بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
إن مع العسر يسرا إن مع العسر يسرا
Indeed after hardship comes ease. Indeed, after hardship comes ease. (Surah ash-sharh: 5-6)
In this world we see opposites everywhere. Rich and poor, light and dark, freedom and slavery. Need calls forth suffering. If you focus solely on the miserable in need, you will feel sad. You may think that this is a cruel universe. The temptation is to want to abolish suffering and need. But do not judge in this way. Look instead at what need leads to. Need calls forth suffering, but suffering calls forth compassion. If we never needed anything, then how could we enjoy the bliss of being comforted and the relationships that this comfort entails? I don’t like being cold, and I don’t like being thirsty. But if we never experienced extremes of cold, how would we experience the comfort of walking into a heated room, or vice versa? If we never knew thirst, or dirt, would we appreciate water?
What if our every need were to be met in instantly? If we knew everything, and could do everything, if we were independent and wise, how lonely we might be in our self-sufficiency, but also ignorant – ignorant of mercy and of love and even of desire. It is through need, imperfection and suffering that mercy and love is manifested to us. In a world of self-sufficient beings, there could be no service, no kindness, no compassion. With no failure, what meaning could success have? Or help? This world is a world of relationships and of responses. We need to pay attention to the quality of relationships between things, far more than we pay attention to things as things in themselves in any moment of time.
و خلقنا الموت والحياة ليبلوكم أيكم أحسن عملا
And we created death and life to test which of you are the best in actions (Surah Al Mulk). Death is sad, but we need to look beyond the sad fact of death, back at ourselves, because our response is required.
