[ربيبة الزهـراء]

What is this feeling of revenge? What is this envy which rouses a person to dislike other people's enjoyment of a blessing, and long to deprive them from it. Such a man is not thinking of having that blessing for himself. The envy of a sound person always gives priority to his own goal, and this is not a fault. But desiring harms and defeats for others is an ailment. You find that such individuals are prepared to hurt themselves wholly in their bid to even partially harm the envied person.


A historical story is told in this connection. In the time of a caliph, a rich man bought a slave whom he treated, from the beginning, like a gentleman, giving him the best of food and clothes, and money exactly like his own child or even more lavishly. But the slave noticed that his master always felt uneasy. Eventually he made up his mind to set him free and provide him with some capital. One night as they were sitting together, the master said: "Do you know why I have treated you so well?" The slave asked the reason. The master said: "I have one request to make which if you fulfil, you would enjoy all I have given and will give you! But if you refuse, I will be dis*******ed with you." The slave said: "I will obey whatever you ask. You are my benefactor who has given me my life." The master said: "You must promise me in good faith to do it, for I am afraid you may refuse it." The slave said:
"I promise to do what you want." The master said: "My proposal is that you must behead me at a specific time and place." The slave exclaimed: "What? How can I do that?" The master said: "That is what I desire." The slave said: "That is impossible." The master said: "I have got your promise. You must do it." One midnight, he awakened the slave and gave him a sharp knife and a bag full of money and climbed up a neighbor’s roof, and told the slave to behead him there and then go wherever he liked.


The slave asked the reason for such an act. He answered: "I hate this one man and prefer death to seeing his face. We have been rivals but he has gone ahead of me and excels me in everything, and I am burning with hatred. I desire him to be jailed for this fake murder and this idea is a relief to me. Everyone knows him to be my rival, and so he will be condemned to death for this act." The slave said: You seem to be a foolish man and deserve this death." So he beheaded the man and ran away, His rival was consequently arrested and imprisoned, but no one believed that he would have killed his rival on his own roof. It had become a mystery. At last, the slave felt a prick of conscience, went to the authorities and confessed the truth. When they understood the matter, they freed both the slave and the neighbor.


This is a fact that envy is a disease. The Qur'an says in Chapter "The Sun" (Shams), Verses 9 and 10. "He will indeed be successful who purifies it, and he will indeed fail who corrupts it." Thus, the first proposal of the Qur'an is purification of the self from ailments, complexes, ignorance, deviations and ****morphoses. You could have heard that in the past there were people who, because of excess of sins, were cursed by the Prophets of their time and were thus ****morphosed, that Is, they were transformed into animals such as a monkey, a wolf, a bear etc.


One may not become physically ****morphosed, but he may be mentally or spirituality transformed into an animal the like of which in wickedness and nastiness may not be found in the world. The Qur'an speaks of those "who are in worse errors" and who are lower than quadrupeds.[1] How can that happen? Man's personality depends on his ethical and spiritual qualities, without which he would be a beast. Thus, a defective man may be lowered to the level of a ****morphosed being. Some may think this a fancy, but it is real and true.
Someone said: "We had made a pilgrimage to Mecca along with Imam Sajjad and when we looked down at the Desert of Arafat it was full of Hajis (pilgrims). There were so many of them that year. The Imam said: "There is much uproar, but few are true pilgrims." The man says: "I don't know how the Imam gave me the insight, but when he asked me to look down again, I saw a desert full of animals, like that in a zoo, among whom a few human beings were moving about." The Imam told him how things looked to those who had a clear sight and were concerned with the inward concept of things.


This is quite obvious but if our so-called modernized mind does not accept it, we are at fault. In our own time there have been and are individuals who have discerned the real character of others that, like animals, knew nothing but eating, sleeping and sexual intercourse. They had lost their human qualities and been turned into beasts. We read in the Qur'anic Chapter, the "Great Event" (Naba) Verse 6. "The day on which the trumpet shall be blown, so you shall come forth in hosts, and the heaven shall be opened so that it shall be all openings."


Religious leaders have repeatedly said that only one group of people is to be raised from among the dead in the shape of human beings; others would appear as animals, tigers, monkeys, scorpions, snakes and ants. Does God do so without a reason? No, there are reasons. When a human being has done nothing in this world but to sting and hurt others, he takes his real form in the next world and that is a scorpion. He who acts like a monkey in this world, will appear as a monkey in the next world. And a person with a doggish nature will be a dog. Thus, all people will be raised from the dead according to their intentions, desires, and true character. Are your desires in this world those of a human being, or an animal or a bird? You will take the same form on resurrection. That is why we are forbidden to worship any but God. If we worship anything else, we will have it with us in the hereafter. If we worship money it becomes a part of our nature, and as the Qur’an says in Chapter "Immunity" (Baraat), Verse 35 that molten ****l will be with us on resurrection: "And (as for) those who hoard up gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah’s way, announce to them a painful chastisement, on the day when it shall be heated in the fire of hell, then their foreheads and their sides and their backs shall be branded with it; this is what you hoarded up for yourselves."

Do not say that currency notes have taken the place of coins; in the next world, these banknotes would be turned into a fire as scorching as gold and silver coins!