NOVEMBER 16

Good Actions

We have enjoined man to show kindness to his parents. With much pain his mother bears him, and with much pain she brings him into the world. He is born and weaned in thirty months. When he grows to manhood and attains his fortieth year, let him say: ‘Inspire me, Lord, to give thanks for the favours You have bestowed on me and on my parents, and to do good works that will please You. Grant me good descendants. To You I turn and to You I surrender myself.’

Such are those from whom We will accept their noblest works and whose misdeeds We shall overlook. (We shall include them) among the people of Paradise: true is the promise that has been given them (46:15-16).

A new human generation comes into existence with each child born of a man and a woman. This child, cared for and nourished by its parents, grows up to be a fully-rounded human being. This is a system devised by nature for the nurturing of human life. Its purpose is to inculcate in man a proper sense of rights and duties; to produce such feelings within man as will make him grateful to his benefactors and pay homage to them. This feeling tells man, on the one hand, to fulfill his obligations to those who have helped him to grow up and, on the other, to pay the far greater dues to his Creator and Sustainer.

Those who learn such lessons from nature as make them thoroughly aware of what is due to their parents and to God and act accordingly, are the people who will be deserving of God’s eternal blessings in the life to come.

Home serves as the first training ground for man and this training, which starts with the parents, later extends to the whole of society. If man fully accepts such training from the outset, he will be morally equipped not only to give human beings their due, but also to render to God what he owes Him in the vaster sense.