The Guide For The Youth | The Second Station of the 17th Word * | 144
(95-147)

Moreover, the result of loving the world as being the tillage of the hereafter is as follows. When the world is seen thus, that is, as a seed-bed or small place of cultivation that produces only shoots, it results in a Paradise where those shoots burgeon and blossom. For in this world man’s senses and faculties are tiny shoots and in Paradise they will unfold in the most perfect form. And his abilities, which are here like tiny seeds, will be given to him there in a form that will blossom with all sorts of delights and perfections. This is proved by the indications of the Qur’an and by Hadith, and is necessitated by mercy and wisdom.

For it is not blameworthy love of the world, which is the source of every fault, but, rather, love of its two faces that look to Allah’s Names and to the hereafter, and is for the sake of the Names and the hereafter. It is to cultivate those faces with thoughtful worship, as if taking the whole world as the means for worship. It is, therefore, most definitely necessitated by mercy and wisdom that a reward should be given that is as large as the world. And, therefore, one who, through love of the hereafter, has loved its seed-bed, and through love of Almighty Allah, has loved the mirror of His Names, will most certainly desire a beloved like the world. And that, too, will be a Paradise as great as the world.

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