ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Provisions for the Journey (Mishkat), Volume 2 Lesson 37: Divine Providence and Divine Decree and the Role of True Faith In the previous lessons, the focus of discussion was piety and it was explained that when a person is pious, he should not be worried about his sustenance for the reason that Allah, the Exalted, grants him ways of solving his problems and when he finds himself in difficulties and in a dead end situation, Allah shows him the way of deliverance and grants him livelihood from ways he cannot even imagine.

In reality, in the previous sections the Noble Prophet’s (S) recommendations to Abu Dharr in regard to the connection between piety and sustenance have been discussed because man desires legitimate, pure and ample subsistence. If he conceives that piety results in the expansion and increase of his livelihood, his motivation to attain piety increases. Submission to Truth, the Means of Averting Worries So, to what extent should a believer be worried about his sustenance?

To what extent should he think about improving his life and in what ways? In what way should he earn his sustenance? There is no doubt that man has needs which, if not provided, would bring his life to a halt. Sustenance is one of the things upon which the continuation of life depends, so naturally a person who loves life is also worried about sustenance. As we have previously said, sustenance is not confined to food.

The material and spiritual blessings that Allah grants to mankind are all subsistence including but not limited to a person’s clothing, home, spouse, teachers and knowledge. With this broad point of view that subsistence consists of all material and spiritual graces and also the certainty that every person has no option but to acquire subsistence, it is natural that every person is worried about their livelihood.

However, the degree of a person’s apprehension is dependent on their various levels of knowledge and certainty; that is to say, in the same way that people’s faith and knowledge are not the same, their levels of apprehension too are not the same and their worry decreases to the same extent that their knowledge increases so much so that some of the saints [ awliya’ ] of Allah reach a level of knowledge where they do not even think about themselves.

The station of submission which has been mentioned in the verses of the Qur’an denotes this station.