almost invariably involves taking risks. It is rather like plunging into a mountain stream. What one knows and what one does not know about it, give one equal grounds for hesitation. There is the intense cold

Prophet what taqwa was. He replied, “O leader of the believers, have you ever crossed a path which has thorny shrubs on both sides?” But the companion instead of replying asked another question, “What did

heavenly breeze brushes past them. What piety and devotion to God is it if your proclaimed religiousness does not stir a thrill in your heart and mind, in your very being? What absurd heaven do you think has

tomorrow, a controversial issue between the two parties. WITHOUT CLASH Here the question arises as to what course of action should be taken by believers when they have to tackle sensitive problems concerning

of this Makkan period, he never once made an issue of the expulsion of the idols from the mosque. What he did do was make every effort to expel the idols from the hearts of the people. Rather than enter

other things are His subjects. It was God’s will that a creature should come into being which does what God wants him to do, without any compulsion, of his own free will. This voluntary submission is so

accepted it. Now man in this world is the repository of one of God’s trusts. He has to impose on himself what God has imposed on other objects in the universe. He has to

DECEMBER 18 The Order of NatureTry closing your room, going away, and returning after a few weeks. What do you find on your return? A thick layer of dust all over the room. This is so unpleasant that you

find yourself longing for the wind to drop, so that there should be no more irritating dust. But what is this dust that we find so annoying? It is in fact a loose surface layer of fertile soil, the very

In physical terms, what would be a process of washing out is, in psychological terms, a correction of one’s way of thinking. There are different kinds of bad deeds but, no matter what kind of bad deed you

immediately. On seeing the insistence of the student, the principal finally asked him rather dryly what his marks had been in the previous examinations, because he felt certain that he must have failed

have had good grounds for rejecting his application. But the student’s reply was just the opposite of what he expected. He said, “Eighty five percent, sir.” These words worked like a miracle. The principal’s

British Empire, too, was going to come to an end. He expressed his feelings about this in these words: “What a magnificent world they built to leave.” This is the story of every man in this world, with the

takes place every day before our very eyes, but no one pays any heed to it. Everyone is living as if what happened had to happen to someone else; it is not going to happen to him. One may or may not give

day of that month. For eleven months of the year, man experiences what food and drink are and for one month of the year he experiences what it is like to not eat or drink. It is the experience of a life without