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RECONCILIATION
1011
Mr. Khaja Khan takes the idea to be that of circular movements.' "The seed germinates into a green sapling; this develops into a tree, blooms and blossoms; and the finale is the seed itself. So is Suluk, or the travelling of man towards God.”. A Persian poet puts it :
از در بدر شد
اگرچه در معاش
*
از آن در آمد اول هم بدر شد
[Tr. From the door he came, he went back through the same;
though the search of Alza (livelihood, here experience,)
took him from door to door.') According to Muslim writers, Jalaluddin does not mean anything more than the idea of circular movement in the above verses. Their idea of evolution takes the soul right up from the mineral kingdom to man, through the vegetable and the animal kingdoms, but there leaves it abruptly, either to enjoy an eternal life of pleasure in heaven, or to suffer eternal damnation in hell, forgetting the last portion of the teaching,
"Have we not been told :
That all of us shall return unto Him ?” Strange philosophy, indeed! Why stop the course of evolution in this abrupt fashion ?
In reply, Mr. Khaja Khan relies on certain verses of the Qur'an, which, he maintains, indicate that the suffering of the soul in hell shall never terminate. But it seems to us that he attaches too great an importance to the word 'never,' which, in the verses he relies upon, is clearly a form of rhetoric. The word "never" uttered
The English rendering, as given above, is from Mr. Khaja Khan's * Philosophy of Islam,' and is accurate enough for our requirements. The last couplet should, however, read: "I having annihilated non-existence (i.e., extinction), it is proclaimed to me, in a voice like that of an organ, that all of us shall return unto Him.
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