Our God — Page 4
4 fellows, can they honestly say that they all truly believe in God? I speak not of superficial or inherited ritual, but of true and living faith. Do they feel and experience the existence of God as they feel and experience the material and tangible things of this world? Are they as certain about the existence of God as they are about the existence of the sun, the moon, the mountains, the rivers, their houses, their ancestors, and their friends? If not, then understand it well that we cannot consider their faith to be true. They are not in the least certain about the existence of God, and can be likened to those who hold on to a rotten corpse imagining it to be alive. If they say that the faith and conditions of faith I have men- tioned above are of the highest possible level and that only the elect of God are blessed with such a lofty station, their statement would lend further proof of their ignorance, for they know noth- ing of the highest level of faith and can hardly begin to appreciate it. The fact is that this level of faith—whereby one believes in God just as one believes in material objects of this world—is only a middle level of faith. Have you not read the hadith in which the Holy Prophet saw has said that a believer with the average level of faith would prefer to be burnt to ashes rather than abandon his creed? But if one finds himself at the lower level of faith, then let me ask: Can you honestly say that your faith influences your life as a living truth in reality? Do you really feel the love of God and the fear of His wrath in your heart? Does your faith induce you to do good and to discard evil? Do you truly put your trust in God, in all things, rather than in material means? I do not mean to ask whether or not you sometimes feel any relationship with God, or whether thinking about Him prevents you from evil, because such a condition could be true even of a