Man and God

derive pleasure from this. It is only man who does this. God made man, the Quran (95: 4-5) says, in the ‘the best of stature’, but in his foolishness, man demeans himself in the lowliness of ‘the lowest of the low’. What God Wants from Us A n examination was being conducted in a college. A student entered the examination hall and took his seat. But he did not write anything at all in the answer sheet, though. He just sat in his chair, smoking cigarette after cigarette! And then, three hours later, he stepped out of the hall and went to the library, where he began answering the examination paper. He had left the answer sheet blank in the examination hall, but there, in the library, surrounded by books, he filled his notebook with his scribbling. You will say this is a fictitious story. Surely, no student can be as stupid as to write his examination in the library instead of the examination hall, you will remark. And suppose this story is true, you will add, this student was definitely not in his senses. It is true that only a mad man can behave like this. But something that appears so utterly absurd in the context of an examination of this sort is precisely what everyone is doing with regard to the Hereafter. A college student ought to write his examination in the examination hall, not in the library. In the same way, there are appropriate places to appear for the examination set by God. Strangely, though, people do not appear for their examinations in those places which God has set for them for this purpose. Instead, they want to write their examinations elsewhere.