What are Otherworldly Results of the Love as Taught by God?
After pointing out briefly the pleasure and benefits which the kind of love the Qur’an teaches will give in the world, if you want to hear and know the otherworldly results of that kind of love, heed the Introduction and Nine Indications in the following:
Introduction
Through His Majestic Divinity, gracious Mercy, tremendous Lordship, generous Caring, vast Power, and subtle Wisdom, Almighty God has equipped the body of man of insignificant size with so many senses and feelings, such variety of organs, members and systems, and so numerous faculties, that He may make him sense and know through them the innumerable varieties of His bounties and kinds of His favors and instances of His Mercy, and that He may also cause him to measure and love the countless manifestations of His Names. Each of those manifold members, systems and faculties has different types of service and worship and different sorts of pleasures, pains, duties and rewards.
Almighty God will certainly give to each of man’s members and faculties its particular reward.
For example, the eyes observe the beauties of forms and different miracles of Divine Power in the sphere of sight. Their duty is thoughtful and contemplative observation and gratitude to the Maker. The ears perceive different sorts of sounds, sweet melodies of the creation and the subtleties of Divine Mercy in the sphere of hearing. They have a different type of worship and pleasure and reward peculiar to them. The sense of smell is aware of the subtleties of Mercy in the sphere of smelling and also has a pleasure and duty of gratitude particular to itself. It will certainly have a reward of its own. Like the others, the sense of taste performs multi-form duty of thanksgiving in being aware of the tastes of all edibles and drinks. In short, all the senses and organs of man and all his faculties like the heart, intellect and spirit, each have different duties, pleasures and pains of their own.
Almighty God, the Absolutely All-Wise One will certainly give to each of those members and faculties its particular reward. The reward which will be given to them is either explicitly stated or alluded to in the Qur’an, the truest of the words, the most perfect of systems, the Word of God, Who is the Sovereign, the Mighty, the All-Knowing.
First indication: The lawful love in gratitude for delicious foods and fruits yields Paradisal foods and fruits in the Hereafter, and arouses in man appetite for them. Even the utterance of All praise be to God after you eat something will be returned to you as a fruit of Paradise. As is suggested by the Qur’an and required by Divine Wisdom and Mercy, any pleasurable thanks you give to Almighty God for His bounties and favors will be paid back to you in Paradise as most delicious food.
Second indication: In return for your lawful love for your selfhood--which love is manifested in pitying the self on seeing its defects and seeking to perfect it--you will be given in Paradise things which you will love. Since in the world your selfhood has gratified its desires and ambitions and used its organs and faculties in the way Almighty God approves, for sure, as the reward of your (lawful) adoration of the Absolutely Munificent One, He will clothe it in seventy different celestial garments as the samples of seventy different kinds of beauty and adornment of Paradise, and please all its senses. He will also adorn your body with seventy varieties of beauty and present to you the girls of Paradise, each of whom is like an animate Paradise.
Your love for youth in the world which manifests itself in spending it in worship of God will result in eternal youth in the abode of eternal happiness.
Third indication: In reward for your sincere love for your wife on account of her delightful compassion, laudable virtues and good conduct, and protecting her against disobedience and other kinds of sins, in the abode of happiness, the Absolutely Compassionate One will make her an immortal friend of life to you, more beautiful than the girls of Paradise and richer in dress and ornament and more charming than them. Spouses will be seated on thrones face to face and take great pleasure in relating their worldly adventures and events to each other.
Fourth indication: As the result of lawful love for the parents and children, Almighty God, the All-Merciful, the All-Com-passionate, will make them eternally together in Paradise and reward them with eternal happy communion. He will re-create the children who have died before the age of puberty as lovable and most beautiful Immortal children of Paradise (al-Wa’qi‘a, 56.17) in a form worthy of Paradise and return them to the arms of their parents so that they may enjoy eternally the pleasure of parenthood. As in Paradise there will be every pleasurable thing in its highest degree, the pleasure of having children, at its best, will certainly be there. This is a good tiding for those who have children who have died before the age of puberty.
Fifth indication: The Qur’an explicitly states that as the result of loving the righteous friends for the sake of God, in Paradise they will be seated on couches face to face and enjoy eternally the pure pleasure of talking to each other about their worldly lives in a most delightful manner.
Sixth indication: As the result of the Qur’anic love for the Prophets and saints, the lover will benefit from their intercession both in the intermediate world of the grave and the Place of Gathering and receive enlightenment from their elevated positions through that love. According to the rule, A man will be with the one whom he loves, an ordinary man can have a part in the highest rank or position through closeness to the one who has that position.
“The beauties and subtleties of Paradise are the embodiment of the manifestations of the Divine Names.”
Seventh indication: As the result of your love for beautiful things and spring expressed in seeing them as the beautiful works of the Creator and in appreciating the beauty and harmony of the acts behind those works and the manifestations of the Names behind those acts and the manifestations of the Attributes and the Divine Being behind those beautiful Names, in the World of Permanence you will behold the manifestations of those Names a thousand times more beautiful than their counterparts in the world and witness His Beauty and Attributes in those Names. Imam Rabbani, may God be pleased with him, says: “The beauties and subtleties of Paradise are the embodiment of the manifestations of the Divine Names.” Ponder over it!
Eighth indication: The result of the reflective love for the world on account of its being the tillage of the Hereafter and the mirror of the Divine names, is an everlasting garden of Paradise as large as the world. Only the shadowy manifestations of the Names from behind numerous veils result in those amazing beauties of the world; in Paradise the Names will manifest themselves in a most splendid form. As the reward of loving the world as the tillage for the afterlife, God will give Paradise in comparison of which the world is only a small seed-bed. Also, as is required by Mercy and Wisdom and pointed to in the Prophetic traditions and some verses of the Qur’an, the senses and feelings of man, which are like little shoots in the world, will be perfected in Paradise, and his potentials, which are like seeds in the world, will develop into varieties of perfections and pure pleasures. Since one has loved the world not in its contemptible aspect, which is the cause of all errors, but its two other aspects concerned with the Hereafter and the Divine Names, and caused it to prosper through one’s worship as if one spent all one’s life and used all one’s body, senses and faculties in worship, for sure it is a requirement of Mercy and Wisdom that one will be given a reward as great as the world. Since for the sake of the love of the Hereafter one has loved its tillage and for the sake of the love of Almighty God one has loved the mirrors of His Names, certainly one will be rewarded with a world-like object of love, which is a garden of Paradise as vast as the world.
Question
What is the use of such a vast and empty garden of Paradise?
Answer
If you were able to travel throughout the world and most of the stars with the speed of imagination, you could assert that the whole of the world belonged to you. The fact that the angels, other people and animals share this space with you would not negate your assertion. The meaning of the Hadith, “Some of the people of Paradise will be given a Paradise which it would take five hundred years to travel on foot through” has been explained in The Twenty-eighth Word and The Treatise on Ikhlas (Sincerity).
Ninth indication: The result of belief and love of God is the eternal life of Paradise and vision of God. The people of spiritual discovery and truth-seeking have all agreed that a thousand years of happy life in this world is not worth one hour of life in Paradise, and a thousand years of heavenly life is not worth one hour’s vision of the Majestic One in His absolute sacred Beauty and Perfection free of all kinds of defects. The seeing of Him is established by the Qur’an and authentic Prophetic traditions, one of which says: “That vision far excels all the other pleasures of Paradise, so much so that it causes them to be forgotten. After the vision of God the people of Paradise will have increased in beauty and loveliness to such a degree that the couples will be able to recognize each other with great difficulty.”
Everyone feels in the depths of his being a great longing to see one like the Prophet Solomon, upon him be peace, who is famous for his magnificent perfection, and a great yearning to behold one like the Prophet Joseph, upon him be peace, who is distinguished for his beauty. So, if you can, compare how deeply desired and yearned for, and with what degree of passion, is the seeing of Him, in one manifestation of Whose Beauty and Perfection consists all the beauties and perfections of Paradise, which are thousands of times more elevated than all the beauties and perfections of this world.
O God, provide us in this world with love of You and love of what will draw us near to You, and with the uprightness You command, and, in the Hereafter, with Your Mercy and the vision of You.
Glory be to You! We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
O God! Bestow blessings and peace upon him whom You raised as a mercy for all the worlds, and upon all his family and Companions, Amen.
This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.