The Exception of the Human World
Shaikh Saadi (1195-1226), the famous Persian poet, once remarked, ‘I fear God, and, after God I fear the one who does not fear God.’ Shakespeare said somewhat the same thing, but in a different way. He is said to have commented that man is the only animal that he feared.
You know beforehand how many things in this world behave or react. You already know about fire, that if you thrust your hand into it, it will burn you. You already know, beforehand, that it will not behave in the same way if you keep your hand away from it. The same holds true for all other things. Even about dangerous wild animals we know beforehand that they do not attack human beings unless provoked, and that if they attack, it is only out of self-defence.
This means that everything in this world works according to certain fixed regulations. By taking into account these regulations, you can save yourself from being harmed by them. But human beings are the only creatures whose actions do not have any such fixed or predictable rules. They are fully free, and can do whatever they want, whenever they want.
In this world, human beings are the only creatures who attack or engage in unilateral action against others without any proper reason. Human greed and revenge know no bounds. You may confine yourself to your own business, silently trying to progress, based on your own efforts. But still, you will not be safe, because others will grow jealous of you and will try to pull you down. Humans have unlimited desires that they want to fulfil. They also have an unlimited urge to see others get destroyed, and this gives them malicious pleasure.
Even the most harmful animal does not know how to humiliate another creature. It does not know how to demean others in order to exalt itself and satisfy the urge to feel proud. It has no desire to unnecessarily get others into trouble and derive pleasure from this. It is only man who does this. God made man, the Quran (95: 4-5) says, in the ‘the best of stature’, but in his foolishness, man demeans himself in the lowliness of ‘the lowest of the low’.
