A Continuation
The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said, “This world has children.” If she has children, she is their mother. A mother customarily watches her children, for she nurtures them and has maternal tenderness toward them. She fears that her co-wife, the Hereafter, will affect them, so that they incline toward her. She guards them from witnessing the Hereafter’s good and watches their states intensely.
(This World, Her Benefits, and Her Trusts)
Know that this world is the first abode, near to us. Within her we arose, and we have seen none other. She is what is witnessed, our guardian, compassionate toward us. Within her we perform the works drawing near to God, and within her God’s revealed laws appear. She is the abode gathering all the divine names. The bounties of the Gardens and the pains of the Fire appear within her. Within her are well-being and illness, joy and sorrow, secret and public. Nothing in the Hereafter lacks its likeness within her.
She is trustworthy and obedient to God.[27] God deposited trusts with her for His servants, to deliver to them. This is what makes her watch her children’s states and what they do with the trusts she delivers: do they treat them as each trust deserves according to what it was placed for?
Some trusts agree with the children’s souls’ aims. She watches whether they thank God for what He grants them through her hands. Other trusts do not agree with their aims. She watches whether they receive them with satisfaction and submission, since they are a gift from God. They say:
Notlar
[27]
(Al-umniyya was corrected to al-amīna, “the trustworthy,” according to the newer edition, in the description of the obedient soul.)
