ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Provisions for the Journey (Mishkat), Volume 1 Lesson 19: The Greatness of Allah’s Status in the Viewpoint of the Angels “O Abu Dharr! Allah has angels who as a result of fear of Him have their heads permanently bowed [in submission] while standing on their feet up to the Day of Resurrection.

Then they all say, ‘Purity and praise are for you, we did not worship you as you deserved to be adored.” We have previously discussed invocation and remembrance of Allah. It has been said that invocation of Allah ought to be done as a result of humility, modesty and with the presence of heart; not as a result of habit and futile utterances of the tongue.

Now, the discourse regards what things play a role in bringing about attention and presence of heart at the time of invocation of the divine name of Allah. It is for this reason that the Noble Prophet (S) embarks upon explicating the point which has excellent effects in bringing about attention to Allah and perceiving his divine presence at the time of invocation of the name of Allah.

The Role of Arousing Hope and Fear In a natural way, man’s motivation in regard to volitional works is hope for reward and fear of harm; of course the realm of reward and harm is very wide: for some people the reward lies in these same worldly benefits and material facilities and for some people reward and benefit belong to the hereafter.

In the same way, some material and worldly losses are taken into consideration and for some people losses and divine punishment of the hereafter are taken into consideration. Higher than these two types, for the saints [ awliya’ ] of Allah, reward lies in perceiving the presence of Allah and deriving benefit and the pleasure of Allah and their loss lies in being deprived of that prosperity and perfection.

Their fear is in respect to being deprived of the beatific presence of Allah and without the least doubt this fear is more than the fear of other people in regard to the losses of the world and the hereafter is higher. Of course, the reality of this issue is not known to us and is far from our comprehension; we briefly deduce from the ayat s [verses of the Qur’an] and hadith s there is such fear as well.