Obeying others besides Allah
Why will a man Plunge into darkness by obeying others besides Allah and why is it that only by obeying Allah cans his life be illuminated?
Let us look into this important question.
Our lives are made up of countless relations and transactions.
Our first relationship is with our own bodies:
these hands,
these feet,
these eyes,
these ears,
these tongues,
these hearts,
and the mind, this belly- all these have been entrusted to you by Allah to server you. You have also been given freedom to decide what end to employ them.
What to put in your bellies, and what to avoid. What to make your hands do and what to keep them away from. Where to let your feet walk and when to hold back. What to let your eyes see and ears hear, and what to refrain from, what to allow your tongues to say, and when to fall silent. What kind of thoughts to make your hearts and minds reflect upon, and what to shun. These servants of yours you can make do good work or bad, as you choose. In return, they can make you ascend great heights or plunge you into abysmal depths.
Then you have relationships with the members of your family-with you fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives, children and other relatives with whom you have to deal continuously. You have to decide how to behave with these people, what rights they have over you. Your comfort, your happiness and your success in this world as well as in the Hereafter depend very much on how correctly you behave with them. If you behave wrongly, you will make this world a Hell for yourselves. And in the Hereafter, too, you will have to answer to God.
You have relationship with many other people.
They are your neighbors,
friends and enemies.
There are also many who work for you in various ways. To some you have to give something. Some entrust you with their works while you entrust your works to others.
You are in command over some people and others are in command over you. In this world, your happiness, your honor and your good names-all depend entirely on your ability to maintain these relationships properly.
In the Hereafter, too, you can acquire places of honour near God only by scrupulously avoiding abusing the rights of others and doing them injustices. There, let no one charge you with having ruined his life or having illegally his honour, life or property. You, therefore, have to maintain these relationships in a proper manner; actions which may spoil or disrupt these relations should be avoided.
Now consider: in order to maintain proper relationships with your one body, with the members of your families and with all other people, you need the light of knowledge at every step. You have to know what is right and what is wrong; what is true and what is false; what is just and what is unjust; what rights you have over others and what rights others have over you; in what there is real benefits and what lies real harm.
If you try to find this knowledge with the help of your reason and feelings alone, you will not find it. Because you’re self is overpowered by the urge to immediate gratification of desires. Your reason and feelings are, therefore, ruled by physical pleasure and immediate temptations. They will tempt you to earn money by doing illegal things, drink alcohol and commit adultery. They will lead you to usurp the right of others and with held things due to them on the grounds that such behaviour will profit you: take everything and give nothing. They will also make you exploit others to serves your ends while avoiding the doing of any service to anybody, arguing that this will make life easy and comfortable.
If you allow yourself to be led by a self who gropes in such darkness, it will drag you down to the level of selfish, depraved and corrupt persons and your lives both on earth and in the Hereafter will be ruined.
Alternatively, instead of following the self, you may rely on other human beings like yourselves, and place yourselves in their hands to take you in whichever direction they like. The dangers in such a course are obvious: selfish persons may make you slaves of their own desires, and ignorant men, who have themselves gone astray, may mislead you also. Tyrants may use you to perpetrate oppression and injustice on others.
From human beings like yourselves, too, you cannot get that light of knowledge which can guide you to distinguish between right and wrong, between good and bad, and direct you on the right path.
The only True Guidance
