A Reflection on Surah The Cave (18), Part I: Our Actions Will Outlive the World of Becoming 

“Tell them, too, what the life of this world is like: We send water down from the skies and the earth’s vegetation absorbs it, but soon the plants turn to dry stubble scattered about by the wind: God has power over everything. Wealth and children are the attractions of this worldly life, but lasting good works have a better reward with your Lord and give better grounds for hope. One day We shall make the mountains move, and you will see the earth as an open plain. We shall gather all people together, leaving no one. They will be lined up before your Lord: ‘Now you have come to Us as We first created you, although you claimed We had not made any such appointment for you.’ The record of their deeds will be laid open and you will see the guilty, dismayed at what they contain, saying, ‘Woe to us! What a record this is! It does not leave any deed, small or large, unaccounted for!’ They will find everything they ever did laid in front of them: your Lord will not be unjust to anyone.” (18:45-49)

“We have adorned the earth with attractive things so that We may test people to find out which of them do best, but We shall reduce all this to barren dust.” (18:7-8)

I wrote a research paper on the surah The Cave (18) in Graduate Theological Union.  I now read the surah again and get stuck in the first verses, because per my spiritual changes, the text changes.   I started reading it and in the very beginning the verse above stood out, simple as it might seem, true as it is beyond any doubt, strangely enough, the most forgotten.  For Nietzsche’s Eternal Return of the Same, and Marx’s Materialism, there was no other choice but to glorify the decay of matter into everlasting cycle of birth in matter, because they see nothing but this world of becoming, as I used to, and what remains for us but to glorify the cycle of samsara?  In the same spirit, I wrote this little poem: “What a light that lasts even when it lapses// What a sound that stays even when silence reigns// What a rain that outlives the impermanence:// A Blooming Tree.”--I should have added:"//Within God's Providence".  

I see myself then lost and in a sorry state of mind, self-deceptive and distracted easily to take the beauty of the world everlasting and worshipping it rather than to see God in the beauty of a blooming tree.  It is real; it is happening, and it is constantly there: the veil of deception-ignorance-inclination in all sincerity.  In desperation, we seek the eternal ground of becoming and if we can’t find it, we make “matter” or “will-to-power”, or “becoming as such” our god.  And the message of religions is that there is no god but God, meaningfully so, because in worshipping each false god, we will fall spritually-ethically. 

For disbelievers, there is no other way out but to bow down to another false god—a goddess, matter, power, or autonomous subject— that potentially gives rise to caprice and seeking one’s desires, one way or another.  Don’t forgot Marx wrote his dissertation on Epicurus and believed “birth, flowering and decline are very general, very vague notions under which, to be sure, everything can be arranged, but through which nothing can be understood.  Decay itself is prefigured in the living; its shape should therefore be just as much grasped in its specific characteristic as the shape of life.” (Marx’s Dissertation).  Scientific exploration of matter in birth and decay is the only god to whom Marx and Nietzsche bowed down in their de-deification of nature.  And this praxis and its ramifications are the only lasting things that will outlive and transcend the world of becoming, because our actions will become the measure of our eternal life in the world to come.  As Foucault once said: “We know what we do, frequently we know ‘why we do what we do’, but we don’t know is ‘what we do’ does!”  Two centuries after Marx and Nietzsche we can see now ‘what we did’ did to us: the horror of worshipping the self, the self-consciousness, disconnection and alienation from nature, by either deifying it in New Age goddess’s stories and Shamanistic worship, or in worshipping self-consciousness of autonomous subject in Nietzsche and Marx.  In the preface of his dissertation Marx wrote:    

Philosophy, as long as a drop of blood shall pulse in its world-subduing and absolutely free heart, will never grow tired of answering its adversaries with the cry of Epicurus: “Not the man who denies the gods, worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them, is truly impious.”

Philosophy makes no secret of it. The confession of Prometheus: In simple words, I hate the pack of gods [Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound] is its own confession, its own aphorism against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the highest divinity. It will have none other beside. But to those poor March hares who rejoice over the apparently worsened civil position of philosophy, it responds again, as Prometheus replied to the servant of the gods, “Hermes: Be sure of this, I would not change my state of evil fortune for your servitude. Better to be the servant of this rock Than to be faithful boy to Father Zeus.” Prometheus is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar.” (Marx, Berlin, March 1841)  

Surely Marx knew how to write and how to confound things: there is a time for rebel against false gods and there is a time to obey the true God.  But Marx throws the baby out with the bathwater and comes to accept the horror of “human self-consciousness as the highest divinity” that brought us to this ruinous moment: human-being worshipping itself!  Another impious false god whom multitude have been worshipping for the last two centuries.  It is striking to me to read these words now.  Did not the Quran predict these all?

Indeed, the surah Cave (18) is the story of the People of the Cave who rebelled against the false gods of multitude—but not falling into worshipping their own self-consciousness, but God’s guidance came to separate them from falsehood, which was not attainable in their time.  Thus they become a sign of God to the generations to come by putting them in sleep and preserving them for a few centuries, over which a place of worship was built up.  This is God’s dialectic, if you wish to hear this Hegelian-Marxian term.  The People of the Cave rebelled against false gods but found God’s guidance, and in turn, turned into signs of God for guiding others.  Marx rebelled against gods and set his own self-consciousness as God, and hence he and his followers fell into horror of worshipping “autonomous subject” and “materialism”, which misguided millions of people into Gulags and hell fire.  I was one of them.

God’s words everlastingly echo for those who have ears to hear, which I didn’t have as well as 19^th c. Western world up to now, including Marx and Nietzsche; we were all deaf to divine message.  This is the message of God echoing through history: choose no god but God, no gods and goddesses, not yourself, nor your consciousness, nor your desires, nor your senses, nor your reason, nor your will, not your whims, not the earth, nor the universe, nothing but God, and stay attune to the world through this medium—constant remembrance of God--to refrain from excess in your actions.  Excess is destructive and religious bigotry as well distorted the message of God and disconnected us from the world and consequently the medium of remembrance withered away and gave rise to the age of Mill, Marx, and Nietzsche.  The story of the believers who escaped persecution, kept in the Cave for a few centuries unscathed, is this remembrance:

“[Prophet], We shall tell you their story as it really was. They were young men who believed in their Lord, and We gave them more and more guidance. We gave strength to their hearts when they stood up and said, ‘Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and earth. We shall never call upon any god other than Him, for that would be an outrageous thing to do. These people of ours have taken gods other than Him. Why do they not produce clear evidence about them? Who could be more unjust than someone who makes up lies about God? Now that you have left such people, and what they worshipped instead of God, take refuge in the cave. God will shower His mercy on you and make you an easy way out of your ordeal.’” (18:13-16)

As I mentioned, at the beginning of the surah God depicts a picture of impermanence and becoming for us as the major parable of the surah.  The point of this picture is to remind us that nothing remains but the Face of God, and we ought not to fall into oblivion of Being, which sustains beings.  God is the source of Being and has created the world as a field of growth for us: “We have adorned the earth with attractive things so that We may test people to find out which of them do best, but We shall reduce all this to barren dust.” (18:7-8)

In contrast to this picture, God shows that the ground of Being and permanence is in God’s hands:

“You could have seen the [light of the] sun as it rose, moving away to the right of their cave, and when it set, moving away to the left of them, while they lay in the wide space inside the cave. (This is one of God’s signs: those people God guides are rightly guided, but you will find no protector to lead to the right path those He leaves to stray.) You would have thought they were awake, though they lay asleep. We turned them over, to the right and the left, with their dog stretching out its forelegs at the entrance. If you had seen them, you would have turned and run away, filled with fear of them.” (18:17-18)

The surah Cave (18) consistently shows that the world of becoming is regulated by God and we will be lost if we seek endurance in the earth or any other source of power, including human-beings themselves and their sciences and technology.  This is a crucial point which we should digest fully: Western Enlightenment gave “autonomy of reason” the status of a god, and consequently its scientism, as a new religion, gave rise to unbridled technology, which is now in the hands of unbridled corporations, detrimental to species and ourselves.  Now, in the age of Anthropocene and 6^th mass extinction, against the destructive dominance of our technology, in an interview Heidegger commented: only a god can save us!  The Quran reminds us that whenever we forget—existentially forget-- that everything is in God’s hand, we will go astray:

“Tell them the parable of two men: for one of them We made two gardens of grape vines, surrounded them with date palms, and put corn fields in between; both gardens yielded fruit and did not fail in any way; We made a stream flow through them, and so he had abundant fruit. One day, while talking to his friend, he said, ‘I have more wealth and a larger following than you.’ He went into his garden and wronged himself by saying, ‘I do not think this will ever perish, or that the Last Hour will ever come– even if I were to be taken back to my Lord, I would certainly find something even better there.’ His companion retorted, ‘Have you no faith in Him who created you from dust, from a small drop of fluid, then shaped you into a man? But, for me, He is God, my Lord, and I will never set up any partner with Him. If only, when you entered your garden, you had said, “This is God’s will. There is no power not [given] by God.” Although you see I have less wealth and offspring than you, my Lord may well give me something better than your garden, and send thunderbolts on your garden from the sky, so that it becomes a heap of barren dust; or its water may sink so deep into the ground that you will never be able to reach it again.’ And so it was: his fruit was completely destroyed, and there he was, wringing his hands over what he had invested in it, as it drooped on its trellises, and saying, ‘I wish I had not set up any partner to my Lord.’ He had no forces to help him other than God– he could not even help himself. In that situation, the only protection is that of God, the True God: He gives the best rewards and the best outcome.” (18:32-44)

In contrast to Nietzsche’s Eternal Return of the Same and Yes-saying to this world of impermanence, the Quran invites us to see this world, as good and pleasant as it is and adorned constantly by God as Good, as a shadow of the world to come, like a transient daydream both in terms of time and substance.  The Quran holds that the only lasting things are our actions, good or bad, and they will stay with us:

“Tell them, too, what the life of this world is like: We send water down from the skies and the earth’s vegetation absorbs it, but soon the plants turn to dry stubble scattered about by the wind: God has power over everything. Wealth and children are the attractions of this worldly life, but lasting good works have a better reward with your Lord and give better grounds for hope.  One day We shall make the mountains move, and you will see the earth as an open plain. We shall gather all people together, leaving no one. They will be lined up before your Lord: ‘Now you have come to Us as We first created you, although you claimed We had not made any such appointment for you.’ The record of their deeds will be laid open and you will see the guilty, dismayed at what they contain, saying, ‘Woe to us! What a record this is! It does not leave any deed, small or large, unaccounted for!’ They will find everything they ever did laid in front of them: your Lord will not be unjust to anyone.” (18:45-49)

A Short Comment on Inimitability of the Quran and The End Verses of the Surah Night Journey (17)

·        "Say, 'Even if all mankind and jinn came together to produce something like this Quran, they could not produce anything like it, however much they helped each other.'"(17:88)

·        "Say, Bring you then ten chapters like unto it, and call whomsoever you can, other than God, if you speak the truth!"(11:13)

·        "Or do they say he has fabricated it? Say bring then a chapter like unto it, and call upon whom you can besides God, if you speak truly!"(10:38)

·        "Or do they say he has fabricated it? Nay! They believe not! Let them then produce a recital like unto it if they speak the truth."(52:34)

·        "And if you are in doubt concerning that which We have sent down to our servant, then produce a chapter of the like." (2:23)

Today I just quote the last verses of the surah Night Journey (17).  The only point that I wish to add is a comment about these verses that are repeated in the Quran in different ways: “Say, ‘Even if all mankind and jinn came together to produce something like this Quran, they could not produce anything like it, however much they helped each other.’”  Before connecting to the Quran, I always wondered what this means, because in my ignorance I was thinking that there is a host of literary works that can be even more interesting that the Quran.  The fact is that those who know Arabic commonly believe that Quran’s language is inimitable in terms of its rhetorical device and literary value and has evolved Arabic literature after being recited to Arabs:

“The literary quality of the Qur'an has been generally acknowledged by Muslim and some non-Muslim scholars and intellectuals, and there is evidence that Muslims accepted Islam on the basis of evaluating the Qur'an as a text that surpasses all human production. Whilst western views typically ascribe social, ideological, propagandistic, or military reasons for the success of early Islam, Muslim sources view the literary quality of the Qur'an as a decisive factor for the adoption of the Islamic creed and its ideology, resulting in its spread and development in the 7th century. A thriving poetic tradition existed at the time of Muhammad, however, according to Afnan Fatani, a contemporary scholar of Islamic studies, Muhammad had brought, in spite of being illiterate, something that was superior to anything that the poets and orators had ever written or heard. They did not question this, what they rejected was Qur'an's ideas, especially monotheism and resurrection. Numerous scholars devoted time to finding out why the Qur'an was inimitable. The majority of opinions was around eloquence of the Qur'an both in wording and meaning as its speech does not form to poetry nor prose commonly expressed in all languages. Thus, it is understood that the inimitability of the Qur'an resides in this third genre in which words have been arranged in a particular way accompanied with flawless meaning that humans are unable to reproduce.” (Wikipedia, I'jaz [miraculous]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'jaz)

The point that I wish to add is this: this is one of the strangest things that I experienced and see clearly now.  When I read the verses with disbelief in the past, they seemed repetitive and common place to me.  I never pondered that these are verses recited by Mohammad, a prophet, who was illiterate and couldn’t write or read, and it was impossible for him to create its authority, consistency, and revelatory wisdom.  Now that I read the Quran differently--with faith in God, it comes to me self-evident that an illiterate person couldn’t go around and invent these verses.  I understand that it was impossible.  And I understand that even now it is impossible.  The impossibility comes from the aura, the expression, its absolute authority, its consistency and coherency.  The impossibility comes from the fact that the tone does not belong to human-beings, it is not sentimental, it is not overtly emotional or cruel.  The Quran’s language is even and the sense of “mercy” and “forgiveness” or “punishment” in it has nothing to do with human needs.  It is not a mortal human emotion speaking in the Quran.  This is striking to me now, but I was blind to it before. 

If we can talk about the unconditional love and mercy, it only belongs to God, the needless immortal benevolent ineffable being, who invented being, benevolence, and mercy for us.  God’s mercy in the Quran is not the neediness mercy of a dying being like us.  Our love is smeared with need through and through.  At best, we need love, if not love for need.  The maturity we can come with is to separate these two from each other: I need you because I love you, not that or hope not that I love you because I need you.  But the self-sufficient God doesn’t need us or anything else.  “In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy.  “Say, ‘He is God the One, God the eternal. [Samad: other commonly held interpretations include ‘self-sufficient’ and ‘sought by all’ (Razi).] He begot no one nor was God begotten.  No one is comparable to God.’” (112:1-4)

We can’t imagine and conceive this kind of love.  The language of the Quran is the language of eternal God, who clearly keeps us on our toes to remember that we are so inherently ingrained in need to God that if we don’t abandon our little egoistic self, the arrogance to be metaphysically autonomous, and don’t arrive at complete sense of devotion in nothingness to God, inherently we punish ourselves and this punishment is reiterated in the Quran, as the last warning and this very warning is God’s mercy.  It is like a child is falling off the edge of a cliff and you tell him or her, "you are falling, you are falling", out of mercy.  This mercy to warn us is the voice of God in the Quran and doesn’t fit our sentimental and romantic ears, because we are now in the grip of New Age good and "positive" feelings and if anyone tells me: look, "you are falling", it will hurt my feelings and I would probably say: Are you talking to ME, be nice and give love, not hate!

When the Quran states, no one can imitate the language of the Quran, it is a sheer fact, no one could, and no one can, and no one will be able to do it, because the authority behind the words in the Quran is not human subjectivity and human subjectivity can’t imitate God’s voice without falling into seamless cruelty or vain sentimentality or utter adoration of pleasure and beauty of bodies, and an inconsistent prose. 

“[Prophet], they ask you about the Spirit. Say, ‘The Spirit is part of my Lord’s domain. You have only been given a little knowledge.’ If We pleased, We could take away what We have revealed to you– then you would find no one to plead for you against Us– if it were not for your Lord’s mercy: His favor to you has been truly great. Say, ‘Even if all mankind and jinn came together to produce something like this Quran, they could not produce anything like it, however much they helped each other.’ In this Quran, We have set out all kinds of examples for people, yet most of them persist in disbelieving. They say, ‘We will not believe for you [Muhammad] until you make a spring gush out of the ground for us; or until you have a garden of date palms and vines, and make rivers pour through them; or make the sky fall on us in pieces, as you claimed will happen; or bring God and the angels before us face to face; or have a house made of gold; or ascend into the sky– even then, we will not believe in your ascension until you send a real book down for us to read.’ Say, ‘Glory be to my Lord! Am I anything but a mortal, a messenger?’ The only thing that kept these people from believing, when guidance came to them, was that they said, ‘How could God have sent a human being as a messenger?’ Say, ‘If there were angels walking about on earth, feeling at home, We would have sent them an angel from Heaven as a messenger.’ Say, ‘God is witness enough between me and you. He knows and observes His servants well.’” (17:75-95)

“[Prophet], anyone God guides is truly guided, and you will find no protector other than Him for anyone He leaves astray. On the Day of Resurrection We shall gather them, lying on their faces, blind, dumb, and deaf. Hell will be their Home. Whenever the Fire goes down, We shall make it blaze more fiercely for them. 98 This is what they will get for rejecting Our signs and saying, ‘What? When we are turned to bones and dust, how can we be raised in a new act of creation?’ Do they not see that God, who created the heavens and earth, can create the likes of them [anew]? He has ordained a time for them– there is no doubt about that– but the evildoers refuse everything except disbelief. Say, ‘If you possessed the very stores of my Lord’s bounty, you would hold them back in your fear of spending: man is ever grudging.’” (17:97-100)

“In the past, We gave Moses nine clear signs– ask the Children of Israel. When Moses came to [the Egyptians], Pharaoh said to him, ‘Moses, I think you are bewitched.’ He said, ‘You know very well that only the Lord of the heavens and earth could have sent these signs as clear proof. I think that you, Pharaoh, are doomed.’ So, he wanted to wipe them off the [face of the] earth, but We drowned him and those with him. After his death, We told the Children of Israel, ‘Live in the land, and when the promise of the Hereafter is fulfilled, We shall bring you to the assembly of all people.’” (101-4)

“We sent down the Quran with the truth, and with the truth it has come down– [Prophet], We sent you only to give good news and warning– it is a recitation that We have revealed in parts, so that you can recite it to people at intervals; We have sent it down little by little. Say, ‘Whether you believe it or not, those who were given knowledge earlier fall down on their faces when it is recited to them, and say, “Glory to our Lord! Our Lord’s promise has been fulfilled.” 109 They fall down on their faces, weeping, and [the Quran] increases their humility.’ Say [to them], ‘Call on God, or on the Lord of Mercy– whatever names you call Him, the best names belong to Him.’ [Prophet], do not be too loud in your prayer, or too quiet, but seek a middle way and say, ‘Praise belongs to God, who has no child nor partner in His rule. He is not so weak as to need a protector. Proclaim His limitless greatness!’” (17:105-111)

A Brief Reflection on Humility and Arrogance in Surah Night Journey (17)

"Do not strut arrogantly about the earth: you cannot break it open, nor match the mountains in height.  The evil of all these actions is hateful to your Lord.” (17:38)

I realized that I won’t serve myself, my children, or anyone else if I wear the mask of piety and perfection.  While I had good intentions, half of my life I have been lost, searching for the meaning of my life and existence, and finally, even if too late, I found God, with the grace of God.  Now, I understand what it means that without the grace of God nothing happens.  And in this light, the Quran makes so much sense to me, as it consistently reminds us of a strange notion: everything happens, good or bad, with God’s permission and grace:

“[Prophet], when you recite the Quran, We put an invisible barrier between you and those who do not believe in the life to come.  We have put covers on their hearts that prevent them from understanding it, and heaviness in their ears. When you mention your Lord in the Quran, and Him alone, they turn their backs and run away.  We know best the way they listen, when they listen to you and when they confer in secret, and these wrongdoers say, ‘You are only following a man who is bewitched.’  See what they think you are like! But they are lost and cannot find the right way.  They also say, ‘What? When we are turned to bones and dust, shall we really be raised up in a new act of creation?’  Say, ‘[Yes] even if you were [as hard as] stone, or iron, or any other substance you think hard to bring to life.’ Then they will say, ‘Who will bring us back?’ Say, ‘The One who created you the first time.’ Then they will shake their heads at you and say, ‘When will that be?’ Say, ‘It may well be very soon: it will be the Day when He calls you, and you answer by praising Him, and you think you have stayed [on earth] only a little while.’” (17:45-52)

Well, I was one of them whom God had covered my heart and set heaviness in my ear, not to understand the Quran.  This “being-covered” was rooted in my deep disbelief in revelations and my faith in sciences and human understanding to stand on its own: a fallacious belief and an idolatry that God repeatedly asks us to refrain from: not having faith in any god but God.  And the cover started to be removed when I begged God to show me the way, if there is any God.  This had been my supplication for a few years, and in this yearning, I was declaring a dead-end in the dominant philosophy and sciences and implicitly acknowledging that there ought to be a God, not out of wishful thinking, but existentially experiencing it in every fiber of my body, an experience that declared practically and implicitly God has been speaking to us in showing how our lives have become meaningless and in the whirlwind of principles of pleasure, power, and survival, and how all these philosophies are houses of sands. 

Then, and only then, God graciously removed the cover from my heart, even though still my ears were heavy.  It took ten years until I finally opened up fully to religions and to the Quran.  With God’s grace, I went through so many calamities to show me how and where I was lost and how to find my way out.  As the cure for vertigo is sometimes to induce harsher vertigos, as well for my deficient understanding and tainted heart for years of disbelief and worshipping this world of pleasure, humanism, and Marxism, God took me to the limit of my falling state to see clearly the precipice upon which I was standing.  Now, I understand that if we are prone to change, God’s grace might go through sufferings at points, without which the heaviness of our heart and ears will not be lifted.

“[Prophet], tell My servants to say what is best. [In arguing about religion and proving it as God has shown here. See 16: 125; 29: 46.] Satan sows discord among them: Satan is a sworn enemy of man.  Your Lord has the most knowledge about all of you: if God pleases He will have mercy on you, and if God pleases He will punish you. [Prophet], We did not send you to take charge of them.  Your Lord knows best about everyone in the heavens and the earth. We gave some prophets more than others: We gave David a book [of Psalms, See also 4: 163–6.] Say, ‘Call upon those you claim to be deities beside God: they have no power to remove or avert any harm from you.’ Those [angels] they pray to are themselves seeking a way to their Lord, even those who are closest to God. They hope for His mercy and fear His punishment.  The punishment of your Lord is much to be feared: there is no community [Of evildoers. See 18: 16; 7: 101.] We shall not destroy, or punish severely, before the Day of Resurrection– this is written in the Book. [God’s divine Record.]” (17:53-58)

I am so gracious for the warning signs that God sent me and the bitter medicine that I had to take for the remedy: the sufferings that God inflicted on me, which partly were nothing but the consequences of my own erroneous beliefs and actions, and partly God’s miraculous encountering me with the potential evils and devils of my thoughts and actions.  None of our sciences and philosophies, and none of our New Age stories, gods and goddesses, can guide us; none ever sent or can send us a scripture to respond to our inquires, and all herds us to following our whims and desires of power and pleasures.  I am grateful to God for awakening me to the Quran, not claiming I understand everything about it, but now that the veil upon my heart and ears are lifted, it is the great mercy and guidance from God to me and it opens my perception and vision to God and to the world.  I am so grateful for this seeing the dark side of my soul through God’s miraculous grace, for complete destruction and endless suffering in the world to come is worse.

“Nothing prevents Us from sending miraculous signs, except the fact that previous peoples denied them. We gave the people of Thamud the she-camel as a clear sign, yet they maltreated it. We send signs only to give warning. [Prophet], We have told you that your Lord knows all about human beings. The vision We showed you [The vision he was shown on the Night Journey.] was only a test for people, as was the cursed tree [mentioned] in the Quran. [ Said to refer to the tree of Zaqqum in Hell (see 56: 52; 44: 43–6). The eater will curse its fruits (Razi). Both the vision and the tree in Hell were objects of derision for the disbelievers.] We warn them, but this only increases their insolence.” (17:59-60)

I can see now with eyes wide open.  The way I look at my hands, face, body has changed. Before this, I looked at myself as a desperate cycle of birth and death and all meanings and spiritual growth were self-creation and self-interpretation of a hedonistic-nihilistic self.  The way I look at other humans and species has changed.  It is not anymore a groundless humanism, a covert or overt nihilism.  Our self-understanding based on self-sufficiency of reason can’t ground our humanism, at most it can be grounded in our biology, which indeed it means if my instincts tell me to be cruel and selfish, when the going gets tough, it is as well okay that my altruism and humanism shatter into nepotism and selfishness.  We can’t see that the manifestation of a deep divine empathy and mercy is our ethical-spiritual quest and direction.  If we deny its divine ground, we won’t find the courage and motivation to take the steep path of kindness, self-rectification and purification, because the monkey of survival or power is standing now at the end line of evolution.   I know now for sure that my ethical-spiritual direction is worthwhile the devotion.  That I ought to resist the temptation of transgression for my pleasures or survival alone.  I am well aware that it is easy to think that we are caring or altruistic, but if I see that I live only this one life and this is the only world (a contingent one too) that exists, following my exclusive pleasure and survival, when the going gets tough, even with transgressing and hurting others, is the most possible course of action that may follow. Not strange that so many atheist humanists, liberals, socialists, and Marxists and hypocrite theists who didn’t have a firm God-consciousness were seemingly ready to die but at the same time couldn’t resist pleasures of bodies and violated each other when the need called, and there was no other way to calm the cravings and the desire for satisfaction. 

I know now that in the steep path of my ethical-spiritual endeavor, I ought to seek to make myself better, realistically beneficent in oneness in thoughts, words, deeds, body and soul, and my endeavors and strife worthwhile it, because this is not the only life that I will live and I am not left on my own, abandoned and forsaken.  This world is not contingent.  God is the source of Being, and God’s mercy and guidance have come to me through scriptures.  And one lesson they emphasize is this: you ought not to see yourself better than those whose heart is concealed to you and is beyond your judgment and to be careful, very careful with your comportment in the world.  Even if now and then you make false evaluations and mistakes, you have no choice but to judge and evaluate, because you ought to ethically-spiritually improve yourself to a sense of betterment, paradoxically enough, so that you don’t see yourself as better than anyone, but awakened to the poverty of your existence as a privilege not a right, and to see clearly that the gift of life is granted to you by God and is not your entitlement.  So, in complete existential awareness of one’s dependent origination, one learns in absolute nothingness of contentment how to surrender to God, and in the humility and faith in this absolute trust in God, Scriptures promise us the gift of eternal subsistence. 

God woke me from my slumber to the inconvenience and subsequently ecstasy of truth and love; however, I could see that imprint of my past beliefs and actions on my body and the scars in my soul take time to heal, but I shouldn’t lose hope and I shouldn’t compete and ask for what I do not deserve, or I do not deserve yet.  If we listen to the story of Satan in the Quran, the most striking thing is the fact that God sees greatness and growth— in terms of virtues— in places that might seem low to us, but it is not low to God—the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.  It keeps and kept me wondering for a long time— and I haven’t yet fathomed it—that God speaks to weak creatures like us and holds us warmer and greater than so many others, and among us to those whom we might consider low: an illiterate person such as the Prophet, the poor and destitute.  Or for example, “[w]hile the Prophet was speaking to some disbelieving notables, hoping to convert them, a blind Muslim man came up to learn from him, but in his eagerness to attract the disbelievers to Islam, the Prophet frowned at him. And God sent these verses: ‘He frowned and turned away, when the blind man came to him––for all you know, he might have grown in spirit, or taken note of something useful to him.  For the self-satisfied one you go out of your way––though you are not to be blamed for his lack of spiritual growth––but from the one who has come to you full of eagerness and awe you allow yourself to be distracted.  No indeed! This [Quran] is a lesson from which those who wish to be taught should learn, [written] on honored, exalted, pure pages, by the hands of noble and virtuous scribes.” (80:1-13) 

As well, Iblis (Satan) fell exactly at the point where it found itself greater than human beings, mortals made of clay.  Arrogance, to see oneself better, to strive to become better, to hope to be accepted by God or ranked higher by God, and to be jealous and feel and show malice to others, even to have faith in God or zealously being harsh on those who are not and need help, unless spiritual cancer takes over in them, all of these opposite characteristics are superimposed upon each other: our weakness is posited in our strength.  While I ought to see that whatever I think, say, and do register in my body/soul, and the more I violate my conscience and commit shameful and blameworthy thoughts/words/deeds the more I create a chasm in my body/soul, so I ought to seek God’s approval by doing good, simultaneously I will fall if I become jealous to others and capriciously see myself better than others.  These two are conditioned by each other, and I can’t erase the former in the fear of being afflicted by the latter.  This is the quest of good and evil, set in our own very soul, the point of transformation for which I strive is where I do my best without seeing myself the best, having hope and surrender completely to God’s judgement.  Thus, given this heaviness of self-complacency and arrogance in our soul, the constant warnings of the Quran, to keep us on our toes and alert, makes sense.

“When We said to the angels, ‘Bow down before Adam,’ they all bowed down, but not Iblis. He retorted, ‘Why should I bow down to someone You have created out of clay?’ and [then] said, ‘You see this being You have honored above me? If You reprieve me until the Day of Resurrection, I will lead all but a few of his descendants by the nose.’ God said, ‘Go away! Hell will be your reward, and the reward of any of them who follow you– an ample reward.  Rouse whichever of them you can with your voice, muster your cavalry and infantry against them, share their wealth and their children with them, and make promises to them– Satan promises them nothing but delusion– but you will have no authority over My [true] servants: Your Lord can take care of them well enough.’” (17:61-65)

“[People], it is your Lord who makes ships go smoothly for you on the sea so that you can seek His bounty: He is most merciful towards you. When you get into distress at sea, those you pray to besides Him desert you, but when He brings you back safe to land you turn away: man is ever ungrateful. Can you be sure that God will not have you swallowed up into the earth when you are back on land, or that He will not send a sandstorm against you? Then you will find no one to protect you. Or can you be sure that He will not send you back out to sea, and send a violent storm against you to drown you for being so ungrateful? You will find no helper against Us there. We have honored the children of Adam and carried them by land and sea; We have provided good sustenance for them and favored them specially above many of those We have created.”

“On the Day when We summon each community, along with its leader [See 16: 89.] those who are given their record in their right hand will read it [with pleasure]. But no one will be wronged in the least: those who were blind in this life will be blind [spiritual blindness] in the Hereafter, and even further off the path. [Prophet], the disbelievers tried to tempt you away from what We revealed to you, so that you would invent some other revelation and attribute it to Us and then they would have taken you as a friend. If We had not made you stand firm, you would almost have inclined a little towards them. In that case, We would have made you taste a double punishment in this life, and a double punishment after death and then you would have found no one to help you against Us. They planned to scare you off the land, but they would not have lasted for more than a little while after you. Such was Our way with the messengers We sent before you, and you will find no change in Our ways.”

“So, perform the regular prayers in the period from the time the sun is past its zenith till the darkness of the night, and [recite] the Quran at dawn– dawn recitation is always witnessed ––and during the night wake up and pray, as an extra offering of your own, so that your Lord may raise you to a [highly] praised status. Say, ‘My Lord, make me go in truthfully, and come out truthfully, and grant me supporting authority from You.’ And say, ‘The truth has come, and falsehood has passed away: falsehood is bound to pass away.’”

“We send down the Quran as healing and mercy to those who believe; as for those who disbelieve, it only increases their loss. When We favor man he turns arrogantly to one side, but when harm touches him, he falls into despair. Say, ‘Everyone does things their own way, but your Lord is fully aware of who follows the best-guided path.’” (17:66-84)