Thoughts on Yā-Sīn 65-83
I hate using Whatsapp. But sometimes you want to share thoughts instantly which then only profit Meta. That’s a grubby exchange. I need to find other ways if people are not available in person. They say writing, or meditation: coming to a stillness with the One, with Pervading Permanence that permeates reality and is at the same time distinct from it, not subject to time, but time is subject to it. I thought these thoughts when reciting the verses from Yā-Sīn this morning, Had We willed, We could have easily blinded their eyes, so they would struggle to find their way. How then could they see? And had We willed, We could have transfigured them on the spot, so they could neither progress forward nor turn back. And whoever We grant a long life, We reverse them in development. Will they not then understand? If time itself is subject to a greater reality, then towards that greater reality we must find peace.
- We did not teach him poetry, nor is it proper for him. It is only a reminder, and a Clear Quran.
- That he may warn whoever is alive, and prove the Word against the faithless.
- Have they not seen that We created for them, of Our Handiwork, livestock that they own?
- And We subdued them for them. Some they ride, and some they eat.
We can see nation states like God’s appointment of Saul to the Children of Israel or the Davidic covenant, it’s a means to the end of servitude and serfdom to the All Pervading Reality. God has favoured the house of Japheth.
More important than ‘best’ or ‘accurate’ translations or ‘Arabic gems’ is conveying the arguments of the Quran, and essential teachings: monarch, mortality, morality; God, godliness, goodness; laws, ethics, consequences.
Again, balance and purpose: ‘life’ not too long, we become decrepit, not too short, we do not mature; not too decadent that we become heedless, not too harsh that we also become heedless. ‘Life’ is required to listen and understand, and contemplate, and to change oneself, and to instruct others. That ‘life’ is given by God, that ‘life’ is spiritual as we as essential.
- And they have in them other benefits, and drinks. Will they not give thanks?
- Yet they have taken to themselves gods other than God, that perhaps they may be helped.
- They cannot help them, although they are arrayed as troops for them.
- So let their words not sadden you. We know what they conceal, and what they reveal.
- Does the human being not consider that We created him from a seed? Yet he becomes a fierce adversary.
Wisdom is realise you know nothing. Your knowing is not what makes your knowledge special. You once didn’t know and you will forget. And you will be forgotten but what you knew will be known long after you are forgotten.
The rules of geometry outlive you. The one who made geometry will outlive all, has lived before them, will give life to them again.
The responsibility is to warn, to ensure that they have understood the arguments, to ensure you have understood the arguments in the first place, to be convinced by it to understood ramifications and possible refutations, refinements and reinforcements.
- And he produces arguments against Us, and he forgets his own creation. He says, “Who will revive the bones when they have decayed?”
- Say, “He who initiated them in the first instance will revive them. He has knowledge of every creation.”
I think the worse thing here is not the denial of the metaphysics, but the sense of a lack of accountability. Do good people feel inclined to deny an account after death? Behaving virtuously brings personal peace.
I think we see a support of the Platonic (as I understand it in my amateur way) that the abstract lives on beyond the material. The truth is any more Greek than gravity is English.
Who am I? I once never existed. I never had name. I am son. And I am also father.
What lives on is accountable. It’s a combination of will, knowledge, power (created in the likeness of God, then). It’s these qualities that matter. The material will remain behind. All were loans and gifts from the maker we were obliged to use according to the terms of the contract.
- He who produced fuel for you from the green trees, with which you kindle a fire.
- Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them? Certainly. He is the Supreme All-Knowing Creator.
- His command, when He wills a thing, is to say to it, “Be,” and it comes to be.
- So glory be to Him in whose hand is the dominion of everything, and to Him you will be returned.