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The Idea of Eternity
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim
In the Holy Qur'an, when speaking about man, God says, "Lo! man was
created in restlessness." (70:19). The reason for this state of perpetual
restlessness, of dissatisfaction and anxiety, is that God has placed in
the heart of man the idea of eternity, of the absolute. Man may not be
able to grasp it's full meaning but it nevertheless exists as an impulse
within his being. And so long as this idea exists unrecognized and without
an outlet he can never attain a state of satisfaction or fulfillment.
Man's desire for gain, his constant wish to attain more... more wealth,
more power, more pleasure... is a result of this impulse towards eternity,
towards the absolute. It represents a distorted version of the desire,
which is within every human being, to move towards God, who is the
fulfillment of the most that there is. But without "taqwa", without an
awareness, a consciousness of God, this idea of eternity embedded in the
heart of man can lead to a quest for more of all of the wrong things.
The Most Noble Messenger (Peace be upon him) has compared the heart of
man to a feather which twists and turns with every gust of wind and every
light breeze. He was speaking of the undirected heart, of the man who is
without correct guidance. This man is restless and anxious because his
heart is aware of the eternal and so can never be satisfied with the
temporal. However, without spiritual guidance, this restlessness becomes
misdirected so that, in the words of the Qur'an, "...he follows his own
vain desires and inclines towards the earth."
The Qur'an states that it descended to the Prophet's heart as a
guidance for all mankind and that the Prophet (Peace be upon him), being
the one man whose heart completely encompassed the Qur'an in its very
essence, was a mercy to all mankind. This is because , through him,
through the Qur'an and his example, mankind was given correct direction
and attained the final blueprint for the perfection of humanity.
He came to give proper direction to this "idea of eternity" which
naturally exists within man's heart but which can lead man to "jahilliya"
(ignorance or misdirected intellect) instead of to God if it is not given
the right orientation. Islam is, therefore, not a system imposed on life,
like a straitjacket, but is life itself, directed with the proper
intention and oriented towards the one true quibla (direction). And this
was the mission of the Holy Prophet (s.a.) - to turn man's heart towards
the true quibla.
The Qur'an describes Islam as an expansion of the heart (an expansion
of the breast of man). So it is Islam (submission) to God's will that
changes the heart. It is this framework of submission that turns the
inclination of the heart away from the earth towards God, and which
provides direction for the idea of eternity which exists within man.
The framework guides the heart and the heart propels man into motion.
Without this fact of submission to animate it, religion is mere ritual.
This is why the conscious declaration of intention before performing any
ritual action is so important in Islam. Every declaration of intention
amounts to a reaffirmation of the ideology of submission and once this
occurs then the rituals provide a formal training ground and a firm basis
of activity for the fulfillment of the ideology.
The Most Noble Messenger (Peace be upon him) is the medium through
which Islam in its final form was proclaimed.
He is the medium through which a society based on submission to God was
built.
And finally, he is the example in spirit and deed who inspired, and
continues to inspire, the greatest of all changes in man - a change in the
inclination of his heart.
These matters are the trusts which God gave to the Prophet, and thus,
in the fullest sense, he was God's Vicegerent on earth, in turn teaching
mankind the responsibilities of vicegerency and setting them on the path
of human fulfillment.
