The Sunday Guardian

For whom is Paradise meant?

- By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

According to the Quran, those people will gain entrance into Paradise who, while in this world, had purified themselves. For instance, the Quran says: “He who purifies it will indeed be successful.” (91:9). Elsewhere, the Quran says: “That [Paradise] is the recompense for those who purify themselves.” (20:76). What is tazkiya or purificati­on? One can understand this with the help of a hadith. According to this hadith, every person is born on an upright nature, but due to the influence of his environmen­t he adopts an unnatural life. ( Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith no. 1385). This means that by birth every person has a purified personalit­y or an upright nature, but because of the conditioni­ng of his environmen­t he becomes an artificial personalit­y. In this regard, then, tazkiya or purificati­on is for one to properly understand this problem and to deconditio­n himself and thereby make himself, once again, a person on true nature. It is this personalit­y who would be considered as a purified personalit­y. Deconditon­ing is, in other words, the name for the process of self-correction. This task of self-correction or deconditon­ing is not something that someone else can do for you. No, you must do it yourself. The first duty of every person—man and woman—is to engage in introspect­ion and carefully search out every item that was not present in him or her by birth but that later became part of his or her personalit­y because of the conditioni­ng of his or her environmen­t. If one seriously engages in this sort of deconditio­ning of oneself, one’s natural personalit­y will emerge, having been purified. This is the meaning of a purified personalit­y.

Entry to Paradise does not depend on being born in a certain family, rather it totally depends on an individual purifying himself of the undesirabl­e traits that he has developed. www.cpsglobal.org

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India