The Scale of Virtue
Al-Risala (English), February 1989, p. 10
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
The Scale of Virtue
1989 2 February 10 The Scale of Virtue (359) On a rising scale of virtue we start at the lowest level with the sinners and the renegades, come next to the occasional and inadvertent wrongdoers and find at the top of the hierarchy – those virtuous souls who go in constant fear of the Lord.
The last mentioned fear an invisible God more than they fear any visible object of this world, and are constantly bowed down with the penitence in their hearts. These are the individuals who are looked upon with the greatest favour by God, for the Almighty is always pleased with those who have suffered in order to serve Him. When they meet Him on the Day of Reckoning, they will be showered with God’s choicest blessings. In the afterlife they will be ushered in to evergreen gardens where they shall remain in bliss for ever after. There they shall have all that they desire, for God’s munificence is infinite.
On the middle rungs of the scale of virtue are those who stray, sometimes quite unthinkingly, from the path of truth, but who return to better ways, contrite, and determined to live a morally better life. They are not hardened sinners and show no obduracy when it comes to giving up their evil ways. When they turn to God to confess their sins and show him how repentant they are, they can be sure that God will be merciful and forgiving.
On the lowest rung are those who are proud, arrogant, greedy and unjust and who are so concerned with themselves and the material things of this world that they forget all about their Maker and their duties to Him as His servants. They do not fear their Lord, and are not to be deflected from their evil ways, even when constantly reminded of what their ultimate fate is to be. They concentrate solely on material gain and sensual pleasures and have no thought for the unending agonies of hell which await them in the Hereafter. It is only when they are cast down into the pit of fire that they will realize – too late – what it meant to ignore God in favour of worldly ambition.
