Page 14 - Fear of Allah

FEAR OF ALLAH
Allah has created all humanity and knows them better than they
know themselves. He knows what everybody keeps secret even
within the most secret of secret recesses of their beings. He is very
well aware of the types of misgivings the soul experiences and types
of games that will be played out by the self because He is the Creator
of every soul and has given it boundless ability to do evil, and inspi-
ration to avoid such evil so that it may be justly tried. Allah has also
created satan as part of this test and has granted him a set of specific
qualities to be used in the pursuit of his objective.
It is for this reason that a believer's greatest support in life's trial
is fear of Allah because this will enable a person to behave as Allah
requires, to work towards pleasing Allah, to protect oneself from
the temptations of satan and the lower self with awareness of and
resistance to their stratagems and games. Such a disposition does
not suit satan's attempts to manipulate the limitless desires of a per-
son's lower self.
It is for this reason that a person's lower self, with satan's en-
couragement, will before all else try to distance him from fearing
Allah. They will want to introduce distractions which turn people
away from fearing Allah and caution with respect to Him by falsely
suggesting that this is unnecessary or even incorrect and that love of
Allah and possessing a pure heart is what really matters. However,
a conscientious reciter of the Qur'an will see with ease that sugges-
tions such as these have no realistic basis, and that they contain a to-
tally deviant and deceptive objective, because Allah has
commanded believers to fear him in the Qur'an in the clearest form
possible:
... Fear Allah and know that Allah is fierce in retribution.
(Surat al-Baqara: 196)

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