Missing Link Found

These verses refer to three blessings which in the entire universe have only been given to man. Man should acknowledge these blessings and give the required response to them. It is this response by a man that will be mainly responsible for earning him a seat in Paradise. Acknowledging these divine blessings inculcates a positive personality in a person, and it is this positive personality that will be held deserving of being settled in Paradise.

What is required of man is to consciously acknowledge these blessings, without any compulsion. Acknowledgment means deep appreciation of a gift.

The first blessing is that God created man and gave him a unique personality. This kind of personality is an exceptionally rare gift to man. Nothing in the universe shares in with this gift. The second blessing is given here in terms of the modes of transport, or in other words, means of communication. This is mentioned here as symbolic of the various other blessings of this kind. That is, it refers to all those blessings which have been given to man in the form of the life support system, both in the form of movable and immovable things. The third blessing is mentioned in these words: “He creates what you do not know.” This third blessing was referred to here as a prediction. When in the seventh century the Quran was revealed this blessing had not come into existence; it was to appear in the future. This blessing constitutes the various components of the industrial civilization, which was present in nature in the potential sense at the time of the revelation of the Quran. After a long process of thousand years this blessing became an actuality, and we now know it as the civilization produced by the industrial and scientific revolution.

God Almighty is the giver of these blessings and man is the recipient. What is required of man is to consciously acknowledge these blessings, without any compulsion. Acknowledgment means deep appreciation of a gift. This kind of acknowledgment is the greatest human quality. It shapes the entire personality of a human being. It is this acknowledgment that makes a person a positive person.

However, there was a “missing link” in this universe. The universe, with all its vastness, has surrendered to God under compulsion. Now, there was a vacant room for a creature that surrenders to God by choice. God Almighty created man to fill in this gap. Man was given total freedom. At the same time, he was given a thinking mind. It was required that man utilizes this mind and surrenders before God as a reality rather than as a matter of compulsion. When such a human being surrenders to God in this way, it is as if he is saying, ‘O God, You are great and I am not great. I am accepting this fact as a reality, without the slightest compulsion.’