29:5 Al-Ankaboot (The Spider)

يعني: يا أيها المحب لربه، المشتاق لقربه ولقائه، المسارع في مرضاته، أبشر بقرب لقاء الحبيب، فإنه آت، وكل آت إنما هو قريب، فتزود للقائه، وسر نحوه، مستصحبا الرجاء، مؤملا الوصول إليه، ولكن، ما كل من يَدَّعِي يُعْطَى بدعواه، ولا كل من تمنى يعطى ما تمناه، فإن اللّه سميع للأصوات، عليم بالنيات، فمن كان صادقا في ذلك أناله ما يرجو، ومن كان كاذبا لم تنفعه دعواه، وهو العليم بمن يصلح لحبه ومن لا يصلح.

يقول تعالى "من كان يرجو لقاء الله" أي في الدار الآخرة وعمل الصالحات ورجا ما عند الله من الثواب الجزيل فإن الله سيحقق له رجاءه ويوفيه عمله كاملا موفرا فإن ذلك كائن لا محالة لأنه سميع الدعاء بصير بكل الكائنات ولهذا قال تعالى "من كان يرجو لقاء الله فإن أجل الله لآت وهو السميع العليم".

Allah will fulfill the Hopes of the Righteous Allah's saying;

مَن كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَآءَ اللَّهِ

(Whoever hopes in meeting with Allah,) means, in the Hereafter, and does righteous deeds, and hopes for a great reward with Allah, then Allah will fulfill his hopes and reward him for his deeds in full. This will undoubtedly come to pass, for He is the One Who hears all supplications, He knows and understands the needs of all created beings. Allah says:

مَن كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَآءَ اللَّهِ فَإِنَّ أَجَلَ اللَّهِ لآتٍ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ

(Whoever hopes in meeting with Allah, then Allah's term is surely coming, and He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower.)

وَمَن جَاهَدَ فَإِنَّمَا يُجَـهِدُ لِنَفْسِهِ

(And whosoever strives, he strives only for himself.) This is like the Ayah,

مَّنْ عَمِلَ صَـلِحاً فَلِنَفْسِهِ

(Whosoever does righteous good deed, it is for himself) (41:46). Whoever does a righteous deed, the benefit of that deed will come back to him, for Allah has no need of the deeds of His servants, and even if all of them were to be as pious as the most pious man among them, that would not add to His dominion in the slightest. Allah says:

وَمَن جَاهَدَ فَإِنَّمَا يُجَـهِدُ لِنَفْسِهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَغَنِىٌّ عَنِ الْعَـلَمِينَ

(And whosoever strives, he strives only for himself. Verily, Allah stands not in need of any of the creatures.) Then Allah tells us that even though He has no need of His creatures, He is kind and generous to them. He will still give to those who believe and do righteous deeds the best of rewards, which is that He will expiate for them their bad deeds, and will reward them according to the best deeds that they did. He will accept the fewest good deeds and in return for one good deed will give anything between ten rewards and seven hundred, but for every bad deed, He will give only one evil merit, or even that He may overlook and forgive. This is like the Ayah,

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لاَ يَظْلِمُ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ وَإِن تَكُ حَسَنَةً يُضَـعِفْهَا وَيُؤْتِ مِن لَّدُنْهُ أَجْراً عَظِيماً

(Surely, Allah wrongs not even the weight of a speck of dust, but if there is any good, He doubles it, and gives from Him a great reward.) (4:40). And He says here:

وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَعَمِلُواْ الصَّـلِحَـتِ لَنُكَفِّرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَحْسَنَ الَّذِى كَانُواْ يَعْمَلُونَ

(Those who believe, and do righteous good deeds, surely, We shall expiate from them their evil deeds and We shall indeed reward them according to the best of that which they used to do.)

Whoever expects to encounter God should know that God’s appointed term for this encounter will indeed come; so let him prepare for it. And He is the Hearer of the sayings of His servants the Knower of their actions.

فَلَيَعْلَمَنَّ اللَّـهُ الَّذِينَ صَدَقُوا (So Allah will surely know the ones who are truthful - 29:3). It means that through tests and hardships the good and the bad, and the sincere and non-sincere will be differentiated, because if the hypocrites are mixed up with the sincere believers and are not identified, it may create a number of problems. The object of this verse is to elucidate the difference between the good and the bad, and between the sincere and the non-sincere. The expression used for this purpose is that Allah Ta’ ala will find out who are the true ones and who are the liars. Since He knows about every one even before his birth, whether he is a true one or a liar, the sense carried by this expression is that tests and trials are conducted to bring the distinction of good and bad on surface, so that others should also know.

Hakim-ul-Ummah Thanawi (رح) has copied the argument of his Shaikh, Maulana Muhammad Ya` qub (رح) that sometimes people are addressed by descending down to their level of intellect. The common man makes distinction between the sincere and the hypocrites by testing him out. Therefore, according to their approach of understanding Allah Ta’ ala has said that, through various means, We would find out who is sincere and who is not, even though He knows everything from the very beginning.

Whoso hopes to encounter God, God's term is coming, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing. When someone passes his life hoping for Our encounter, We will permit him to gaze upon Us and he will be delivered from absence and separation. And He is the Hearing of the moans of the yearners, the Knowing of the longing of the enraptured lovers. The price of seeing the Friend is the spirit. If you find that for one hundred thousand spirits, that is cheap. Who is more victorious than the servant who sees the Friend face-to-face? Hoping to see the Friend is the attribute of the Men. Great is the aspiration of the eye that wants to see You- is it not enough for an eye that You see him who sees You? Wait until tomorrow, when the servant will sit at the table of everlastingness, drinking the wine of union. He will see blessedness, nearness, and the most beautiful and will arrive at hearing, drink- ing, and seeing. This is just what the Exalted Lord says: “Faces that day will be radiant, gazing upon their Lord” [75:22-23]. The faces of the faithful and the self-purifiers, the faces of the sin- cerely truthful and the witnesses, will be like glowing moons, shining suns, garden violets, fragrant jasmine, red anemones, flashing lightning, rising suns, the vast paradise. On whom will these faces be gazing? They will be gazing upon their Lord, upon their creator, upon their nurturer. What is the attribute of that day? The day of proximity and union, the day of kindness and bounteousness, the day of giving and bestowal, the day of gazing on the Possessor of Majesty. In hoping for this station the yearners dedicated their bodies, and for the sake of this way station the passionate put rings in their ears. The recognizers will have three eyes in vision: The eye of the head will see, and that is for pleasure. The eye of the heart will see, and that is for recognition. The eye of the spirit will see, and that is for contemplation. He will fill the eye of the head with the light of bounty, the eye of the heart with the light of proximity, and the eye of the spirit with the light of finding.