Once I saw some students take an examination
in a center and the sight of them made me think that God’s system of trial
is quite similar. Usually a student is at liberty to write what he chooses.
The examiners do not question him for giving right or wrong answers. Similarly,
God has given man liberty to do good or evil in this world. He is not accountable
for anything during the test of life.
This liberty is essential for every examination system.
But today’s man has taken it wrongly and thinks that he will not be questioned
for his deeds. He may act as he pleases.
Examination systems in this world
grant a degree only after one passes an examination. In the same way, God
will bestow us with His degree (Paradise) after we succeed in the test
He has put us through. Today’s man is a person who is naïve enough
to demand his certificate during the test is undergoing. He is unaware
of the fact that he is on trial; so he yearns for the degree (paradise)
right in this world. How can he obtain it without passing the examination?
The conditions we are destined to
live in are, in fact, a sort of an examination in their very nature. But
people take them as a reward and waste their life away. If someone is blessed
with abounding success and riches, he becomes engrossed in them thinking
that he has got his final reward. In the same way, those confronted with
failure and stinginess wail over them regarding them as his ultimate dismal
fate. Whereas wealth and poverty, success and failure, health and ailments
all are tests. Worth considering is the fact that a degree is awarded forever
and what we have in this world is not meant to be everlasting. So our conditions
here can only be termed as a test not a degree. For it embodies eternity.
Let us hold firm the fact that in
this world all conditions, healthy or unhealthy stand for a test only,
not a reward. Let us take this life as an examination and act accordingly
so that we may deserve the everlasting degree of Paradise. Let us leave
wailing over failures and being proud of our success and realize the fact
that both the states are temporary. Why worry or feel proud then if we
cannot make them permanent. Let us behave as God demands us to behave in
these transient circumstances so that we may evade everlasting failure
and achieve everlasting success. That behavior is humbleness in success
and perseverance in failure.
(Translated and adapted by Tariq Hashmy
)
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