The Light of Truth — Page 421
SIGNS TO STRIKE FEAR INTO THE HEARTS worlds. ¹ And so, the mercy of Allah the Exalted and His wis- dom-whose grace and beauty you behold-demanded that He teach mankind methods that, during an eclipse, eliminate its causes and remove its ill effects. So He taught them these methods by the tongue of the Best of the Messengers. There is no doubt that good deeds expunge evil deeds and that the tears of those who seek God's forgiveness extinguish fires [of sin]. Accordingly, when a servant carries out a good deed with pure intention and complete obedience, and pleases His Lord thereby while undertaking hardships-this deed that he per- forms counteracts the causes of evil that had taken root, and Allah makes him among those who are safeguarded. This is from the practice of Allah: that supplication repels affliction. Indeed, supplication and affliction do not meet except that prayer prevails by the leave of Allah when it emerges from the lips of the repentant-so glad tidings to those who are oft-re- turning to prayer! Now, when just a single eclipse of either the sun or the moon is an indication of the afflictions of that time, and the harbinger of many types of calamities and loss, then what do you make of a period wherein both eclipses occur together. So fear Allah, O brothers, and be not among the heedless! It is not said that the sun and moon eclipse for reasons established with proof, and explained in books with detailed statements; what, then, do they have to do with the afflictions the befall mankind when there is a surfeit of sin? This is so because the matter which is established among the people of knowledge is that Allah created human beings to enter them either into His accepted and beloved ones or into the forsaken and rejected ones. And He made the changes of the world an indication of their good and evil, and their benefit and harm, and He made 1. Sunan Abū Dāwūd, bāb Şalāțul-kusūf, Hadith 1177 [Publisher] 421