lose! Moreover, if you sell the property to me, you become my soldier and act in my name. Instead of a common prisoner or irregular soldier, you will be the free lieutenant of an exalted monarch."
After they had listened to this gracious decree, the more intelligent of the two men said:
"By all means, 1 am proud and happy to sell. I offer thanks a thousandfold."
But the other was arrogant, selfish and dissip­ated: his soul had become as proud as the Pharaoh. As if he was to stay eternally on that estate, he ignored the earthquakes and tumults of this world. He said:
"No! Who is the king? 1 won't sell my prop­erty, nor spoil my enjoyment."
After a short time, the first man reached so high a rank that everyone envied his state. He received the favour of the king, and lived happily in the king's own palace. The other by contrast fell into such a state that everyone pitied him, but also said he deserved it. For as a result of his error, his hap­piness and property departed, and he suffered pun­ishment and torment.
O soul full of caprices! Look at the face of truth through the telescope of this parable. As for the king, he is the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity, your Sustainer and Creator. The estates, machinery, tools and scales are your pos­sessions while in life's fold; your body, spirit and heart within those ossessions, and your external and inner senses such as the eye and the tongue, intelligence and imagination. As for the most noble lieutenant, it is the Noble Messenger of God; and the most wise decree is the Wise Qur'an, which describes the trade we are discuss­ing in this verse:
Verily God has purchased from the helievers their persons and property that Paradise might be theirs.
The surging field of battle is the tempestuous sur­face of the world, which ceaselessly changes, dis­olves and reforms and causes every man to think:
"Since everything will leave our hands, will perish and be lost, is there no way in which we can transform it into something eternal and preserve it?"
While engaged in these thoughts, he suddenly hears the heavenly voice of the Qur'an saying:
"Indeed there is, a beautiful and easy way which contains five profits within itself." What is that way?
To sell the Trust received back to its true owner. Such a sale yields profit fivefold.
The First Profit: Transient property becomes everlasting. For this waning life, when given to the Eternal and Sclf-Subsistent Lord of Glory and spent for His sake, will be transmuted into eternity. It will yield eternal fruits. The moments of one's life will apparently vanish and rot like kernels and seeds. But then the flowers of blessedness and auspiciousness will open and bloom in the realm of eternity, and each will also present a luminous and reassuring aspect in the Intermediate Realm.
The Second Profit: The high price of Paradise is given in exchange.
The Third Profit: The value of each limb and each sense is increased a thousandfold. The intelli­gence is, for example, like a tool. If you do not sell it to God Almighty, but rather employ it for the sake of the soul, it will become an ill-omened, noxious and debilitating tool that will burden your weak person with all the sad sorrows of the past and the terrifying fears of the future; it will descend to the rank of an inauspicious and destructive tool. It is for this reason that a sinful man will frequently resort to drunkenness or frivo­lous pleasure in order to escape the vexations and injuries of his intelligence. But if you sell your intelligence to its True Owner and employ it on His behalf, then the intelligence will become like the key to a talisman, unlocking the infinite treas­ures of compassion and the vaults of wisdom that creation contains.