THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION—PART I

(37: 41) to them. It will not be a thing unknown, but a thing with which they were already acquainted in the life of this world: He will admit them to Paradise He has made known to them. (THE QURAN 47: 6) The Prophet has said, “The man who goes to Heaven will recognise his home even better than he recognised his house on earth.” (Bukhari). When men give charity “with their hearts filled with awe…” (23: 60); when they are able to recite the Quran in such a way that their eyes are “filled with tears” (5: 83); when, while intensely remembering God, they “forsake their beds to pray to their Lord in fear and hope” (32: 16); when they experience such painful moments as realising the truth of what is stated in the Quran: “…and the love of God is stronger in the faithful” (2: 165); when they have the most sublime spiritual experiences; when some hidden truths are unveiled before them; when, with restless hearts and quivering lips, they call their Lord with such inspired words as had never before come to their lips, then they are actually receiving divine provision from their Lord. They are tasting one of the many fruits that their Lord has reserved for them. In this world these fruits take the form of spiritual experiences; in the next world they will take the form of heavenly rewards. Then the faithful will feel that these are the very things of which they had been given a foretaste on earth: “Whenever they are given fruit to eat, they will say: ‘This is what we were given before,’ for they shall be given the like.” (2: 25) What the people of Paradise are going to receive in the life hereafter has already been introduced to them in the life they left behind. How foolish it would be if they imagined that in the next life they would be introduced to tastes, with which they had been previously unacquainted. Similarly, in this life, if one has not previously passed through phases of feeling closer to God than to all others, how can one expect proximity with God in the Hereafter? Surely, prayer deserves such a great reward as will cool the eyes of the worshippers in the Hereafter. But this reward will be shared only by those who had known in the world such prayers as had been alluded to by the Prophet: “I found the balm of my eyes in worship” (Nasai). o The Heaven into which the believers will enter will not be a thing unknown, but a thing with which they were already acquainted in the life of this world. 2. In this world in addition to human beings and angels, there is another set of creatures known as jinn. Human beings cannot see them but, in the Quran they have been mentioned in several places. These verses show that among the jinn also there are guided and misguided types.