al-Raghib al-Isfahani #08 – Human Arrogance

Another sign that Allah placed in the creation that are audible also he draws our attention to is that everything that's in creation, more or less, is suited for a purpose that serves a human need. At least, if that's not an absolute statement, then at least much more so than other animals, or other creatures. Okay, so again, the author, he's trying to establish this kind of not necessarily supremacy but this distinct nature of the human being, why what makes the human being so different than other sorts of sorts of creatures This is one of the things is that if you look at creation as a whole, much more of it is in the service of human needs than other creatures. The variety of food

that we have is staggering, staggering. Compared to other animals, things that are in the creation are usually either food for us, or food for our food, or medicinal or some sort of resource that we can put to use, right? Like all these sorts of things are geared towards satisfying human needs in some some way or another, the animals that we can utilize, we utilize every part of the animal from their, their teeth down to their bones, their highs, all these sorts of things. And just because we realize someone might come and say, Well, okay, there's this thing or that thing that we don't use, or we don't know how to use, but we shouldn't confuse our lack of knowledge and understanding as

understanding that something doesn't have a purpose. That's a mistake. Just because you don't understand the purpose of that thing, or you don't understand how that thing serves you doesn't mean that it doesn't serve you, right? And the author gives an example. Like there's some trees or there's some plants that we can't eat. Maybe they're poisonous, if they're not poisonous, they're disgusting. But so we might ask, okay, why are they here? Right? You will we hear this every year with like, when the weather gets warm, like human beings, like are experimenting with, like eradicating mosquitoes or something like that. We were so arrogant. We think that we can just take

something from Allah's creation, it's like, let's get rid of all of it. That's like, like, Famous last words. Horrible idea, right? In general. That's not to say that okay, yes. Okay, we need to, there's malaria, there's things that are spread by mosquitoes that hurts human beings, we should explore ways to solve those issues. But by wiping out like an entire creation of Allah, it sounds like very, it sounds like the beginning of a movie, like a horror movie or something like that, like, it's a really sounds like a really bad idea. Right? And that's from human arrogance. That's from human arrogance to to say, well, we can't see the purpose of this thing. So it must not fulfill

any purpose. Let's just get rid of. Okay. All right. So Aurora was for honey gives the example of a plant that might be poisonous, or at least tastes horrible, but we can't see an immediate need. And yet, he says, maybe the bee knows its true purpose more than we do, maybe the bee goes to that nectar and the sweetest honey on earth comes from the flower of that tree, and we're eating the honey. And we don't even realize because we can't follow the bee bees, honey bees can fly up to five miles and radius in order to get to forage. We don't follow the bee every single place that he goes, every single tree, every single flower that that he drinks from right, maybe the most delicious

honey comes from the flower of that tree that we can't use in any other way. Or maybe that tree has a root system that keeps the soil from eroding more than any other sort of root system or any other tree we don't know. Right? That's from our arrogance that we we just look and we just rush paste. We say this thing doesn't have any benefit, right? And a modern day example is the tailbone. Right? So one of the things of people who are enamored with evolutionary theory, they say, Okay, well, why do human beings have a tailbone? It's useless doesn't serve any purpose. Just because you don't see a purpose doesn't mean it doesn't serve any purpose. And of course, from our tradition is that we know

that the first thing that we're going to be resurrected from is the tailbone, right. And so maybe you're waiting for a day to realize its purpose, and it's going to be too late on that day. So we see we see this kind of human arrogance, the overall point that I was for honey is making is that the creation serves us and serves our needs. And that's not to be in a supremacist way where we that's actually an enormous trust. It's an Amana, right, we have an enormous responsibility to not only be grateful but to use responsibly, alright, we can't wait the Prophet alayhi salatu salam prohibited wasting water for whoodle Even if you were in a running river, so then what about if a

resource is more scarce than that? Or what about for a purpose that's less valuable and less important than will do and prayer right? And that it hola Of course, those things are going to be even more important. And so we have to realize not just to be grateful, but to be grateful through our actions and to this is the beginning of our, of our practice of a Khalifa of somebody who is a representative of Allah doing Allah's work in the world. Do setting up the world and managing it in a way that pleases Allah is to recognize that everything is created for kind of to make our lives easier, and to safeguard it. Okay, and to use it responsibly. Does it make sense? If all of these

things are placed here for our ease, to just burn through it all to use it all up until there's none left? That would be not only stupid, but it would be

supremely ungrateful whereas proper management requires safeguarding the resource or safeguarding the blessing that Allah has given us in the first place