The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 148
PREFACE ESSENCE OF ISLAM 147 speakers have given it the very same meaning. From among them is the author [i. e. Muḥy-ud-Dīn ibn al-Arabīta] of Futūḥāt-e-Makkiyyah who was also a native speaker. In one of his commentaries, which was printed and published in Egypt, he gives this very meaning to this verse. Hence, in explaining zalūm and jahūl in the verse: وَحَمَلَهَا الْإِنْسَانُ إِنَّهُ كَانَ ظَلُومًا جَهُولًا he has written that these words are used here in a commendatory sense. The meaning is that a believer, in fulfilling God's commandments, exer- cises zulm upon his own self in such a way that he opposes the inclina- tions and desires of the lower self, thereby subduing and diminishing its impulses. The author of Tafsir-e-Ḥusainī, quoting from the commentary of Khwajah Muhammad Parsa, says that the meaning of the verse is that man bore this trust because he was zalum—that is, he possessed the ability to rise above his own self and its desires. That is to say, he could diminish, or even eliminate, his base desires and become absorbed in the Absolute, and they were jahūl because they had the power of alto- gether forgetting and becoming totally unaware of everything besides God, and, in accordance with the words [there is no one wor- thy of worship except Allah], negate the existence of everything besides God. Ibn Jarir, too, who is the Chief of Commentators, in commenting upon this verse, writes that the words zalūm and jahūl have been used in a praiseworthy sense and not in a derogatory one. In short, the great scholars and researchers, whose eyes Allah Almighty had illumined with the light of understanding, have mostly inclined toward this interpretation: that the only possible meaning of this verse is that man, by taking on the trust of Allah Almighty, earned 1. Surah al-Aḥzāb, 33:73 [Publisher]