Page 18 - The Debased Culture of Superficiality

16 THE DEBASED CULTURE OF SUPERFICIALITY

lower self a slave [to Allah] and engages in good deeds for the
life after death. The one who fails to prevail over his lower self is
the man who fails to guard his lower self from the prohibited
deeds. And then he asks for forgiveness from Allah.” (Ibn
Majah)
Those who persist in this error see the world too simply:
only as a place where they can fulfill their desires and pas-
sions. As they live to satisfy their egos, they have no inclina-
tion to become esteemed, build a strong faith or possess the
superior moral qualities that prophets had. They have no
real desire to be closer to Allah and, as a result, their behav-
ior doesn’t display the maturity and moderation of a Muslim
nor the nobility that arises from these qualities. Rather, they
seem totally unaware of Allah’s existence and the closeness
of death. They disregard the fact that Allah sees them and
knows what they are doing. However, no matter where one
glances, he sees evidence of Allah’s existence.
Clearly, everything that exists has been created by
Allah’s infinite power. A person needs only to consider the
workings of his own body in order to arrive at faith. As
revealed in the Qur’an, Allah has given humans “the best of
forms” endowing their bodies with many excellent systems.
To come to faith, it is enough for a person to gaze up into the
heavens. In the Qur’an, Allah says:
Have they not looked at the sky above them: how We
structured it and made it beautiful and how there are no
fissures in it? And the Earth: how We stretched it out
and cast firmly embedded mountains onto it and caused
luxuriant plants of every kind to grow in it, an instruc-
tion and a reminder for every penitent human being.