The one who fears to stand in
front of Allah does not indulge in sin. If he slips and commits a sin, in a
moment of human weakness, his fear of facing Allah will lead him to repent and
pray for forgiveness. Thus he remains within the area of obedience, the central
point of which is the control of one’s caprice and desires. Indulgence of
desire and caprice is essentially the cause of all forms of tyranny and
transgression. It is the spring of evil. Man hardly ever falls for any reason
other than succumbing to caprice and desire. Ignorance is easy to cure. Desire,
after ignorance has been cured, is the plague which requires a long and hard
struggle to overcome.
The fear of Allah is the
solid defense against the violent attacks of desire. Indeed, there is hardly
any other defense which can withstand such attacks. Hence, the surah mentions
the fear of Allah and the control of caprice together in one verse. This fact
is here asserted by Allah, the Creator of Man and the only one Who knows the
human soul, its weaknesses and their effective cure.
Allah does not ask man to
suppress his desires, because He knows that it is not possible for him to do
so. He simply asks man to control his desires and not to let them control him.
He tells him that fear of standing before his Lord, the Almighty, should be of
great help to him. He has fixed his reward for this hard struggle: Paradise as
a dwelling place, for Allah knows perfectly well the hardships involved in this
struggle and the high standards to which man is elevated by it.
This struggle and self
control and elevation help man fulfill his humanity.
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