The necessity of worshipping Allah Most High and acquiring His gnosis

The necessity of worshipping Allah Most High and acquiring His gnosis

 

Thus, it is the bounden duty of the Sufis to remain engaged in the remembrance of Allah Most High and through this it is unveiled to them that the objective of the Lord Almighty in creating this world is His gnosis.  For this reason, there is nothing which doesn’t recognize Allah Most High, as mentioned in this verse of the Holy Quran:

 

…There is nothing that does not glorify Him…Surah Isra (17:44)

 

This verse clearly shows that everything recognizes Allah Most High as being unflawed and worthy of all praise and glorifies Him.  This is what gnosis is.  However, the kinds of gnosis and its stations vary.  Each thing is endowed with the capacity for a special kind of gnosis.  Human beings and jinns have a very high capacity as they are endowed with those qualities which others haven’t been given.  It is obvious that one can accept only such attributes for the Lord Almighty which one has in full measure.  For e.g. a person blind from birth cannot consider the Lord Almighty as All-seeing (Baseer) because he doesn’t know at all what sight is.

 

Thus, human beings can gain the gnosis of Allah Most High because of these attributes and others cannot gain it.  This is the reason for the excellence of humankind that everything else has been created for them, as Almighty Allah says in the Holy Quran:

 

He is the One who created for you everything on earth….Surah Baqarah (2:29)

 

The whole world has been subservient to them, as Almighty Allah says:

 

And He has made subservient to you all that is in the heavens and in the earth…Surah Jaathiya (45:13)

 

….Then they have been the intellect that they can understand their benefit, whether immediate or long-term.  This is the foreword to divine reward and punishment.  Then they have been given the Self (Nafs) in which many desires have been placed, fulfilling whom gives them great pleasure.  This is the basis of trials – to see whether they waste their intellects in pursuit of those pleasures and or actually uses it.

 

The demands of intellect

 

The demand of the intellect was that human beings should think that we didn’t come into being on our own, but that we have been created by a Powerful Entity….and for the innumerable bounties gained, apart from the bounty of being created, and which are still being gained, they would have been thankful to the Lord Almighty.  Instead of trying to gain the gnosis of Allah Most High through the delicate thoughts of the brain, as much as possible for humans, they have used their intellect to in pursuit of sensual pleasures.

 

That’s why Almighty Allah sends the Prophets to turn them to gnosis and worship of Allah Most High.  They have delivered the message of the Lord Almighty that the divine objective behind your creation is to recognize Him and worship Him.  As Almighty Allah says in the Holy Quran:

 

And I have not created the jinns and humans except to worship Me.  Dhaariyaat (51:56)

 

These sensuous and beautiful things which have been created in this world with which you pleasure yourselves are a sample of that world where you have to go after death.  If you restrict yourself to necessities and worship Allah Most High, you will get paradise there.  Otherwise hell is your lot.

 

[Excerpted from Maqasid Ul Islam, Vol. 5]