere in unknown dimensions. These atoms, brought together to form one meaningful, sensate pattern, then took the shape of a human being capable of thought, feeling and movement. The same process will be repeated in reverse order when we die. The particles which had made up our body will be diffused in the earth, the water, the air, and later, at God’s command, they will be reassembled and again take the shape of a human being. What is so extraordinary about a happening, which so constantly repeats itself?
Even in the world of matter, there are clear signs of the revival of life. Every year, in the rainy season, vegetation flourishes and greenery spreads in all directions. But when this season is over, the sun dries everything up. It is as if it had passed the death sentence on all seasonally growing things. A plain where flowers had formerly bloomed now seems a barren waste. But when the rains come again, that very same vegetation will be revived by the water pouring down from the heavens, and the dried-up plain will again become a meadow. In this very same way, man will be brought back to life after his death.
Let us look at the matter from another angle. If doubts occur concerning life after death, it is because what we imagine is based on what happens in our present physical existence. We consider the solid, moving body that we can see to be the essential human being, and wonder how something which takes this shape can be re-made and raised up again once it has rotted away and mingled with the earth. We observe that when death strikes, the once articulate human being falls forever silent; the once mobile human being comes to a standstill. In fact, all his faculties cease to function. Shortly afterwards, he is buried, cremated or thrown into a river depending upon the customs of the people concerned. A few days later, the body is reduced to tiny particles and mingles with the earth or water in such a way as to be no longer detectable by normal human vision. We witness this process every so often yet find it hard to understand how once alive human beings, who now have no physical substance to them, can be revived in any manner whatsoever.
What we fail to appreciate is that the word ‘man’ refers not to any such bodily form, but rather to the soul, which inhabits the body. As far as the physical frame is concerned, we know that it is made up of tiny units called living cells. The position of the cells in our bodies is like that of the bricks in a building. The bricks (or cells) of our bodies are continuously being destroyed in the course of our daily lives and we compensate for this loss by taking in food. This food, once digested, produces a variety of different types of cells, which make up for any physical deficiency. The human body is thus undergoing a constant process of erosion and change. Old cells are destroyed, and new ones take their place. This process continues daily, until finally, a total renewal of the body is complete, usually within a ten-year period. To put it in another way, nothing whatsoever now remains of the body you possessed ten years ago. Your present physique is an entirely new one. If all the parts of your body, which were discarded over the last ten years, were to be gathered together again, another human being exactly resembling yourself could be put together. If you are a hundred years old, then ten “yous” could be formed. But even if they looked exactly like you, they would just be lifeless lumps of flesh, for “you” do not dwell in them. “You” have, cast off these old bodies and moulded yourself into a new frame.
So, the drama of construction and destruction is constantly being enacted within you, without there being any apparent change in you. The entity which you call ‘yourself’ remains as it has always been. Supposing you had entered into a contract with someone ten years ago, “You” would continue to honour this contract, because “You” had committed yourself to it, although your previous frame is now non-existent. The hands which signed the contract and the tongue which testified to it are no longer parts of your body. Nevertheless, “You” still exist, and “You” acknowledge the fact that this ten-year old agreement was contracted by “You” and that “You” will continue to abide by it. This is that internal human being at work which, far from altering along with body-changes, survives countless transformations intact.
This proves that the expression, “homo sapiens,” far from being a label attached to a certain physical form, which ceases to exist after death, in fact denotes a separate entity which remains intact even after the scattering of the different elements of the body. The fact that the body alters, whereas the soul does not, is conclusive proof of the transitional nature of the body and the eternal nature of the soul.
There is the view that life and death are the accumulation and subsequent diffusion of countless particles of matter. Those who hold this view, are, of course, misguided. It has been expressed thus by the Urdu poet Chakbast: “Zindgi kya hai anaasir ka zuhoore tarteeb. Maut kya hai inhi ajza ka pareshan hona.” (What is life? Elements arranging themselves in order. And death? Their diffusion).
But this statement is simply not borne out by fact. If life were simply “elements arranging themselves in order,” then it ought to follow that so long as this order endured, life should continue to survive, and conversely, it should be possible for scientists to create life by Causing elements to accumulate in a particular way. Quite obviously both these propositions are false.
Let us take the first proposition. Consider the corpse of a man who has died of heart failure. All its elements are still arranged in the same order as they were a few minutes beforehand, no significant changes having taken place. But those elements are now lifeless. The corpse is still an “orderly elemental manifestation.” but the soul which once inhabited it has now departed. This shows that the organization of elemental matter neither creates nor sustains life. We all know that it is not just those who have been torn limb from limb in accidents who die. People of all ages and in all states of health regularly pass away, and it frequently happens that doctors cannot say—particularly in the case of strokes, heart failure, etc.—why a patient should have died at that particular point in time. It so often happens that a man is perfectly healthy one day and is dead the next. Life, we must concede, is a separate entity from the body.
As for the second proposition—the creation of a live human being in a laboratory—scientists are the first to admit that this is a sheer impossibility. They say this, although the body’s chemical formula and atomic structure are well-known. Its carbon is the same as in charcoal, its oxygen and hydrogen the same as in water and its nitrogen the same as in the atmosphere. It has never been true to say that a live human being is just a specific collection of ordinary atoms, which have been arranged in an extraordinary way. Man may be made up of certain known material particles, but we are still not in a position to create life by just combining those particles in a particular way. The body of a live human being is not just a collection of lifeless atoms. It is something quite other than this. It is a combination of atoms plus life. After death, this collection of atoms does not disappear from view. It is still there for everyone to see. It is life itself which departs for another world.
Clearly, life is not something which can be completely annihilated. Once we understand that it is something having eternal properties, we can appreciate how rational, and also how natural the ‘life-after-death’ theory is. Facts are simply crying out that life does not consist merely of what can be seen of the human body prior to death. There must also be a life after death. If the human intellect accepts the passing nature of this world, the possessor of that intellect must be a being who survives it. When we die, we do not pass into oblivion. We retire to reside in another world. The present world is nothing but the briefest of interludes in our never-ending lifespan.
The Other World
Think for a moment what this other world must be like. God’s Prophet has made it known to mankind that heaven and hell both exist there, and that everyone who dies must eventually find his eternal abode in one or the other. Those who are obedient to God in this world, always behaving in a virtuous fashion, will be rewarded with a place in paradise, while those who are evil and rebellious in their attitude towards God will be cast into the Fire to be tormented forever and ever.
It is important to understand that human actions fall into one of two categories. The first comprises everyday, routine matters in which there is no need to label actions right or wrong. It also includes purely accidental happenings, which, likewise, cannot be labelled right or wrong, because of there being no human will or intention behind them. The second category, however, is very different in nature because it covers a wide range of actions the rights and wrongs of which must be taken seriously into consideration before being carried out. This is known as the ethical category.
Imagine walking along a mountain road with ledges of rock projecting above your head. Suddenly a piece of rock detaches itself, falls on you and injures you. Do you strike the mountainside and bear a grudge against it? Of course not. The stone falling down and hurting you was purely a matter of chance. But suppose a man picks up a stone and throws it at you with the clear intention of injuring you. Won’t you then become enraged and feel like throwing stones back at him? You would be quite right in feeling that he should be punished, because what he did was intentional. Here, it is not just a question of some accidental happening, but of right and wrong action, good and bad intentions, in a word—of ethics.
The examples chosen to clarify this point are of a very simple nature, in that the result of the action can immediately be seen, and, in the second case, one can judge immediately that the assailant was in the wrong. But, in life, there are much more complex situations where wrong-doing is not immediately apparent, and the culprits may go scot-free for long periods, or never be brought to book at all. Obviously, they should be condemned by their fellowmen or be punished by a court of law. But sometimes evil deeds are not seen to be such, or the wrong doers are so clever as to escape punishment, or there simply may not be the means to inflict a suitable punishment. Crimes are often repeated for just such reasons. But the evil-doer should not be too ready to congratulate himself on the success of his schemes, or on his ability to evade the law—or the censure of society, for it is exactly this type of action that he will be called to account for by his Creator on the Day of Judgement. Everyone, no matter the walk of life he hails from, will be required to stand before his Maker on that fateful day, and lay bare his entire life before Him. Judged by those of his actions which fall into the ethical category, where principles and right action are of supreme importance, he will either be ushered into paradise, or cast down into the flaming pits of hell. If all this has been kept hidden from him in this world, it is because it is God’s intention to put man to the test.
It is in the afterworld that man will be faced with the full consequences of his deeds, depending upon how right or wrong they were. Every action has certain consequences for the doer; every situation that he creates causes a favourable or unfavourable reaction. In deciding upon the course, he takes, for good or for evil, he himself forges his own destiny.
The Afterworld
At this point, the question arises as to the actual existence of the afterworld. In what way is it to be understood? In what way can it be made intelligible to us?
Let us take sound, which we cannot see and can only sometimes hear. It is the name for waves which form an invisible pattern in the air and which continue to exist thousands of years after the source of the sound is no longer in existence. In the case of the human voice, it is so indelibly imprinted upon the atmosphere that, if we possessed the apparatus to detect it, it could be replayed to us in its original form, and many would be the historic discussions upon which we could then eavesdrop. Just as we are enveloped by a blanket of air on which every word of ours is engraved without our being able to see either the air or the ‘inscription,’ so the other world constantly envelopes us, recording our actions and our intentions. In this way they are imprinted there for all time, for the Almighty to read after we pass away.
Imagine a record, revolving in silence on a turntable. We place the needle in its groove, and, immediately, the room is filled with the sound of music. Not a single note is missed. None of its subtleties are lost. Similarly, the record of our lives will give forth every detail of our thoughts, words and deeds, not when a needle is placed in the groove, but when our Lord utters the word of command. The entire history of our lives, recorded right from the moment of birth, will thus be played back to us—whether to our joy or to our discomfiture will depend on the kind of lives we have led. On hearing this ‘play-back,’ people will ask, “What sort of a book is this which has omitted neither the smallest nor the gravest of matters?” (The Quran, 18:49).
A Last Word
Just take a few minutes to think over everything I have explained. Consider that you are destined for an extremely long and unbroken lifespan. And make no mistake about the meaning of death. Death is by no means the end of this life. It marks the beginning of a new era. It is simply the dividing point between the two stages in our life. Think of the farmer who invests his capital in a crop, who sedulously cultivates it until it ripens, then harvests it and stores it for his year’s requirements. Harvesting is the end of just one phase in the crop’s development. Before that, it had been all toil and expense for the farmer. It is only after that point that he enjoys the fruits of his efforts. Such is the case with our life in this world too. Here we invest in and cultivate our after-world crop. Each one of us owns a field which is either cultivated or allowed to lie fallow. We use seeds which give us either a high or a low yield. After sowing our crop, we either attend to it properly or neglect it. We grow thorns or we grow fruit. We grow weeds or we grow flowers. Whatever we do, the period of our preparation of this crop lasts until the day we die. The day of our death is harvest day. That is the day that we shall reap as we have sown. When our eyes close on this world, they will open on the afterlife and there, before our eyes, will be the crop which we have been cultivating (or neglecting) all our lives.
It is worth remembering that the person who does the farming is the one who does the harvesting, and that he will reap only the crop that he has sown. In the afterworld, too, everyone will reap the harvest he had prepared for himself while he was still in the world of the living. Every farmer knows full well that he will take to the granary only as much grain as he has grown, and that the crop can never be other than what he had sowed.
In the afterworld, man’s reward or punishment will be in direct proportion to the goodness or evil of his actions, to the goodness or evil of his intentions, and to the earnestness with which he courts good and shuns evil. Death puts a full stop to the period of his endeavours and leads him to the final point at which he will experience their results. What a critical matter this is! If only man could come to a mature understanding of this before he died! Afterwards, his realization of this will be of no avail. It is too late to become aware of the truth after death for then there is no time to consider the gravity of one’s errors, no time for repentance, no time for atonement.
Man’s destiny is unknown to him. He is barely aware that time is conveying him at a breakneck pace towards the harvesting of his crop. While he considers himself occupied in a worthwhile way all he may actually be doing is straining after paltry worldly profits; he may just be frittering away his precious time. He has before him a wonderful opportunity to ensure a sublime future for himself, but more often than not he chooses to waste his time on trivialities.
His Lord is calling him towards paradise, a place of eternal honour and bliss, while he, in his ignorance, is bent on pursuing pleasures which are illusory, and which cannot last. He reckons that he is adding to his happiness and prosperity, but, in actual fact, he is squandering whatever could be good about his life. He builds his worldly mansion, fondly imagining that he is building for his life, but, in fact, he is erecting walls of sand which will crumble away to nothing.
Man! Recognize yourself! Know what you are doing, and what you ought to be doing!
