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This World and the Hereafter
By: Sayyid Hasan Islami
For many people, this world and the hereafter are cheese and chalk apart, and (to them) worldliness means turning away from the hereafter, while seeking the hereafter denotes hostility to the world.
Whenever the subject of the hereafter and that of keeping it in mind comes up, it seems that one should withdraw from the world, abandon and flee from it. Most of our Sufis and mystics have given currency to this dictum and claimed that the hereafter can be attained by trampling on this world, as this world is a world of matter while the hereafter is a world of meaning, and these two are irreconcilable.
All this vilification of the world, its vainness and the disgrace to which it has been subjected in our literature has its roots in this understanding of the world. Perhaps this world and the hereafter are inimical to one another and will never be reconciled. Someone with this notion of the world had vilified it and whose statement Imām ‘Alī (‘a) heard. Contrary to his expectation, the Imām (‘a) did not confirm his view. Rather, he (‘a) said to him:
O’ you who abuse the world, O’ you who have been deceived by its deceit and cheated by its wrongs. Do you accuse it or it should accuse you? When did it bewilder you or deceive you? ... Certainly, this world is a house of truth for him who appreciates it; a place of safety for him who understands it; a house of riches for him who collects provision from it (for the next world); and a house of instructions for him who draws instruction from it. It is a place of worship for the lovers of Allah; the place of praying for the angels of Allah; the place where the revelation of Allah descends; and the marketing place for those devoted to Allah.”[210]
From the viewpoint of Imām ‘Alī (‘a) there is nothing wrong with the world and it is not blameworthy. By the way, what is meant by the ‘world’? If we look upon the world as one of the levels of existence and one of God’s creations, then it cannot be reproached. If by the world we mean that place of origin and nourishment of humankind, then again it cannot be blamed. If by the world we mean that ground and bastion of human development, in this case, too, it cannot be deemed futile.
From whatever perspective we view the world, it seems as though the world is far from being blameworthy, and reproaching it is tantamount to reproaching God. Notwithstanding this, the world has been referred to in a blameful and rebuking manner in many of the Qur’anic verses and narrations (of the Prophet). It cannot be denied that the basis of many among those who have been hostile to the world has been some Qur’anic verses and sayings of the Infallibles (‘a) and our religious leaders.
For instance, concerning the world, God Almighty says: “Know that the life of this world is only play, and idle talk, and pageantry, and boasting among you, and rivalry in respect of wealth and children.”[211]
This assertion that the world is nothing but a plaything and futility has been repeated in numerous verses.[212]
Imām ‘Alī (‘a), too, who used to express praise for the world, addressed the world thus: “O’ world, O’ world! Get away from me. Do you present yourself to me? Or are you eager for me? You may not get that opportunity to impress [and deceive] me.”[213]
In the former statement the Imām (‘a) was saying that the world is not a deceiver whereas in the latter he (‘a) wants the world to deceive others [i.e., to deceive those who wanted to be deceived and not to deceive him]. Now, how could this ambiguity be resolved? This vagueness will be made clear through an examination of the following three points:
• This world as the place of cultivation for the hereafter
• Which is the blameworthy world?
• This world and the hereafter as complementary to one another
This world as the place of cultivation for the hereafter
From a philosophical and general viewpoint, this world and the hereafter are located in a single continuum—a continuum in whose one end is the world and in the other end is the hereafter. As far as existence is concerned it is not possible to put a gap between the two. The world is the lowest level of the universe and the descending stage of existence.
The world is that place in which all talents are not yet set in motion and in which every phenomenon can endlessly manifest its potentialities. The world is that abode in which thousands and thousands of unfulfilled possibilities could materialize. The world is that learning sanctuary wherein one can still pursue knowledge and improve oneself. It is this world that is considered as “the lowest level of existence and the abode of change, transition, and annihilation.”[214]
In this sense, this world means there is still opportunity for everyone to polish the essence of his existence and to give it the appropriate form he likes. As such, the world has no blemish. Although it appears imperfect comparison to the hereafter, in term of its function and duty, which is providing the grounds for the advancement of everybody, it is absolutely without any defect:
Although worldly existence is a lower and defective realm of being, since it is a nursery for the training of lofty souls and a school for acquiring higher spiritual stations, it is a field for cultivating the Hereafter. In this sense it is the most sublime of the realms of being and the most profitable of worlds for the lovers of God and the wayfarers of the path of the Hereafter.[215]
Therefore, if there were no such realm for the manifestation of human ability and ingenuities, no one could have been able to tread the path of perfection and be freed from his own faults and deficiencies, and this itself is the greatest defect:
And were it not for this terrestrial realm of matter, the domain of physical and spiritual substantial transformation and change, … not a single imperfect soul would have attained its promised state of perfection nor would it have been able to reach the realm of permanence and stability, nor the embodiments of imperfection would have been able to enter the Kingdom of God.[216]
The statements uttered by Imām ‘Alī (‘a) to the blamer of the world is a testimony to this truth. Whenever referring to this aspect of the world the Glorious Qur’an also describes the world as the overture of the hereafter and its prelude, and avers it is in this world that man builds his own hereafter. Deliverance in this world leads to deliverance in that world while blindness in this abode is equivalent to blindness in that one: “Whoso blind here will be blind in the Hereafter, and yet further from the road.”[217]
The statement, “The world is the farm of the hereafter,” which the Holy Prophet (s) is reported to have said, expresses this point. So, the world is not only irreproachable but also praiseworthy. The world provides the best opportunity for us to construct whatever we like from our existence and to achieve our perfection. The world not only has no place for complaint and grievance, but is also worthy of appreciation and laudation.
Besides this, not only is the world good, but also loving it is even ethical and acceptable. The essence of man takes form in this very water and soil, and the world is not only deemed as the cradle and bedrock of his advancement but also plays the role of his mother. Thus, anyone who expresses love to his mother is not reproachable. On the contrary, unkindness to one’s mother is unethical. It is for this reason that Imām ‘Alī (‘a) says: “People are the progeny of the world and no one can be blamed for loving the mother.”[218]
Yes, blameworthy is the one who does not love his mother—that too, the mother who endows his child with all the means of comfort and growth, and provides him with all the potentialities for perfection. So, loving this world is rooted in man’s innate constitution. “Let it be known that man is the child of this physical world, nature being his mother, and he the offspring of water and dust. The love for this world is implanted in his heart since the early time of his development and growth.”[219]Therefore, the world is not reproachable, and loving it is natural and even ethical.
Which is the blameworthy world?
The world is commendable and praiseworthy so long as it paves the way for the advancement of man and leads to his perfection. However, if it is supposed to prevent his advancement and obstruct his way to perfection, then it is no longer praiseworthy. In the same manner, love of the mother is acceptable so long as it causes the growth of the child. Yet, if this love is to arrest the independence of man and to make him always dependent on her, it can then no longer be considered a positive emotion. Instead, it is a malady.
If our outlook on the world is that of one who wants to go a long way and reach his destination, we can then take all the things we need from this house (world) and commence our journey fully equipped. But once we take this world as our goal, we will then forget the journey, destination and movement, and will not be able to advance and attain perfection. Therefore, what makes the world valuable is the ‘utilitarian outlook’ on it, and what makes it worthy of rebuke is the ‘destinational outlook’.
The difference between the one who seeks the world and that who seeks the hereafter is not that the worldly one acquires benefits from this world while the other avoids it. The fundamental distinction lies in the type of outlook of these two. The wise and clear-sighted one is he who sees the world as a good instrument to reach the hereafter while the stupid one is he who thinks of the world as his objective:
Certainly this world is the end of the sight of the (mentally) blind who see nothing beyond it. The sight of a looker (who looks with the eye of his mind) pierces through and realizes that the (real) house is beyond this world. The looker therefore wants to get out of it while the blind wants to get into it. The looker collects provision from it (for the next world) while the blind collects provision for this very world.[220]
Therefore, what is meant by the blameworthy world is not this physical planet with all its beauties and endowments, because, reproaching them is tantamount to reproaching the beautiful creations of God. Rather, what is meant by the blameworthy world is forgetting one’s own goal, having absolute attachment to it, and evading one’s own human and divine responsibilities:
Therefore, this world, being as it is the manifestation of and witness to His Beauty and Majesty, is not at all condemnable in this sense. That which is condemnable is the world of man himself in the sense of his absorption in the world of carnal nature and his attachment and love for it. That world is the source of all vices and all inward and outward sins.[221]
From this perspective, the cause of all these sins and offences is love of this world. Imām as-Sādiq is reported to have said: “Love of the world is the root of all sins.”[222]
In as much as the love of this world causes total attachment to it and makes one forget his or her objective, it gradually immerses the person in various sins and offences. The first sin and offence arising from the love of the world is that man thinks of this ephemeral and temporal world as everlasting, but whenever the veil of his notion is torn, one becomes fearful and dreadful of death. As a result, it would even make him furious of God. The other sin that spawns from love of this world is the weakening of man’s will. What makes man a man is his willpower and if, due to love of the world, this will is to weaken, then nothing would be left of his humanity. The third sin issuing from love of this world is that man is never satiated by it and in order to get more enjoyment from it he is prone to defile himself with any sort of sin and gradually drowns in all these sins.
Imām Khomeinī describes some of the evils of loving this world in this manner:
Among the evil effects of the love of the world and attachment to it is that it makes man afraid of death… Another great evil caused by the love of the world is that… it weakens his power of resolution and debilitates the will… Since he mistakenly believes the world and worldly fascinations to be the desired ultimate goal his greed grows day by day and his desire for them multiplies. His need for the world increases and poverty and deprivation becomes his fate.[223]
Consequently, he is like a thirsty person who drinks water from the sea and becomes thirstier.
This world and the hereafter as complementary to one another
Man has to go on a great journey—from the earth to the heavens. Initially, he emerges from a particle that cannot be seen with the naked eye; however, at the end of the voyage he steps into a world, annihilating the worlds within his being.
This odyssey, from creation [khalq] to Truth [haqq] is a spiritual one, the provisions of which are the aspiration and faith of man. If man knows the starting point of his journey and appreciates it to just that extent, he has then taken this world to be the preliminary step to the hereafter and the place of its cultivation. In such an event, if this preliminary step is lost sight of, the hereafter and the purpose of the journey would be meaningless. In the absence of this world, the hereafter will no longer be so. It is only with the admission of this contrariety that journey and movement acquire meaning. Nevertheless, the journey from this world to the hereafter is not a spatial journey. Rather, it is an inner, behavioural and spiritual one.
From the viewpoint of the Qur’an, the world is the external manifestation and outer layer of the hereafter while the hereafter is the esoteric form and inner layer of this world. Yet, most of the people do not realize this truth and “they know only some appearance of the life of the world, and are heedless of the Hereafter.”[224]
The reason for this negligence and complacency is that they have not yet realized the fact that the heaven and the earth and all the things therein have been created in truth and that every phenomenon has its own specific function. If only this corporeal man thinks deeply about the essence of the world and realizes its true condition, he will then benefit from it without taking it as his goal and being captivated by and attached to, it. Constructing the hereafter is bound to that in constructing this world. Anyone who did not invest in this world would be a loser in that world. Exertion of effort and endeavor in this world is valuable since it is the hereafter that guarantees [the well-being of] man. It is with this outlook that this maxim can be understood: “Whoever does not have sustenance has no hereafter, too.”[225]
This view is a broad perspective on the world and the hereafter, which gives meaning to any type of economic venture and social participation without which he would be confined to the whirlpool of daily routine. That which has been reported that the Messenger of God (s) viewed the Christian and Jewish beliefs as having one eye (one dimensional) while describing Islam as having two eyes (two dimensional) is a testimony to this truth. The Jewish creed drowns man to such an extent in the activities of this world as to keep him from thinking about the hereafter.
Christianity, too, instils such apprehension in its adherents with regard to the other world that they forget this one. But it is only the religion of Islam which reckons the provision of sustenance for the wife and child as a form of spiritual undertaking and struggle [jihād] in the way of God, and considers work as a form of worship.
From this perspective, not only is economic activity praiseworthy and laudable while, on the other hand, abandoning economic pursuits and withdrawal from, and non participation in, the different spheres of life is viewed as casting out of the ambit of religion. ‘Worldliness’ is only objectionable when it makes man forgetful of God and his destination, and not when it would be his companion and aid in this journey and for reaching the destination:
What is this world? To be forgetful of God;
It is not merchandise and silver and weighing-scales and women.
As regards the wealth that you carry for religion’s sake, as the Prophet recited,
“How good is righteous wealth (for the righteous man)!”[226]
Water in the boat is the ruin of the boat,
(But) water underneath the boat is a support.[227]
Notes:
[210]Nahj al-Balāghah, Maxim 131.
[211]Sūrah al-Hadīd 57:20.
[212] For instance, see Sūrah al-An‘ām 6:32; Sūrah al-‘Ankabūt 29:64; Sūrah Muhammad 47:36.
[213]Nahj al-Balāghah, Maxim 77.
[214]Sharh-e Chehel Hadīth, p. 120.
[215]Loc. cit.
[216]Ibid., pp. 120-121.
[217]Sūrah al-Isrā’ 17:72.
[218]Nahj al-Balāghah, Maxim 303.
[219]Sharh-e Chehel Hadīth, p. 122.
[220]Nahj al-Balāghah, Sermon 133.
[221]Sharh-e Chehel Hadīth, p. 121.
[222]Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 315.
[223]Sharh-e Chehel Hadīth, p. 124-125, 127-128.
[224]Sūrah ar-Rūm 30:7.
[225] “. ﻣﻦﻻﻣﻌﺎﺵﻠﻪ¡ﻻﻣﻌﺎﺪﻠﻪ” [Trans.]
[226] It refers to the Prophetic saying, Ahādīth wa Qisas Mathnawī [Hadīths and the Story of Mathnawī], p. 49.
[227]Mathnawī, Book One, vol. 1, p. 53.
Nicholson, Book One, under How the lion again declared exertion to be superior to trust in God and expounded the advantages of exertion, vol. 1, p. 107. [Trans.]
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