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fa-ʿasā rabbī ʾan yuʾtiyani khayran min jannatika wa-yursila ʿalayhā ḥusbānan mina s-samāʾi fa-tuṣbiḥa ṣaʿīdan zalaqan
maybe my Lord will give me [something] better than your garden, and He will unleash upon it bolts from the sky, so that it becomes a bare plain.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-Kahf – Verses 37 - 41
37. “His companion said to him, as he was conversing with him; ‘Do you disbelieve in Him Who created you from dust then from a sperm-drop, then He fashioned you a (complete) man?”
38. “But, as for me He, Allah, is my Lord, and none do I associate with my Lord.”
39. “And why did you not say when you entered your garden: ‘As Allah will, there is no power except in Allah’? If you see me less than you in wealth and children.”
40. “Yet it may be that my Lord will give me better than your garden, and will send on it (your garden) a thunderbolt from heaven so that it becomes an even slippery ground without plant.”
41. “Or its water will be sunk (into the earth), so that you will never be able to seek it out.”
These holy verses are upon the rejections of the baseless utterances of that faithless, proud, and conceited rich man that are heard from the tongue of his faithful companion. He waited silently and was listening to the words of that haughty man in order that he would say whatever he had in his inside. Then he answered him all the same time, as the verse says:
In other words, this the Lord Who, at first, created man from soil. He caused the nutritious material existed in the soil to be absorbed by the roots of the trees. The trees in turn became the food of animals, and man consumed from the plant as well as the meat of the animals. His life-germ was made up of them. In the womb of the mother, the life-germ developed its different stages of perfection until it became a complete man. A human being that is superior to all the existing things of the earth.
He can contemplate, think, make decision, and subject rather everything under his control. Yes, the change of worthless dust into such a wonderful being, with those different complicated organs of his body and soul, is one of the great reasonings of Unity. Then, in order to break the infidelity and pride of his companion, the faithful man said that he boasted and was proud of his belief that Allah was his Lord. The verse, from the tongue of the faithful man, says:
He told his faithless friend who boasted that he had garden, farming, fruit and water in abundance, that he was honoured that his Lord, his Creator, and his Sustainer was Allah. He added that his companion glorified the life this world while he glorified his belief, faith, and monotheism, as the holy verse continues saying:
After pointing to the subject of Unity and infidelity which are the most important subjects in the fate of man, again he reproached his faithless companion, and said:
Why did you not consider all of these from the side of Allah and you did not thank for His bounties? And why did you not say that there is no power and ability save from the source of Allah? The verse in this regard says:
You have ploughed the earth, scattered the seed, planted the shoot, guarded the trees, and provided every necessary thing for them on time in a manner that they grew like that. All of these activities have been done by means of the usage of the abilities, possibilities, and means that Allah has given you. You have nothing of yourself, and without Him you are naught. Then, he added that it did not matter:
My Lord not only will give me a better garden than yours, but also He will send a thunderbolt from heaven on your garden and, in a short time, He will change this green land into a plantless, slippery even plain. The holy verse continues saying:
Or He may order the land to move so that this spring and gushing water should sink down into the earth and you will never be able to find it. The verse says:
The Arabic term /husban/, used in this holy verse, originally is derived from /hisab/ (calculation); then it has been used in the sense of the arrows which are counted at the time of shooting. It has also been applied with the meaning of ‘the punishment which comes upon persons on reckoning’, and the purpose in the abovementioned verse is this very meaning. The Qur’anic word /sa‘id/ means ‘the sand, or dust on the surface of the earth’ It is originally taken from /sa‘ud/ (a calamity).
The Arabic term /zalaq/ means an even land without any plant so that the foot may slip on it. (It is interesting that today, in order to fix the running sands and prevent the towns to be buried under the storms of sand, people try to grow some plants and trees on such lands so that they can control them, and deliver them from the state of being slippery. Indeed, that faithful and monotheist man warned his proud companion that he could not attach and depend on those bounties, because none of them was reliable.
In fact he says that he has seen with his own eyes or, at least, has heard with his own ears that sometimes the heavenly thunderbolt, in a short moment, turns gardens, houses, and farms into a heap of soil, or a dry land without any water and any grass. And also you may have heard or seen that sometimes a sharp earthquake may ruin the irrigation systems and make springs dry so that they cannot be mended. When you know these clear facts, what is this pride and haughtiness for? You who have seen these events, why do you attach to them? Why do you say that you do not believe that these bounties will perish? But they will be eternal. What an ignorance and stupidity!
The Prophet of Islam (S) said that if a servant says ‘that which Allah pleases’ and ‘There is no power except in Allah’, when He bestows on him wealth and children, Allah may repel his calamities and disquiet from him so that he obtains his (good) wishes. Then he (S) recited this verse.1 Some Islamic traditions denote that the recitation of the holy phrase
causes afflictions to be repelled and bounties to last long, and it is a treasure out of the treasures of Heaven.
Footnotes