Page:Maulana Muhammad Ali Quran.djvu/12

xii achieved its need vanishes. Nor is paradise a place to enjoy the blessings only of one’s previous good deeds, but it is the starting-point of the development of the higher faculties of man. Those in paradise shall not be idle, but they shall be continually exerting themselves to reach the higher stages. It is for this reason that they are taught to pray even there to their Lord, "O our Lord! make perfect for us our light" (66:8). This unceasing desire for perfection shows clearly that progress in paradise shall be endless. For when they shall have attained one excellence they shall see a higher stage of excellence, and considering that to which they shall have attained as imperfect, shall desire the attainment of the higher excellence. This ceaseless desire for perfection shows that they shall be endlessly attaining to excellences.

Belief in angels and its significance.

I have now briefly indicated the three fundamental principles of a Muslim’s faith, but I may further add that belief in the unseen also includes a belief in those agencies which we call angels. This belief, though common to many religions, is not as widely accepted as the three principles explained above, and therefore a few remarks relating to the truth underlying this belief will not be out of place here. In the physical world we find it as an established law that we stand in need of external agents, notwithstanding the faculties and powers within us. The eye has been given to us to see things, and it does see them, but not without the help of external light. The ear receives the sound, but independently of the agency of air it cannot serve that purpose. Man, therefore, essentially stands in need of something besides what is within him, and as in the physical, so also in the spiritual world. Just as our physical faculties are not by themselves sufficient to enable us to attain any object in the physical world without the assistance of other agents, so our spiritual powers cannot by themselves lead us to do good or evil deeds, but here, too, intermediaries which have an existence independent of our internal spiritual powers are necessary to enable us to do either. In other words, there are two attractions placed in the nature of man: the attraction to good, or to rise up to higher spheres of virtue, and the attraction to evil, or to stoop to a low, bestial life; but to bring these attractions into operation external agencies are needed, as they are needed in the case of the physical organs of man. The external agency which brings the attraction to good into work is called an angel, and that which assists in the working of the attraction to evil is called the devil. If we respond to the attraction to good we are following the Holy Spirit, and if we respond to the attraction to evil we are following Satan. The real significance of the belief in angels is, therefore, that we should follow the inviter to good, or the attraction to good which is placed within us.

Significance of belief.

The above remarks explain not only the significance of a Muslim’s belief in angels, but also the meaning underlying the very word belief. Belief, according to Islam, is not only a conviction of the truth of a given proposition, hut it is essentially the acceptance of a proposition as a basis for action. As already shown, the proposition of the existence of the devils is as true as that of the existence of the angels; but while belief in angels is again and again mentioned as part of a Muslim’s faith, nowhere are we required to believe in the devils. Both facts are equally true, and the Holy Qur-án speaks on numerous occasions of the misleadings and insinuations of the devils; but while it requires a belief in angels, it does not require a belief in devils. If belief in angels were only equivalent to an admission of their