Fountain of Christianity — Page 42
42 25 i. e. , he who comes to his Lord a sinner, for him is Hell; he shall neither die therein nor live. He will not die because the purpose of his creation was to be eternally subservient to his Lord, and for this reason his continued existence is necessary. But he will not be alive either, for true life is attained only through union with God. The true life is salvation itself, it cannot be had without the love of God and without union with Him. Had the people of other faiths been aware of this philosophy, they would never have claimed that all souls are eternal, self-existing and blessed with true life. This kind of knowledge only comes from heaven, and only heavenly people truly com- prehend it while the world is unaware of it. Returning to the initial point, let me reiterate that the source of eternal salvation lies in union with God, and only he who drinks the water of life from this fountain at- tains true salvation. But this union cannot come about without true recognition ( Ma‘rifat ), true love, true sincer- ity and true faith. The first sign of true recognition is that one should not attribute any flaws to God’s knowledge. I have just shown that those who believe particles and souls to be eternal and self-existing, do not consider God to have perfect knowledge of the unseen. This is also the reason why the erring Greek philosophers, who consid- ered the souls to be eternal, believed that God did not 25 Ta -H a , 20:75 [Publishers]