The Pre-eminence of the Complete Human Being وَلَقَدْ...

The Pre-eminence of the Complete Human Being وَلَقَدْ كَرَّمْنَا بَنِي آدَمَ وَحَمَلْنَاهُمْ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ وَرَزَقْنَاهُمْ مِنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ وَفَضَّلْنَاهُمْ عَلَى كَثِيرٍ مِمَّنْ خَلَقْنَا تَفْضِيلاً “Certainly We have honored the Children of Adam, and carried them over land and sea, and provided them with all the good things, and given them an advantage over many of those We have created with complete preference.” [^2] In interpretation of this verse, ‘Allamah Tabataba’i, may Allah be pleased with him, states: This verse is in the form of obligation of indebtedness for favors; of course, obligation mixed with reproof.

Indeed, after Allah, the Exalted, mentions the abundance of His graces and His successive granting of blessings and virtues to man, including mounts to cross the deserts and the seas in order for him to acquire those graces and necessary subsistence in order to better manage his life, He mentions the point that man has forgotten his Lord, shunned Him, has not asked from Him and has once again returned to his previous ways after being saved from the sea even though he has always been immersed in Allah’s graces.

Allah, the Exalted, lists a summary of His graces and favors in this verse so that people may understand that their Lord has provided them numerous favors and realize that it is very unfortunate that they are ungrateful for these favors and other divine graces.[^3] We see that there is much room for human beings to realize the value of the gem or pearl of existence and not sell it in exchange for the vain and valueless merchandise of this world.

Man needs special conditions and facilities in order to attain human perfection and the world with all its transformations and developments is placed at his disposal. We know to some extent that if the constant transformations and order of the natural world were not existent, man’s volitional life would either not take place or it would take place in an incomplete form. In brief, it is known that the world has an orderly system and its various factors are in need of one another.

An example of one of those factors is the attraction that exists among planets in the heavens such that if that determined and precise attraction were to be interfered with and one of those spheres were to leave its orbit, the order of the planets would be thrown into disarray and a catastrophe would take place.

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