By Dr. Mostafa Mahmoud1
From the book “Fire Under the Ashes.”
Iblis, the cursed, was a philosopher, a scholar, and a debater who dazzled the angels with his intellect and worship until they called him the Peacock of the Worshippers. Seventy thousand years of worship, contemplation, and debate, with angels gathering around him in admiration…
But God knew that this vain and arrogant creature, who lectured on divine knowledge, was the least knowledgeable of His creation about Him. For the true measure of knowledge is not speech, but behavior when commanded and forbidden, when the divine command clashes with desire, and the heart is tested through obedience. And here Iblis fell.
God’s command came to prostrate, and his pride and arrogance erupted. He forgot the majesty of the One commanding him and saw only that he was being ordered to bow to a human made of clay! Iblis said, “I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay.” And he argued with his Lord as if he were His equal. Here, Iblis fell among the most ignorant of the ignorant. His philosophy did not benefit him, nor his arguments, nor a thousand years of vanity.
Iblis today is not merely that metaphysical being, but the conceited rationalism in modern man.
Today, Iblis is the intellectual arrogance in Western philosophy, the ideological terrorism in materialist thought, the racism among Jews, the blue blood in Nazism, the delusion of the chosen race among the proletariat, and the Superman in Nietzsche. All are manifestations of Iblis, of pride wrapped in shining names: science, thought, philosophy. Yet the animal, in its simplicity, knows more about right and wrong than these. The cat, when it steals a fish and hides it behind the door, knows it has erred!
But “civilized” man kills and oppresses in the name of reason and technology. And the simple farmer who circumambulates the Kaaba weeping has more knowledge of God than a Sorbonne professor teaching theology!
And I, Mostafa Mahmoud, have stuffed my head with much knowledge about God, but I do not doubt that my father, a simple farmer, knew God more than I did…
Because he was more devoted to obedience and closer to piety. For knowledge is not in books, but in reverence and obedience. And whoever does not obey his Lord does not know Him, even if he writes volumes and formulates theories. God did not say to His Prophet ﷺ: “You are a great scholar,” but rather: “And indeed, you are of a great moral character.” For the prophets were not prophets because of their miracles, but because of their integrity.
And how many today perform wonders while being with the devils! True knowledge of God is not in the tongue nor in certificates, but in the humble heart and upright conduct. That is why God said about the Hereafter: “Bringing low and exalting high”—because it will raise those who were at the bottom and lower those we thought were at the heights. For what matters is not titles, nor prizes, nor medals, but behavior… obedience… sincerity.
The truly knowledgeable are those simple people of conscience, who when present are not recognized, when absent are not missed, and when they die, heaven and earth weep for them, and the angels escort them.
O God, make us among them,
And if we are not among them, then their servants,
Walking behind them, hoping for the crumbs from their tables.
- May God have mercy on Dr. Mostafa Mahmoud ↩︎
Be First to Comment