Aslam

(1) First Stage. The medicine of uprooting pride is knowledge and action together. The medicine based on knowledge is as follows. You shall have to know yourself and know your Lord. If a man knows his real origin, he will know that he is most heinous and he is not fit for anything except dishonour and disgrace. When he knows his Lord, he can appreciate that nobody is fit for pride except the Lord. To know Him, His glory and superiority is the end of spiritual knowledge. Hark what the Quran says about a man's origin in verse — 80:27Q. Woe to man, what has made him to reject God ? From what thing has He created him ? From a semen drop, He has created him etc. In this verse attention has been drawn to the origin, end and intermediate conditions of men, so that he may appreciate his own position.

MAN'S ORIGIN: He was not a thing to be mentioned even.
He was in the circle of nothing for a long long time. What is a greater heinous thing than his not being in existence ? Then God created him with the most obnoxious thing. He created him first from earth, then from semen, then his bones were covered with flesh. Then he came into existence. First he could not see, hear or talk, so he began his being with death before life, weakness before strength, blindness before sight, deafness before bearing, dumbness before speaking, misguidance before guidance, poverty before solvency, frustration before power. This is the meaning of God's verse — With what thing did He create him ? He created him with mere semen. That is also the meaning of the following verse : Has there not come a time over man when he was a thing not to be mentioned of ? I have created men with semen that I may try him— 76: 1Q. He has given him power of sight and hearing and showed him to take either of the two ways-towards infidelity or towards gratefulness. He came into being from non-existence, got life after death, got power of speech from being dumb, power of sight from blindness, strength from weakness, guidance from misguidance, and solvency from poverty ? So how can a man take pride ?

268 The Book of Destructive evils Vol-III

There are strong diseases, dangers and calamities in his life- time. He has got cough, juice of spleen, air and earth which are opposed to one another, one destroys another inspite of his willingness or unwillingness. He becomes will by compulsion.
He dies by compulsion. He cannot do good or harm to himself.
He cannot get what he distress. He moves within the circle of the machinations of the devil and cannot control his nature, he is helpless and hopeless. How can he take pride ?