Page 60 - Basic Tenets of Islam

BASIC TENETS OF ISLAM

Not only will difficulties, but also blessings in this world
serve to test man. Allah tries man with every benefit He
bestows upon man, to see whether or not he will be thankful.
As well, Allah creates many circumstances through which
man adopt a certain attitude. In the midst of these trials, man

may formulate a decision, either in compliance with Allah's
pleasure, or his own soul. If he recognizes such an incident to
be a trial from Allah, and conforms his conduct accordingly
to earn Allah's pleasure, then he succeeds in his test.
However, if his decision is in accordance to the dictates of his
own soul, it will both be a sin, which he will greatly regret in
the hereafter, and a source of anxiety in this world, as it
troubles his conscience.
Indeed, Allah creates everything that happens in this
world as a trial. Those events considered to be mere
"coincidence" or "bad luck" by the ignorant, are actually
circumstances created according to the great subtleties of a

Divine system. Of this, Allah gives the example of Jews who
broke the Sabbath, tempted by an abundance of fish:
Ask them about the town which was by the sea when
they broke the Sabbath-when their fish came to them
near the surface on their Sabbath day but did not come
on the days which were not their Sabbath. In this way
We put them to the test because they were deviators.
(Surat al-A'raf: 163)
The Jews may have thought that the fish came forth to
them on a Saturday by "coincidence," but, the event was
predetermined as a trial for them by Allah. As this case

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