SEPTEMBER 23

The Bounty of Food

Let man reflect on the food he eats: how We pour down the rain in torrents and cleave the earth asunder; how We bring forth the corn, the grapes, and the fresh vegetation; the olive and the palm, the thickets, the fruit-trees and the green pasture, for you and for your cattle to delight in.

But when the dread blast is sounded, on that day each man will forsake his brother, his mother and his father, his wife and his children: for each one of them will on that day have enough sorrow of his own.

On that day there shall be beaming faces, smiling and joyful. And on that day there shall be faces covered with dust and veiled with darkness. These shall (be the faces of) the wicked and the unbelieving (80:24-42).

Man is a creature who needs a continuous supply of food for survival. The arrangement for food which prevails on this earth on a large scale, has been done without any effort on our part. One part of this sustenance is directly derived from crop yields, such as cereals, fruits and nuts, and from the abundant provision of water everywhere. This produce of the earth is consumed by animals, who convert it into meat and milk, thus indirectly providing us with another source of sustenance.

This divine blessing demands that man live on earth as a worshipper of God. The true way to worship God is, in actual fact, to express gratitude for all His bounty. If man were to think of His creation and give thought to all the beneficent arrangements of nature around him, the feeling of gratefulness to his Lord would necessarily arise within him.

The leading of a life directed by divine guidance, a life of being grateful to God, of worshipping none other than God as a result of this sincere feeling of gratefulness is what is called a God-oriented life in the true sense. Honour and success in the Hereafter await those who lead such lives.