Page 76 - Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

just as stated in this verse; when they have
recourse to it, they find it to be nothing but an
illusion. Allah has deceived them with such a
mirage, and shown them this whole collection of
images as if they experienced their originals. All
those professors, astronomers, biologists, physicists, and all
others regardless of their rank and position are simply
deceived like children, and are humiliated because they
unwisely took matter as their god. (Surely Allah is beyond
that.) Assuming the copy images they see in their brains to be
absolute, they based their philosophy and ideology on it, became
involved in serious discussions, and indulged in so-called "intel-
lectual" discourse. They deemed themselves wise enough to offer
an argument about the truth of the universe and, more importantly, to imag-
ine vain thoughts about Allah with their limited intelligence. Allah explains
their situation in the following verse:

And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the
best of planners is Allah. (Surat 'Ali Imran, 54)

It may be possible to escape from some plots; however, this plan of
Allah against the unbelievers is so foolproof that there is no way of escape
from it. No matter what they do or to whom they appeal, they can never
find a helper other than Allah. As Allah declares in the Qur'an, "they shall
not find for them other than Allah a patron or a helper." (Surat an-Nisa,
173)
Materialists never expected to fall into such a trap. Having all the
means of the 20th century at their disposal, they thought they could remain
obdurate in their denial and coerce people into disbelief. In the Qur'an,
Allah thus describes this unremittingly stubborn mentality of the unbeliev-
ers and their end:
They plotted and planned, but We too planned, and they did not perceive
it. Then see what was the end of their plot! This, that We destroyed them
and their people, all (of them). (Surat an-Naml, 50-51)

This, on another level, is what the verses come to mean: materialists are
made to realise that they have experience of only the copies in their brains of
everything they own, and therefore everything they possess has been
destroyed. As they witness their possessions, factories, gold, dollars, chil-