The Creation Plan of God

THE CREATION PLAN OF GOD The man most desirable to God is one worthy of inhabiting the refined and ideal world of Paradise. Such a person, the rarest of rare phenomena, is greater than all that is great in the Universe. Such a human being takes a new birth. He is born, not in peaceful circumstances but in great strife and turmoil. He faces darkness in this world, so that he may live in the eternal light of the Hereafter. He treads a thorny path in this life, so that he may enjoy a flower-filled environment in the afterlife. Here he suffers loss, so that he may be blessed with the joys of recovery in the Hereafter. He patiently bears the deprivation of the pleasures and comforts of this world, so that he may be entitled to a place in the eternal Paradise of heavenly bliss. Such a precious soul cannot come into being in a vacuum. Nor can he develop in the normal atmosphere of society—no matter how closely approaching the ideal that society may be. It is only in the jungle of adversity that such a soul can emerge; there is no other possible breeding ground. What philosophers describe as social evil is a training ground devised by the Creator to produce human beings of great moral and spiritual character. That is why, in every period of human history, mankind has been faced with all manner of conflict and dissension. The true believers, the virtuous and, in particular, the prophets, have invariably found themselves in unpropitious situations. There is a hadith to this effect: “When God loves a people, He puts them to the test.” Unfavourable circumstances are not peculiar to nonMuslim societies; in one way or another, they have always been a part of Muslim societies too. In ancient times, the