Page 84 - Those Who Exhaust All Their Pleasures In This Life

82 THOSE WHO EXHAUST ALL THEIR PLEASURES IN THIS LIFE

accepted into university, they worry about how they will
spend their four years there; and worry about where they
will find a job after graduation. Then sooner or later, they
try to dismiss these imagined fiascoes and banish them
from their minds.
But unbelievers always imagine the worst scenarios:
They think that they will not be accepted by the university
of their choice; if they are accepted that they will not be
able to afford it; that they will have to get a job and their
studies will suffer; that they will not graduate and, even if
they do, will not find a job and be left high and dry after so
much effort. This negative spiritual condition projects into
the future and also into daily life. They worry about every-
thing: traffic jams, missing the bus, being late for work,
getting a reprimand from their supervisor, and making a
bad impression. They begin to create imaginary solutions
for their imaginary problems. For example, they construct
imaginary excuses to explain to their boss why they arrived
late. In order to show that they are not lazy or irresponsi-
ble, they create more scenarios about what they will
accomplish in the rest of the day. But in the Qur’an, Allah
tells us that only He knows what has not yet happened:
The keys of the Unseen are in His possession. No one
knows them but Him. He knows everything in the land
and sea. No leaf falls without His knowing it. There is
no seed in the darkness of the ground, and nothing
moist or dry that is not in a Clear Book. (Surat al-
An‘am: 59)
He creates every event – in the past and in the future.