The Koran and the false pretences of here below

The Koran and the pretenses of the here below, by Lyess Chacal, Oryms editions

The recurrence of divine warnings in the Koran, as to the consequences of the illusion caused by the deceptive attractions of the here below, is edifying. It cannot be otherwise if we consider the importance of the need not to be deceived by empty appearances to the point of forgetting the final objective which is very well translated by the use of the term ma'ād. in the Koran, that is to say, the return to Allāh or, to be more precise, to the hereafter.

It is therefore good for man not to allow himself to be distracted from this primordial objective. However, this task might not have been insurmountable had it not been for the addition of another actor, Iblīs, declared enemy of man, whose role consists precisely in accentuating the attraction of the here below and in turn away from any salutary reflection on the hereafter. The here below is therefore the main theater of his action in the promise made to Allāh on the day of his banishment:

“'Lord!', he resumed, 'by the aberration into which you have thrown me, I will certainly paint them [everything] on earth, and, all of them, I will certainly throw them into aberration'. »

The Koranic “rhetoric” aims to turn man away from the shams of life and consecrates the hereafter (al-āḫira) as true life. Quite paradoxically, it is this rhetoric from which we unconsciously turn away instead of meditating on it and imbibing it. This book is a modest but oh so important contribution to a salutary reminder.