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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Provisions for the Journey (Mishkat), Volume 1 Lesson 20: The Prophet’s (S) Description of Heaven and Hell There are various ways of attaining the station of fear of Allah, amongst which is contemplation on the spiritual states of the dreadful and fearful of Allah whom knowing can aid man at selecting them as the best role models in the course of attaining the state of fear and dread of the presence of Allah.

For this reason, in this section of the hadith , the station of fear of the best of Allah’s slaves, the angels, has been introduced and in the previous lesson we discussed about it. Meditation about the Greatness of Creatures The other way of attaining the station of fear is meditation about the greatness of creatures.

Without doubt, comprehending the greatness, stability and firmness of creatures leads man to understand better the majesty and infinite wisdom of Allah and his own incapacity, inability and indigence [in the face of Allah] and in this case undertake more diligent endeavor in the direction of attaining perfection and completion and forsake obeying the appetitive soul.

In addition to this, by knowing the majesty of Allah and his boundless authority and power, he becomes acutely afraid and apprehensive of disobeying Allah. By examining in religious texts and hadith s and verses of the Gracious Qur’an the directives about knowledge of the greatness of creatures and awareness of the majesty of the Creator, we find that Allah and the saints [ awliya’ ] of religion have taken a lot of effort to explain the greatness of the creatures of Allah.

They have set forth with their clear explications the delicateness, stability, firmness and variety of creatures and in this way used to incite people to look around themselves and meditate about the creatures of Allah, ranging from very small creatures to the big and great creatures.

In his brilliant explanation, Imam ‘Ali ( ‘a ) makes meditation and contemplation about the infinite power of Allah and the variety of His blessings known as a means of being led to the correct path and to fear of Allah: “Had they pondered over the greatness of His power and the vastness of His bounty, they would have returned to the right path and feared the punishment of the Fire; but hearts are sick and eyes are impure.

Do they not see the small things He has created, how He strengthened their system and opened for them hearing and sight and made for them bones and skins?