DISCOVERING THE TRUTH
The critical aspect of the creation plan of God is that man has been created with total freedom. Paradise is the reward for those who use their freedom correctly.
Man is a truth-seeking being. I have personally experienced this myself. From childhood, I have desired to search for the truth somehow or the other. In the year 1942, this desire became particularly intense. At that time, my condition was such that I would go off into the wilderness and, in solitude, would cry out, “O God! When will you come? Till when shall I wait for your arrival?”
Finally, I got the answer to this in a tradition of the Prophet. According to this Hadith, God said: “I was a hidden treasure. I wanted to be known. Therefore, I created man.” (Kashf al-Khafa by al-’Ajluni: 2016) According to this statement, the purpose of man’s existence is to attain a realisation (maarifah) of his Creator. Moreover, as a reward for this realisation, he will be rewarded with a place in eternal Paradise in the Hereafter. The period of man’s life before his death is the period to acquire this realisation, and the post-death phase of his life is the period to live a life of comfort and peace in eternal Paradise if he proves eligible for this.
How Can We Realize God?
Realisation of God is no easy matter. It is a challenging campaign. This is because an element of doubt is present in every single component of this world in the pre-death period of life. In this world, nothing is bereft of doubt. In the pre-death phase of life, man’s task is to draw apart the curtains of doubt and see the truth. Despite doubts, he should obtain a state of complete certainty.
A veil of doubt is placed over everything that exists in the world. As soon as a person takes birth in this world, he finds himself in a jungle of conflicting thoughts. Man is confronted with all sorts of philosophies of life that can leave him utterly confused. There are dogmas of religions and other worldviews, and each religion or ideology claims it is true. Each person nurses a storm of emotions and desires inside him, which are a hurdle in acting rationally. Everyone is entangled in family attachments and social bonds. Everyone is guided by self-interest. Everyone is so caught in the web of wealth and relationships that he does not know what to do or what not to do.
Only someone who can develop objective thinking can realise the truth in such a situation. He should develop the ability to lift and remove the curtains of doubt and see truth as truth and falsehood as falsehood. He should see things as they indeed are. Along with this, he should be able to accept willingly what he knows to be true. If he realises something is right, he should accept it unhesitatingly. Changing the direction of his life, his aim should be to attain self-discovered truth.
The means to remove the curtain of doubts that man is confronted with is just one: knowing and understanding God’s creation plan. This creation plan explains things so that all doubts are removed, and the truth is made evident, like the sun appearing bright and shining after the dark clouds have moved away.
The Creation Plan of God
What is God’s creation plan? God created an ideal world that was perfect in all respects. He ordained that this ultimate world be inhabited by impeccable ideal human beings. To achieve this target, God first settled man on Earth giving him complete freedom. The present world is a selection ground for this grand project. Here, it is being observed who makes proper use of his freedom and who misuses it. At the end of human history, those who have abused their freedom will be rejected, and those who may have exercised their freedom judiciously will be selected by God and settled in Paradise.
What is Paradise?
Paradise is the ultimate answer to the human quest. It is a vast, zero-defect, evil-free universe, complete in itself. Certainty prevails all over the universe, but the human world is marred by uncertainty. Fear is unheard of in the universe, but man continually suffers from fear and apprehension. The rest of the universe is in a state of equilibrium as it receives everything that it needs, while human beings are in a state of imbalance as they are the only creatures in the world to suffer from the painful thought that they have not received what they wanted. Moreover, the rest of the universe is evil-free, while human beings continually suffer from the problem of evil.
The Problem of Evil
The most debated question concerning man and God in philosophy has been ‘the problem of evil’. That is the issue of why there is so much suffering in the human world. If God is All-Good, why did He make such a world where people are forced to face different types of problems and where there is so much suffering?
This question can be answered by understanding the creation plan of God. Unpleasantness has been put into this world for man to learn proper lessons from it. The true lesson taught by unpleasant experiences is that man should remember the next world of Paradise where there will not be any suffering. His approach thus becomes: “Let me not suffer in the Hereafter what I have suffered in this world.”
Freedom for Testing Man
All the things in this world are God’s subjects. The stars and satellites rotate in space entirely at their Lord’s bidding. Trees, rivers, mountains, and all other such natural phenomena function according to the unchangeable ways God laid down for them in advance. Similarly, the animals follow precisely those instincts instilled in their species as a matter of Divine Will.
Unlike all these creatures in the Universe, man is free in this world. God has not placed any curbs on him. As such, the critical aspect of this creation plan is that man has been created with total freedom. But this freedom is to test man and not encourage him to lead a life of permissiveness. The purpose of freedom is that man should lead a morally good life of his own free will, thus demonstrating that he is of the highest moral character.
One who conducts himself in this manner will be reckoned as God’s special servant who, without any apparent compulsion, chose to be a man of principle, who submitted to God’s Will despite having freedom not to do so. This liberty accorded to man allows him to gain credit for being the most superior of all God’s creatures.
The decision regarding a person’s eternal future will hinge on his use of freedom—whether he used his freedom correctly or misused it. For those who use their freedom correctly, Paradise is their reward. Those who misused their freedom will live in eternal deprivation.
The Positive Role of Challenges
In some way or other, all the problems in life are the price of the inappropriate use of freedom. When people misuse their freedom it creates problems for others. On its face, this price seems to be a very high one. However, from God, we have this good news: after death, when the Day of Judgement will come, God will hold one to task only when it was proved that he had misused the freedom he had been given. For whatever other difficulties a person may have faced based on God’s creation plan like the problems that he faced due to the misuse of freedom by others or due to the handicaps that he faced, arrangements will be made for their compensation. This will make it clear that whatever difficulties and hardships he had encountered while on Earth were in line with the demand of justice.
A study tells us that a more significant incentive is not ease and comfort for man’s progress but challenge and difficulty. One aspect of this freedom is that it produces competition and challenge, without which no progress is possible. Misuse of freedom leads to problems, and problems are, in a sense, a sort of shock treatment because they can become a means for man’s inner growth. It is only through challenges that we can progress in life.
People’s engagement in different kinds of activities with complete freedom, at times, goes against the interests of others. It is a challenging situation, causing great suffering to people. This is necessary for testing human beings and selecting them for Paradise. Further, this system is not evil in the absolute sense, for there is also an element of goodness. Suffering and challenges are the most powerful teachers of life. All such unpleasant experiences prove to be a kind of ‘shock treatment’ for individuals, leading them to undergo a tremendous mental activity called ‘brainstorming’. As per psychological studies, brainstorming is the source of intellectual development.
With ease and comfort, often, man’s abilities are ruined. In contrast, challenges and problems often motivate people to develop virtues and scale new heights. That is why one can say that it is not ease but effort, not facility but difficulty, that makes men.
This point can be understood with the help of a real example. In the materially affluent societies of the West, a new disease has emerged named ‘Affluenza’. This is a disease of the materially rich. In ‘rich’ families, people become intellectual dwarfs instead of intellectual giants. Their IQ is very low. They are lazy and do not do much work. In contrast to them, people who have grown up with difficulty and challenges often go on to do great things.
Is It Possible to Achieve the Ideal?
Another thing to understand is that in every period of human history, thinkers and reformers have tried to establish an ideal society or an ideal state. However, despite all their efforts, they could only make a non-ideal society or a non-ideal state. Why was this so?
This fact of history can be adequately understood only when viewed in light of the Creator’s creation plan. God did not make this world for the establishment of an ideal state or society. The limitations of this present world and the presence of different disadvantages are concrete barriers that prevent an ideal state or society from being established here.
Is Man’s Life Governed by Destiny or Free Will?
I am often asked this question: “Is man’s life governed by destiny, or does he have freedom of choice?” The fact is that God has provided the infrastructure to man in the form of a life support system and the different situations that present themselves to man. This is the destiny part of the matter. However, man can respond to all these situations as he likes. In this aspect, he is entirely free. That is his free will or his freedom of choice.
Therefore, I say that the matter is 50-50. Destiny plays a 50 percent role, as man cannot change the infrastructure and situations provided to him. Free will plays the remaining 50 percent role, as man is entirely free to respond to situations the way he likes.
Freedom has opened doors of two kinds for man, one leading to success and the other to failure. If an individual becomes arrogant and insolent, he has misused his freedom and failed to pass the test.
But if, on the other hand, he remains modest and humble, bowing to his Lord’s Will on all occasions, he will have made the proper use of this God-given freedom: he will, without any compulsion, have bound himself by divine principles. One who chooses this course will succeed in the test of freedom. God will handsomely reward him as no other creature. Held to be the chosen servant of God, he will remain in an everlasting state of blissfulness and blessedness in the eternal world of Paradise after death.
If Man Has a Free Will,
How is God All-Powerful?
Another question I am often asked is, “If God cannot control man’s action, then how is He All-Powerful”? There is no doubt that God is All-Powerful. However, since He has decided to put man to the test, He has given man freedom of choice to do what he likes. As if there was no free will, there would be no test. So, to test man, God has withheld His power when it comes to man and given him the freedom to respond in any way that he wants. God, however, is getting a record of all of man’s thoughts, speech, and deeds maintained, and will hold him accountable for them on the Day of Judgment. On that Day all of humanity will see the power of God.
What is Man’s Trial?
This limited world where man finds himself before death has all the necessary ingredients for the ‘trial’. It has man as the perfection-seeking creature in a less-than-perfect world where he has been given complete ‘freedom’. Man, thus, has a ‘choice’ to misuse his freedom by creating havoc, killing people, living a life of leisure, or using his freedom wisely by submitting to an unseen God and living a disciplined life, to qualify for Paradise.
Man’s trial rests on discovering God, Who is in the Unseen. Before seeing Him, man should voluntarily surrender himself before God. He should be so desirous of Paradise that this world appears meaningless. He should adopt divine ethics without any external pressure to do so. He should develop his intellectual and spiritual being to such an extent that he produces in himself the ability to inhabit the refined world of Paradise. Paradise is a heavenly colony where peace, love, and noble character prevail. Of this world’s inhabitants, only those who have succeeded in maintaining a high moral character will find a place in Paradise.
The Secret of Eternal Success
In light of this creation plan, the root of all human problems is that the unenlightened want to make their Paradise in this world before death, whereas under the natural laws, the situation here on earth makes this impossible. Therefore, according to God’s creation plan, man has to be content in this limited world before death, so as to make himself eligible for Paradise in the eternal world after death.
Therefore, the right and proper thing for a man to do is acknowledge and accept this law of creation, and plan his life accordingly. His sole aim in this world should be to make himself acceptable in the eyes of God so that he may be held eligible for admission into Paradise in the eternal world after death. Successful is one who has realized the eternal world of Paradise in this temporary world, who has discovered in the failures of the present world, the secret to eternal success in the next eternal world.
God is Selecting Individuals for Paradise
The Creator has given man freedom while managing history so that despite perversion at the collective level, desired individuals continue to be born unhindered. According to God’s creation plan, the present world is a selection ground to select the desired individuals out of the whole of human history. Therefore, the purpose of creation is to select those individuals, from every age and every race, who, despite enjoying complete freedom, would commit themselves to the commands of God. If we understand this point, human history becomes meaningful.
