Page 76 - Quick Grasp of Faith 1

74 QUICK GRASP OF FAITH - 1

The worst of beasts in Allah’s Sight are the deaf and
dumb who do not use their reason. (Surat al-Anfal: 22)
A man of wisdom also has vision. He makes correct and
proper decisions. Wisdom enables him to have a grasp of the
essence of events and to see the inner truth of things.

84. What are the factors clouding man’s
wisdom?

What vitiates a man’s heart and mind are his ambitions
and selfish desires. For example, fears about the future, jeal-
ousy, strong obsessions felt for worldly things, and romanti-
cism so preoccupy people that they are prevented from think-
ing about the really important things, such as the greatness of
Allah and the perfection in His creation. Allah has advised us
that success will be possible only by breaking free from the
obsessions of the self:

…It is the people who are safeguarded from the avarice of
their own selves who are successful. (Surat al-Hashr: 9)

85. It is stated in the Qur’an that Allah does not
like those who are boastful. What is ‘being
boastful’ according the Qur’an?
According to the Qur’an, the foremost characteristic of a
person who is boastful is his forgetting that everything he
owns has been given to him by Allah, and in his imagined and
ignorant superiority, boasting about these things. An impor-
tant misconception on this subject is thinking of only extreme
persons as those who forget Allah and boast arrogantly. In
fact, a person is boastful if he thinks that his beauty is of his