Allah The Exalted — Page 123
All a h the Exalted 1 2 of His excellences which does not exist today, but would be achieved tomorrow. There is nothing vain in His kingdom. He provides for all the worlds. He bestows His mercy absolutely without any prior action on the part of man, and also in return for man's actions. He awards re- ward and punishment at their due time. We worship Him and seek His help and pray that He should show us the way of all bounties and should keep us away from the ways of His anger and of error. This prayer which is set out in S u rah F a ti h ah is the an- tithesis of the prayer taught in the Gospel, inasmuch as God's present kingdom of the earth is denied in the Gos- pel. Thus according to the Gospel neither God's Rub u biyyat , nor His Ra h m a niyyat , nor His Ra hi miyyat nor His M a likiyyat is in operation on the earth because God's kingdom has not yet arrived upon the earth, but S u rah F a ti h ah indicates that God's kingdom is in operation on the earth and thus all the essentials of the kingdom are set out in the S u rah. It is obvious that a king should possess the following qualities: He should have power to provide for people and S u rah F a ti h ah proclaims that God is the Sustainer of the worlds. The second quality of a king should be that whatever his subjects should need for settling down in the earth should be provided out of his kingly mercy and not in return for any service. S u rah F a ti h ah affirms this quality in God by calling Him Ra h m a n. The third quality which a king should possess is that he should help his subjects towards achievement of that which they cannot achieve by their own efforts. The S u rah affirms this qual- ity by the use of the word Ra hi m. The fourth quality that a king should possess is that he should have power to