THE JOURNEY OF CIVILIZATION

control or intervention. In a normal situation a man would, ideally, be able, single-handedly, to fulfill all of his own personal requirements. The advent of automation is an advance intimation of the joys of Paradise. Indeed, of Paradise, the Quran says: “Therein you shall have all that your souls desire, and therein you shall have all that you ask for as a rich provision from One who is ever forgiving and most merciful.” (The Quran 41:31-32) From the scientific and academic standpoint, the above-mentioned facts make the ideal age of the future—the “spiritual civilization”—understandable in terms of being a super-industrial age. x This Super-Industrial Age is yet to reach comple­ tion, but it is in this fourth phase that the ideal world—in religious terms, Paradise—will proba­ bly take shape, in the world hereafter.