“In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful … that the People of the Book may know that they have no power whatever over the grace of Allah, that Grace is entirely in His hand, to bestow it on whomsoever He wills. For Allah is the Lord of Grace abounding.” [LVII: 29]
The Law of Grace may be stated as follows:
HONOR ALMIGHTY GOD CONSCIOUSLY AND HE WILL BESTOW HIS GRACE ON YOU ACCORDING TO YOUR EFFORT.
God’s Grace is a reality arrogantly assumed by some, abused by many, and vainly pursued by others in the guise of ‘good luck’, but It is not a topic commonly discussed by Muslim exegetics. As a matter of fact, in the nine years I’ve been a Muslim academic I have never heard it discussed.
Grace is God’s favor, the dispensation of His Divine Will as made manifest to us in the cosmos [‘orderly arrangement of creation’+. Its personal manifestation transcends ordinary human comprehension as a serenity of spirit and the unshakeable resolve that rests within the hearts and minds of God’s servants in the face of any circumstance. All that exists has come into being by virtue of God’s infinite grace, yet no one but the innocent receives the ‘Peace of God’ without submission to His will and the disciplines of mind, body and spirit that accompany the conscious acknowledgement of this fact of life.
The skeptic may ask if evil is a manifestation of God’s Grace and the answer is ‘yes’ because without evil there is no challenge to man’s exercise of ‘free will’. But this does not in the least imply that God is partly evil as teach Freemasons and Gnostics who have adopted ancient Persian dualism. The essence of ponerogenesis (ontogeny of
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evil) is the conscious disobedience to Divine Law that results in harm or loss. As a matter-of-fact, disobedience to God is the only sin, all others are sub-categories. Since it is inconceivable, therefore, for God to disobey His own Law, He can neither be, nor desire nor aspire to evil. He does however create and condone it, or better said, ‘permit’ Satan to challenge men whereby evil deeds legitimize consequent judgment. This owes to the fact that evil is an unavoidable corollary of all disobedience. The following passage delineates the reality:
“I swear by man’s personality and that whereby he has been formed, God has engraved into it its evil and its good [whereby it can guard itself against moral peril]. He who makes personality pure, shall be successful, while he who corrupts it shall be in the loss.” [91: 7: 10]
Therefore, for man to guard himself and overcome the ‘potential’ for the evil created within him he necessarily requires God’s assistance. If humanity has inherited aught from Adam besides intelligence, likeness and the terminal tryst with God on Judgment Day, it is the challenge of this trial of our faith and test of common sense.
“Every man shall taste of death, and the evil and good which befall you are a trial for you. … ‘Oh Jews, if, as you pretend, you are the friends of God and His elect of all mankind, wish for death that you may prove your sincerity.’ But they never wish for death, for rejoining their Lord; and that is because they know that their arms have wrought evil and injustice.”
[2: 177, 183]
God does indeed create and determine the horrid consequences of wickedness both here and hereafter. Whether temporal or eternal, these consequences are Divine Judgments that represent God’s disfavor. Hence, we may consider them the inverse of Divine Grace, that being 'Divine Curse'—a coin with two sides. Similarly, these distasteful consequences manifest in degrees of allocation (e.g. seven layers of hell) according to the severity of disobedience. Therefore, every Spiritual Law holds potential for gradations of good and evil effects. Hence, when spiritual Law is dismissed as an immaterial consideration in the affairs of men, the inverse of the dismissed law
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The Greater Maxims: GRACE
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with its antithetical forces immediately and autonomously come into play by God’s design and inevitably lead towards progressive degrees of harm and perhaps damnation. This is the essence of predestination. It is therefore important to realize that the ubiquitous disregard for Spiritual Law is the cause of all war and lack of justice or peace in the affairs of men. it is also the reason Muslim’s have suffered both the demise of their autonomy and the loss of God’s protection.
There is no trial of faith without evil’s challenge because the Grace of God extends to an immortal after-life in a newly structured cosmos of pristine excellence with an absolute absence of evil. For man to enter this wondrous estate his perfected submission to God’s Will or at least his/her acknowledgement of God’s absolute autonomy are thoroughgoing requirements for the franchise. Confessions of God's divine right and autonomy, by thought and/or deed, cannot be attained by unselfconscious automatons because predestined coercion would have contravened to negate the principle of free will. Hence, the Law of Grace demands man’s free and favorable assent or self- conscious self-subjugation to God’s infinite benevolence; and this is in order to avoid inverse consequences both here and in the hereafter.
This is the essence of Faith and the purpose of its trial during our earthly life. Without such faith we cannot please God nor can we enter the peace filled Grace of His Kingdom either here or in the hereafter. Our only free choice, therefore, lies between good or evil; blessing or cursing—there is no third option or neutral position.
To reiterate, the essence of evil is not its potential but rather the conscious denial of our pre-primordial covenant to acknowledge God’s sovereignty by obeying His Law. Hence, evil is disobedience to what we instinctively know is good for us. Therefore, when men awaken to temptation and succumb to Satan’s invitation rather than God’s, it is they who welcome and perpetrate the wickedness. Hence, it is myopic for men to blame God or Satan or neo-cons, etc. for evil.
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Of their own free will such people reject the additional grace of
peaceful prosperity in the earth (as’Sakkinah).20 This principle explains why it is that the un-peaceful prosperity commonly called ‘progress’ is filled with anxiety as the majority of men and women choose to worry about earthly possessions as they pile up booty. This includes deluded spouses who think their husband or wife ‘belongs’ to them, but even this sad condition is grace-filled until the first death brings an end to the fantasy. So then:
(1) if there is naught without grace, and
(2) if both good and evil proceed from this grace by virtue of our having even the ability to choose, it behooves the believer to
(3) understand the Laws written by the Eternal Cause of all causes, as well as the
(4) trial of our earthly life
(5) before the latter is terminated and we write an abidingly
self-incriminating verdict in the Book of Deeds.
There inevitably come frequent trials to journeymen on the road of faith. Each trial, though it may hold evil is actually an act of grace because the option held forth is an opportunity to obtain additional favor that exceeds the potential of the evil.21 For this reason, Prophet Isa instructed his disciples to rejoice in persecution and trouble. To the contrary, if there is no trial of faith in a man’s life the implication is that God has withdrawn the promise of this enhanced potential and left the recalcitrant fool to his doom. These people are called Kufr or
Kafir in Al-Qur’an and are to be avoided by believers whenever
possible. Again, one should ask why.
The Qur’an often speaks of people whose ‘case’ or ‘trial’ is no
longer considered by God. These are folk who no longer consider God
while lusting after the finite benefits of His material world. These
20
“God made you a true promise whereas I made you a false promise. I had no power over you but only invited you to error and you accepted my invitation. Do not blame me but only yourselves.” - Satan Speaking (14: 22)
21
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people repeatedly and assiduously choose evil’s potential until they became addicted (habituated) to it.
“… whoever seeks the advantage of the other world will receive the same and more of it. Whoever seeks the advantage of this world will receive the same, but he will have no share in the other.”[42: 20]
‘Materialists’ do not strive for the Kingdom of God’s eternal bonus nor seek the metaphysical light of additional guiding grace while they live on earth.22 This includes spiritualists who opt for the numerous forms of idolatry. As a result, God actually shuns them once they’ve repeatedly refused His Call to Grace. This is, unfortunately, an inverse consequence of ignoring the Law of Grace for too long. As heedless reprobates, even if religious, they live exclusively by the ordinary benevolence of temporal respite—which has its own natural ‘law of the jungle’ so to speak—rather than the appreciating support of advancing Divine favor. Hence, they fail the test by dismissing the Law of Grace and are but vaguely aware, if at all, that they’ve also rejected faith. 23 As a result, they reject God’s additional goodwill. For them
one can do nothing.
Therefore, when evil is upon you, after you recover from the knowledge of its presence you should seek the attendant grace in the matter as it is hidden and awaits discovery. If you are in sin, seek the grace of forgiveness. If you are in perplexity, seek the grace of guidance. If you are in persecution, seek the grace of deliverance (even if it means death), etc. Each of these circumstances requires the initial grace of fitrah with which we are all born before we turn once
22
“O ye that believe! fear Allah and believe in His Messenger, and He will bestow on you a double portion of His Mercy: He will provide for you a light by which ye shall walk straight in your path, and He will forgive you your past … “ *LVIII: 28+
23
There are others who believe but do not act on their belief. This, unfortunately, is equivalent to unbelief. In the Qur’an, Faith is inextricably married to good deeds. See V2:112 for example, “Yes, but whoever submits his face to Allah and he is a Muhsin *a good doer who performs good deeds totally for Allah’s sake without any show-off or to gain praise or fame] then his reward is with his Lord, on such shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” Even Paul said: “Faith without works is dead.”
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more to God in supplication for His additional favor. Only the proud and arrogant refuse this option. There is no other way to obtain God’s additional favor except in the following condition. This proviso is faithful service to a man or woman of faith whereby portions of the grace given to them by virtue of their perfection will naturally fall upon the servant—a bit like a dog and his master. In such cases, even an ignoramus gains favor with God.
To obtain grace, all one has to do is ask and then wait in submissive conformity-with and patient service-to Divine Law until the grace is given. It is a very simple matter. An example in my own life is this book and the few others I’ve written. Outwardly during the years of their research and writing my life appeared destitute of God’s additional grace. I was unable to practice my profession as a Physician and finances remained extremely hard pressed. Even my clothing became tattered and often we had little to eat. At the present moment of this revision (Jan 2014), I have been without regular monthly salary for eight months. I initially cursed the officials who refused me the professional privileges I thought I deserved. But one day it occurred to me that had I been working as a Doctor I would never have sought God with such earnestness; nor would I have studied, nor learned, nor written what He bestowed upon me during that very trying time by His Grace. This then brings up a contingent to the Law of Grace, which is a very interesting corollary.