Let’s imagine we travel to the middle of the enormous Milky Way and look back upon our tiny planet Earth and other billions of Earth-like planets. We observe: only one of them is filled with living beings that we know of…all others appear vacant to us.
Then, we carefully look at the living beings on Earth which consist of more than a million species. We further analyze them from plants to animals, from ants to bees to elephants, from butterflies to eagles. All are busy performing their tasks without showing any weariness except one species: human beings. Humans consume, they take over many places, they are wasteful and they pollute while they contribute very little. By any worldly standards, humans are extremely poor performers. Also, many people are not even aware of their lofty goals for which they are created. The majority of mankind is not awake. Even worse, they neither remember God nor give thanks to God, many are totally indifferent towards Him.
Now consider this true story: The conqueror of the Eastern Byzantium Empire, Fatih Sultan Muhammad, was once told, “You built these colleges/seminaries where most students are not performing.” The Sultan replied, “If they deliver one saint, like Aksemseddin, that would suffice.” Like in this story, we strongly believe in this logic that it only takes some good people to be sufficient to justify the existence of the planet Earth. However, should our goal not be to raise more of these good people?
The Risale-i Nur says, “In just the same way that the messengerhood of the Prophet was the reason for the foundation of this realm of trial —the saying ‘were it not for thee, were it not for thee, I would not have created the spheres’ being an indication of this— so too the worship he (and his followers) performed was the cause for the foundation of the abode of bliss.”
God Almighty wanted to see a perfect community which would reflect His Attributes and Names best. With Prophet Muhammad, God completes His message to mankind. Without this system of education, mankind cannot learn and thus cannot also perform their God-intended duties to God. Essentially, mankind began in elementary school at the time of Adam, then attended middle schools, then high schools, and now with the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, has finished graduate school, this is according to God’s revealed intentions for mankind. Mankind is now ready to perform complete worship to Almighty God. And, altogether shall we brainstorm to achieve this sacred worship.
IN SHORT: Some of us need to continually raise the bar of our good deeds such as helping each other, discovering and delivering life’s goals like a honeybee. Are we ready? How much do we care about God, religion and the Afterlife?
Osman Birgeoglu, Ph.D.
