The Seventeenth Flash

This attitude is but one example among thousands to be found on the second road, which is a source of prosperity and happiness. From it, you may infer the rest.

Along this second road, one encounters joyful enlistments and admissions into the army, pointing to human beings entering this world through birth. One also witnesses joyful discharges from service, pointing to their departure from this world through death. Indeed, the Qur’an has bestowed this road upon humanity as a gift. Those who accept this gift wholeheartedly travel upon the second road, which leads to happiness in both worlds—in this world and in the Hereafter. The past causes them no sorrow, nor does the future fill them with fear.

O corrupt Europe! Among your rotten and baseless ideas is the claim that every living being, from the greatest angel to the smallest fish, belongs to itself, strives for its own benefit, and works for its own pleasure. According to this view, every living being possesses an inherent right to life, and the sole aim and motive of life are to live and to preserve one’s own existence.

Yet, contrary to this false way of thinking, there is in reality a principle of mutual assistance—one of the manifestations of the generosity of the Generous Creator—to which all creatures in the universe submit in perfect obedience. By virtue of this universal principle, plants come to the aid of animals, and animals, in turn, come to the aid of human beings. Yet you interpret the manifestations of mercy and generosity arising from this principle as conflict, and thus arrive at the irrational conclusion that life is nothing but struggle.

We ask you, then: how can the nutrients that hasten with the utmost eagerness to nourish the cells of the body—a clear manifestation of this principle of mutual assistance—be regarded as struggle? In what sense can such an act be called conflict? Rather, this devoted assistance is an expression of mutual aid ordained by a Generous Lord.

Moreover, you make the baseless claim that every being belongs to itself. Yet there is a clear proof that nothing and no one belongs to itself:

Among all creatures, the human being is the noblest and possesses the broadest sphere of will. Yet of the hundreds of factors required for even the simplest human actions—such as thinking, speaking, and eating—not even one lies entirely within his will and power. How, then, can one who does not possess even one hundredth of such a simple act be said to belong to himself?

Since even the noblest of creatures, endowed with the broadest will, has so little mastery over his own actions, anyone who claims that other living beings—or even lifeless things—belong to themselves reveals a level of understanding lower than that of animals and inanimate beings.

What has deceived you and cast you into this abyss is your one-eyed, extraordinarily ill-omened cunning. Through that blind and deceitful cunning, you have forgotten your Lord, the Creator of all things. You have attributed His works to nature and causes and divided His dominion among idols.

According to this distorted view of yours, every living being and every human being must struggle alone against countless enemies and strive to meet endless needs. With only a minute power, a limited will, a fleeting consciousness, a life that is quickly extinguished, and a lifespan that swiftly passes away, he is compelled to stand against those innumerable enemies and needs. Yet the capital of such a helpless creature is insufficient to fulfil even one among his thousands of desires.

And when calamity strikes him, he can hope for no remedy for his suffering from anything other than deaf and blind causes. Thus he becomes a manifestation of the truth expressed in the verse:

وَمَا دُعَٓاءُ الْكَافِرٖينَ اِلَّا فٖى ضَلَالٍAnd the supplication of the disbelievers is nothing but in vain. — The Qur’an 13:14