The Shama continued, "So, now let us reflect on the wisdom of the Gentle, the Omniscient, when He endowed man with such knowledge as he may need for optimal life in this world and in the hereafter; while He withheld from man knowledge that he does not need, and which there is no harm in missing. He greatly facilitated the means of acquiring the required knowledge; the more that was required, the more did He facilitate its acquisition. He bestowed on man knowledge of and recognition of his Creator, Maker, Originator, the Almighty Lord - the way to such knowledge has been greatly smoothed.
There is nothing in the branches of knowledge that compares with this in importance, nor with its obviousness to the mind and innate nature; no branch of knowledge has as many ways and proofs as this knowledge, nothing is equal in obviousness and clarity - all that your eye sees, all that your ear hears, all that your mind thinks of, all that occurs to you, and all that any of your senses receive, is a proof of the Lord. The ways to knowing the Maker are innate and self-evident, so that nothing in the branches of knowledge is as manifest as this knowledge. The most compelling of proofs falls short of the fact it tries to prove. That is the reason the messengers of Allah used to say to their people: "Is there any doubt about Allah?" They addressed them in a tone that meant there should be no doubt whatsoever about the existence of Allah Almighty. He established proofs about His existence. Oneness, the attributes of His perfection of such abundance that no one but Allah can list all their variety or number; then He implanted that in the innate nature, and ingrained it in the mind in a general way; then He sent His messengers to remind people of Him.
The messengers also elaborated what innate nature and the mind know to be true in general. See how the innate nature has ingrained in it the assertion of Allah's existence. His Oneness, the attributes of His Perfection, Highness, and Wisdom as embodied in His creation and injunctions, which assert the truth of His messenger's message, and the compensation for the righteous with becoming reward, and the fitting punishment for the wrong-doer. If the innate nature were preserved in its original state which it had when created, if it had not been exposed to influences that contaminated it and corrupted it and diverted it from what it was made to be, it would have confirmed Allah's Oneness, the necessity of thanking Him and obeying Him, His attributes and Wisdom as embodied in His actions, and the belief in reward and punishment. But because it was corrupted and diverted from the way it was created, it denied things and rejected things.
This is why Allah sent His messengers as reminders that appeal to those with uncorrupted and undistorted innate natures. These people responded willingly, of their own volition, passionately and heartily, heeding to the evidence they found in their hearts: indeed some did not even ask for miracles and supernatural evidence; they rather perceived the truth of the call from its content; this alone was sufficient to make them sure of its being a irulhful call; being its proof in itself. The messengers also demonstrated their honesty and refuted the claims of those with corrupted innate natures, so that the latter should not complain to Allah that He did not send them guidance and illumination. These latter have been warned, and the proof of their being in the wrong has been established, so that when Allah tortures them and condemns them. He will not have been unjust to them.
The wisdom of Allah reflected in sending messengers to the various peoples in constant succession, each succeeding his predecessor after his decease; is due to the peoples' need for frequent messengers and prophets, as their minds were weak; and they did not take the message of the previous messenger in earnest. Things had changed, however, by the time of the prophethood of Muhammad bin Abdillah, Allah's Messenger and Prophet, (ﷺ). Allah sent him to convey the message to more enlightened intellects, to keener minds and better- informed nations. The message revealed to Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) was the maturest from the earliest days of mankind to his own time.
Consider now Allah's mercy in endowing man with the two forms of expression, the oral and the orthographic. They have been stressed by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the course of listing His graces to man. See how Allah condenses all the phases of creation; the four levels of existence. He, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, starts with creation in general, which is the conferring of external existence; then, since man is the target of attention here. He turns to the uniqueness of the creation of man to point out the significance of the creation, which. He emphasizes, is wondrous. By just considering his own creation, man can observe the many aspects of Allah's bounties. In this place, the Quranic text only mentions the development of the human from a clot, while in other contexts it mentions the stages that preceded it. The first matter from which the creation of man was started is earth and mud, or 'sounding clay'. In some other locations in the Qur'an, however, another material of creation is stressed, the liquid of little worth (i.e. semen). The Qur'an mentions here the first stage of formation, the clot. Prior to this, there is the drop of semen, which directly leads to the clot.
In the present context, a third phase is mentioned, teaching by the pen, one of the greatest blessings bestowed by the Lord on His servants, since it is the means for preserving sciences, confirming rights, transmitting teachings, recording witnesses, and reckoning the accounts of dealings among people. It is by means of writing that knowledge about ancestors is preserved for their progeny. Without writing, the events of bygone periods would be inaccessible to a later period, traditions would fade away, rulings would become confused, and the succeeding generations would be ignorant of the convictions of their ancestors; the major hurdle to efficiency in people's worldly and religious affairs would be oblivion, which blots out the items of knowledge from their minds.
Writing is the vehicle that preserves knowledge from being lost, in the same way that cabinets preserve possessions from getting lost. Next to the Qur'an, writing is one of the most valuable of Allah's blessings. Although acquiring knowledge by the pen is realized by intelligence and skill, the means by which this Is made possible (i.e. writing) is a sheer blessing freely conferred by Allah, a free grant from Him and an additional bounty that raises man's capability, It is the Lord who taught man reading and writing, notwithstanding man's effort to learn. Man's act of learning is in response to the Teacher who taught by means of the pen; He taught man, and man learned, rather in the same way as He taught man speech, and he spoke.
Besides, Who gave man the mental power that enables him to perceive incoming messages, the tongue that expresses what he desires to state, the fingers that commit it to paper? Who provided his mind with the ability to acquire knowledge, an ability that all other animals were denied? Who enabled man's tongue to make utterances and his fingers to make dexterous movements? Who supported the fingers with the hand, the hand with the arm? Many a sign of Allah's teaching with the pen do we pass by heedlessly!
Now, let us dwell on the case of writing! Consider yourself, how you hold the pen, an inanimate object, apply it to the paper, another inanimate object, and from the meeting of the two objects emerge all sorts of wisdom and all branches of knowledge, the great variety of correspondence, sermons, prose and verse and treatises on specific issues. Who, then, caused ideas to occur to your mind in a flux, and impressed them on your memory? Who caused the utterances that represent those ideas to run along your tongue, then to be inscribed with a movement of your fingers? It is an amazing inscription that emerges there, implying even more spectacular wonders than its visible form; it enables you to fulfill your wishes, to represent what you conceive in the depths of your mind, and transmit it to far off lands and various territories; it functions there as your emissary, representing what you have to say; it announces what your tongue would announce, plays the part of your messenger, often more effectively than a human messenger. Who but He has taught with the pen, taught man what he did not know?(Part 1)
Teaching by the pen implies all three levels of existence: the levels of mental existence, verbal existence and orthographic existence. Teaching by means of the pen is an indication that the Almighty is the One who bestows those levels; Allah bestows material existence. In His words, He mentions all levels of existence axe attributed to Him, in creation and in teaching. He mentioned two creations and two acts of teaching, a general creation and a special creation, a general teaching and a special teaching. He also mentioned, referring to Himself, the attribute 'Akram' (the most generous, the noblest, the most perfect) which implies all good and perfection: all perfection belongs to Him as an attribute, and all good proceeds from him as action; He is the 'Akram' in Himself, in His attributes, and in His actions. The creation and teaching mentioned here are attributable to His generosity, liberality, and bounty; they do not proceed from any necessity that requires them: He is the Rich, the One deserving thanks.
Reflect, then, how the knowledge about Allah, the testification of His Oneness, the affirmation of His Names and Attributes, the message of His messengers and the resurrection have been shown to be ingrained in the innate nature, although man is often unaware of that. When the messengers called his attention and alerted him, they enabled man to notice that what they told him was in fact well-established in his innate nature, that his mind, and even his senses, and his whole being testify to it. This is the utmost that belief can achieve, the level of belief described in the Qur'an as dwelling in the hearts of Allah's friends and intimates."
Shama then said, "O my brothers and sisters, if you observed at what Allah was calling to be contemplated, it led you to the knowledge of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, about His unity, and the greatness of His majesty like wisdom, grace, justice, wrath, reward, and punishment. He, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, thus introduced Himself to His servants and called them to contemplate His words. And Allah knows best."
Reference :
- Capt. Anas Abdul-Hameed Al-Qoz, Men and The Universe - Reflections of Ibn Al-Qayyem, Darussalam
- Sh. Al-‘Allamah Muhammad Amaan al-Jaami, The Keys to Happiness (Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim), Hikmah Publications
- Steven R. Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Franklin Covey Co.
