I’ll read verse 47 of Surah Bani Israel in the translation. And we put coverings over their hearts, lest they should understand it, and in their ears a deafness. And when thou makest mention in the Qur’an of thy Lord alone, they turn their backs in aversion. So my question is, the human being is left on his own free will in this earth. And here Allah says, he puts coverings over their hearts himself. I mean, that is something Allah cannot do.
You know, these verses, or I should say such verses, should be understood in the light of those fundamental verses which are the governing clauses in this regard. The fundamental verse in this regard is, fa man shafal yumin, fa man shafal yakfur, la ikraha fid deen. These are categorical statements of the Holy Qur’an. That there is no compulsion in religion whatsoever. fa man shafal yumin, fa man shafal yakfur. Whoever pleases, he can become a believer. Whoever so pleases, he can become an infidel. It’s up to him.
So there are so many of these fundamental statements of the Holy Qur’an, that such statements as you have just made, must be read in the light of those statements. And these statements, such statements as you have made, as you referred to, I mean, they have been mentioned elsewhere in the Holy Qur’an with different twists, with the result that when you bring them together then you can begin to see the meaning involved. The fact is that people will be declared diseased or incapable of receiving message because of their inner diseases by Allah.
And this act of Allah’s declaration that now they have passed cure, this is mentioned in this verse. When Allah says that their hearts are closed to this, and Allah made their hearts closed, according to the idiom of the Holy Qur’an, it should be read, Allah declared their hearts to be closed. Allah declared their case to be irrevocably lost. So this is the declaration of Allah which is mentioned in this way, fī qulūbihim maradun, fa-zādahumullāhu maradah. Which means, the disease was within their heart, but it was not obvious.
They were destined to die of that disease anyway. So Allah aggravated the disease. That is, caused it to be aggravated so that it could capture the whole being and then people would know that they are diseased people. And then their fate is sealed. So because Allah is the ultimate of everything, so sometimes he refers the causative to himself.
But in other verses, such as I have just mentioned, and many other verses, Allah explains the fact that initially and originally, the people themselves are responsible, but they reach a stage where the matter is past cure, so Allah gives the declaration. After that declaration, nothing can be done. ma yadahillāhu falā mudillalahu wa ma yudlilhu falā hadiyallāhu This is again one of the same type of statements.
Whomsoever Allah declares the rightly guided one, no one can misguide him from then on. Whomsoever Allah declares, I am translating it as declares, declares to be misguided, from then on nobody can ever guide such a people. So ordinarily the misguided are guided, can be guided, otherwise there is no sense in sending prophets. So here you have to translate it like this. Whomsoever Allah declares to be misguided, that is, Allah considers that they have reached a stage of erroneous and mischievous behavior, where they will not be guided from then on.
So all these verses belong to this category. Even if he says, I have increased their, as you just mentioned, increased their verse, then that is still a declaration. That is still a declaration in the sense that Allah permitted that disease to take its normal course. You know, when you leave the attempt to cure and some disease is persistent and then you leave, all right, let it happen, let happen what may happen to it. That is, Allah increases the disease, that is the sense. Allah would not forcefully stop the disease from then on.
So on the other hand, when Allah says he has exalted some above others, this is the same sort of thing on the other side? Allah exalts some above the others on meritorious grounds, on merit. He doesn’t help himself. What do you mean by that? When he says we exalt some above others. Yes. Again he says we exalt. Of course Allah exalts because automatically you can’t reach anything. You can’t even get the fruit of your labor automatically. You know, we are in a state of sleepiness. We are living as if we are dormant. We don’t realize that what we believe is an automatic consequence of our labor is not automatic at all.
If Allah provides the fruit of the labor, then we get the fruit. Otherwise we won’t get anything. There are so many factors involved between the labor and the ultimate ripening and gathering of the fruit and later on benefiting from that fruit that if a single stage is lost, your fruit is lost. Allah sees to it that those who put in labor, their labor is rewarded. And for that, maybe hundreds of thousands of factors are working which are unobserved and unseen by our eyes.
So this is why the ultimate responsibility is taken by Allah. He does this and he does that. In one of the surahs, I think it is Waqia or one of the end surahs, the Holy Quran particularly harps on this subject that you burn the fire and you think the flame that you burn, that does this. But no, it is Allah who does it. You sow the seeds and you think that the crop that has followed, it is your labor. It is not so. It is Allah who brings the crop and sees to it that ultimately it bears fruit.
Now when you read that full surah, then you begin to understand the meaning. That it is not as simple as that you throw a seed somewhere and it would suddenly, that you consider labor. And as if the natural consequence should be that immediately that seed should increase in number. It should not be the natural consequence. The natural consequence should be that whatever you throw away is thrown away and lost. Its multiplication is a special phenomenon, is a special favor. You throw the same seed even at a wrong time, you lose it. In the wrong atmosphere, you still lose it. In the wrong climate, in the wrong soil.
And yes, you throw everything in every perfect condition, every suitable condition and there is no rain from Allah. Some disease occurs for which other factors which are responsible to ward off that disease are not operated by Allah’s command and suddenly the crop is overwhelmed. Even if you go into the ecology and consider this aspect of a farmer’s labor and the stages involved between that labor and the ultimate fruition of that labor, then you will begin to understand that everything is beyond our control. Because automatically so many factors from Allah are involved and they are helping us.
We believe in our blindness that, oh, you see, we did it and we got it. Once I remember, it’s a very interesting incident. I remember that when Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Salih, the third carrier, ordered his first, what’s that machine that cuts the crop and threshes it? Combine. No, combine. That’s called combine harvester. So when he first ordered his combine, I also ordered along with him and our combines reached about the same time. And the crop was just ready. And both he and I had very good crops. Just first class crops.
And while his combine reached first, while we were examining, he also sent message to me that come and see this combine. It was, I think, a Danish or Swedish made combine. We got it from Shahnawaz Limited. So it was a beautiful affair and we were enjoying it. Suddenly a cloud rose, which was abnormal cloud, you know. A column of cloud came very rapidly and it developed into a storm. And it started, you know, the hail storm started. Hail came in such size that never in my life did I see a hail that big.
One of them I took home later on from my farm and weighed, and it still weighed half a pound. Many a cattle was killed. Some roofs were pierced through by the hail storm, by the hails. And some children under the roof were killed or injured. That was the extent of damage that was done to the crops by that hail storm. The result was that there was nothing to read. So Hazrat Mustafa Khalifatul Masih III gave a khutbah, sermon on that and he was very happy.
And we were all very happy with the grace of Allah because we knew that it was a reminder from Allah to us that even for a fraction of a second if Allah’s grace is taken away, you can be deprived of your labour’s fruit, which you consider it is your labour’s fruit. Things are held in order, in balance.
So many factors are working underneath and so many angels are at work all the time to run the machinery of the universe in perfect balance. And we think we have done it and we can do it. This is wrong. So Allah is justified when he says, I did it and I did it. In that sense I mean.
