Second topic:

Left without any support, the representative of the misguided reveals his or her real intention: "Since I find worldly pleasure, happiness, and advancement in civilization in denying God and the Hereafter, in loving this world, and in human freedom and self-confidence, I bring others to this path, with Satan's help, and will continue to do so."

Answer: I say in the Qur'an's name: O helpless one, come to your senses and don't listen to this misguided follow. If you do, you will lose. There are two paths before you: the one offered by the misguided and that described in the Qur'an. The misguided and the dissolute, who associate partners with God and transgress Divine Commands, fall to bottomless depths of degradation. They place an unbearable load on their weak backs and burden their hearts with boundless sorrow. If they do not recognize and place their trust in Almighty God, they become like very weak, impotent, infinitely poor, and destitute animals, or mortal beings afflicted with pain and grief, subject to countless calamities. They suffer incessantly, for they remain separated from all things and people that they have loved and to which they have been connected. Leaving all things and people amidst the pain of separation, they enter the grave's dark depths alone.

They struggle in vain, with a limited will, little power, a short life-span, and a dull mind against infinite pain and ambition. They strive to realize their countless desires and goals, but without any considerable result. While they cannot bear even the burden of their own being, they load their minds and backs with the burden of the world. They suffer Hell's torments even before reaching it.

To endure such a painful spiritual torment, they seek out heedlessness as a kind of anesthesia. But they begin to feel this pain most acutely as they approach the grave. Not being true servants of Almighty God, they believe that they own themselves. In reality, however, they cannot govern their being in this tumultuous world, for they have only limited free will, insignificant power, and many enemies ready to attack. They look at the grave in fear and terror.

As human beings, they are related to humanity and the world. But since they deny that the world and humanity belong to the One Who is All-Wise, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, All-Compassionate, and All-Munificent, they attribute their existence and lives to chance and nature. And so the world's fearful events (e.g., convulsions, earthquakes, plagues, calamity, death, and famine) and humanity's conditions and experiences always trouble them. Moreover, they must contend with their own pain and the troubles that other creatures cause them to suffer.

As their own disbelief brought them to this deplorable state, how can they deserve mercy and affection? This reminds us of The Eighth Word's parable of two brothers who fell into two wells. Those who are not content with a fine banquet's agreeable and lawful enjoyment and entertainment, or with honest friends and in a beautiful garden, bring trouble upon themselves. Drinking wine to obtain an unlawful pleasure, they imagine themselves surrounded by wild beasts in a dirty place on a winter day and so tremble and cry in fear. Do such people deserve pity? Seeing their honest friends as wild beasts, they insult them. They see delicious food as foul; clean, fine plates and bowls as worthless, dirty stones; and attempt to break them. Moreover, they judge the invaluable, meaningful books that they are to read and study as ordinary, meaningless collections of sheets, and tear them up and scatter them. Such people deserve to be punished.

Unbelief and misguidance arise from abusing one's willpower. Such people assert that the All-Wise Maker's guest-house of the world is a plaything of chance and nature and that the transference of beings to the World of the Unseen, after completing their duty of refreshing the Divine Names' manifestations, is going into absolute non-existence. They also commit many other acts worthy of punishment, such as judging beings' glorifications and recitations of the Divine Names as outcries of death and eternal separation; sheets of creatures, each being a missive of the Eternally-Besought-of-All, to be confused, meaningless collections; the grave's door, which opens onto the World of Mercy, as opening onto a dark world of non-existence; and death as separation from—not re-union with—all friends and beloved ones. In such ways do they deliver themselves to an extremely painful punishment. Since they deny, reject, and insult all creatures, the Divine Names, and His inscriptions and missives, they deserve punishment.

So, unfortunate people of misguidance and dissipation, can any of your progress, evolution, science, technology, and civilization compensate for such a terrible loss, collapse, and crushing hopelessness? Where is the true consolation that the human spirit urgently needs above all else? What nature or causality, what thing upon which you rely and to which you attribute His works, bounties, and favors, can help you after death? Which of your discoveries, inventions, idols, and fetishes can save you from the darkness of death, which you suppose to be eternal extinction? Which one can take you through the Intermediate World of the grave, the Plain of Resurrection and Gathering, and over the Bridge to the Abode of Eternal Happiness? Since you cannot close the grave's door, you are bound to traverse and tread this way (passing through the stations mentioned.) To travel it safely, you must depend on the One Who commands and controls all those worlds and abodes.

O unfortunate, misguided, and heedless people. Misusing the potential of loving and knowing given to you to know and love God and His Attributes and Names, you love your selves and the world. This, as well as your similar misuse of your body and faculties that were given so that you could worship and thank Him, causes you to suffer deserved punishment. Assigning to your selves the love that must be felt for Almighty God, you suffer the resulting troubles. All this is because any love directed to other than that which deserves it brings suffering. You do not provide true peace and happiness for what you adore: your carnal self. Since you do not submit and entrust it to the Absolutely Powerful One, the True Beloved One, you always suffer pain.

Since you assign the love belonging to Almighty God's Names and Attributes to the world and attribute the works of His art to causality and nature, you have no right to complain. That which you love either leaves you without saying good-bye or does not recognize you. Even if it recognizes you, it does not love you. Even if it loves you, it gives you no benefit. You suffer from incessant separation and death without hope of re-union.

This is the reality of what such people call the happiness of life and human perfection, beauty of civilization, and pleasure of freedom. Dissipation and drunkenness temporarily veil the suffering and pain that eventually will come upon them. In contrast, the Qur'an's light-diffusing way heals the wounds afflicting the misguided with the truths of belief, disperses the darkness enveloping them, and closes the doors of misguidance and waste.

This way removes our weakness, impotence, poverty, and need, for it enables us to trust in an All-Powerful One of Compassion. Submitting the burden of being and life to His Power and Mercy, we transform the self and life into a mount. We learn that we are true human beings and the All-Merciful One's welcomed guests. Show-ing the world as the All-Merciful One's guest-house, its creatures as mirrors of Divine Names and ever-recruited missives of the Eternally-Besought-of-All, it heals perfectly all wounds caused by transience, decay, and impermanent love. It also saves us from the darkness of whims and fancies. Showing life as the prelude to re-union with deceased friends and beloved ones, it heals the wounds of death, which the misguided regard as eternal separation, and shows that separation is actually re-union.

By showing that the grave is a door opened onto the World of Mercy, the Abode of Happiness, the gardens of Paradise, and the luminous Realm of the All-Merciful One, the way of the Qur'an removes our greatest fear. It causes us to understand that our journey in the Intermediate World, which seems to be most depressing and troublesome, is really most pleasant and exhilarating. It demonstrates that the grave is not like a dragon's mouth, but rather a door opened onto the gardens of Divine Mercy. It informs believers:

Your willpower is very limited, so entrust your affairs to your Owner's universal Will. Your power is slight and insignificant, so rely on the Absolutely Powerful One's Power. Your life is short, so consider eternal life. Your mind is dull, so come into the Qur'an's sun. Look at it with the light of belief, so that in place of your mind, which gives light like a firefly, each Qur'anic verse gives you light like a star. If you have endless ambition and pain, boundless reward and infinite mercy await you. If you have limitless desire and aims, do not be anxious, for you cannot realize all of them here. This is only possible in another realm, and the One Who gives them to you is not your self.

And:

You do not own yourself, but are owned by One infinitely Powerful and an infinitely Compassionate One of Majesty. Do not trouble yourself by placing your being and life on your shoulders, for the One Who has given and governs your life is He. The world's Owner is the All-Wise and All-Knowing. Whatever He does is done out of compassion. In many respects, even His wrath is based on His Compassion. You are His guest in His world, so do not interfere with what is beyond your power and responsibility. Such living beings like humanity and animals are not left to themselves. Rather, they are officials charged with certain duties and are controlled and favored by an All-Compassionate Ruler, Who has preferred them over most of His creatures. He has far more compassion for them than for you. Furthermore, all things and events that appear hostile to you are controlled and governed by that All-Compassionate Ruler. He is the All-Wise and so does nothing useless, and the All-Compassionate Whose every act contains a kind of grace.