By Hira Hasan
My husband being an officer got posted to China to fulfil some requisites of his job. When I came to China I saw huge buildings which for a person who had never travelled abroad before were exactly like they would’ve been for a villager who had come to a city! Our own building turned out to be of 32 floors and our apartment was on 31st. Even though it was first difficult for me to look out of the windows but I quickly got used to it and in fact as time passed I started to love looking outside at the tranquil view. More of sky and less of earth could be seen. Everything down below seemed really tiny and humans walking around seemed like small bugs from such a height. Apart from this, distant objects would come in view because of the expansive visual field now like the farthest buildings, bridge and roads, a big lake on one side and a complete streak of mountains in the background. Most of the times the weather used to be so cloudy that dense layer of clouds would seem to be floating right across our level. At night the view and the ambience turned completely different. Down below lights would sparkle up the city. The world seemed busy, beams from vehicles would run to and fro on the roads, work of construction would continue at nights, flames from welding could be seen, billboards far away would light up and very frequently fireworks would start somewhere in sight as if it were a tradition here!
Living at this height for the first time made me think about some deeper things in life. I started to look at the world with a different perspective. I thought to myself that if at a height of only a few meters I can have a great view of a good portion of the city, if looking down below made me see human beings as so minute and if looking at the vast clear sky made me think about what lies even further above us, then how Great would Allah be Who is there on His Divine Throne, below which is everything else that exists, Who has created everything in the Heavens and the Earth and Who is watching each one of us with the most unrestrained and clear view anyone could have! How Magnificent must He be to have made not just this world but far more planets and suns and stars above our very own sky, Who made the galaxies and milky-ways and a huge expanse of universe and then rose up the Heavens and created Paradise and Hellfire the dimensions of which are plainly out of human beings’ comprehension except by knowledge. How clear must His view be and how tiny are we. Maybe we are to Him like the smallest atom is to a human being, or maybe even smaller or very well be ‘nothing’ at all in comparison! How can we ever feel arrogant and walk the face of this earth with any pride at all owing to a few materialistic things that we might possess. Don’t we ever think about our reality? Moreover, how can we sin in private when no human being is looking but forget that nothing on this earth or in the heavens is hidden from Allah? Aren’t we disloyal to Him then? By committing sins in privacy (or even publicly for that matter) don’t we disrespect His Supremacy and indirectly just claim that He isn’t looking? If we had utmost Faith in our Creator and in the Book sent by Him, then we wouldn’t have felt so secure and comfortable in doing inappropriate things only if no one else was looking.
Allah says in the Quran in Surah Al- Anaam verse number 3:
“And He is Allah (to be worshipped Alone) in the heavens and on the earth; He knows what you conceal and what you reveal, and He knows what you earn (good or bad).”
Sometimes I think that even being loved by the One Who is so High and Great and getting all sorts of blessings from Him is something being so grateful about that you should only feel utmost love emanating from your hearts for “your” Allah. From having powers of sight, hearing, touching, breathing, thinking, speaking, walking to having water and food to consume, having families and friends and having a comfortable life full of happiness and peace, there are countless blessings you have from Him even if you might complain about not having a few.
Allah says in Surah An-Nahl verse number 18:
“And if you would try to count the favours of Allah, you would never be able to count them. Truly, Allah is Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
Isn’t it amazing that He made every living thing subservient and beneficial for human beings in one way or the other and blessed us abundantly even when we’re so “tiny” in comparison to Him. He actually deeply cared for us. Have we ever thought whether we really deserve to be loved this much? But only Allah can love in this way. His Might and His Splendour reaches its absolute pinnacle when it’s joined with Compassion and Mercy He has for us. We should be ever grateful to Him for loving us even after we sin, for being so eager to forgive us every time we make a mistake, for continuing to provide us even if we do not thank Him enough and for always being there for us even when no one else listens or cares. Alhumdulillahi Rabb il-Alameen!