Question: A Tradition states that "a person is with the one he or she loves," and so friends will be together in Paradise. Thus a simple Bedouin who feels a deep love for God's Messenger in one minute of companionship with him should be together with him in Paradise. But how can a simple nomad's illumination and reward cause him to share the same place with God's Messenger, whose illumination and reward are limitless?

Answer: I shall point to this elevated truth by a comparison. A magnificent person prepared a vast banquet and a richly adorned event in an extremely beautiful and splendid garden. It included all delicious foods that taste can experience, all beautiful things that please sight, all wonders that amuse the imagination, and so on. Everything that would gratify and please the external and inner senses was present. Two friends went to the banquet and sat at a table in the same pavilion. One had only limited taste and so received little pleasure. His weak sight and inability to smell prevented him from understanding the wonderful arts or comprehending the marvels. He could benefit only to the degree of his capacity, which was miniscule. But the other person had developed his external and internal senses, intellect, heart, and all faculties and feelings to the utmost degree. Therefore he could perceive, experience, and derive pleasure from all subtleties, beauties, marvels, and fine things in that exquisite garden.

This is how it is in our confused, painful, and narrow world. There is an infinite distance between the greatest and the least, who exist side by side in Paradise, the Abode of Happiness and Eternity. While friends are together, it is more fitting that each receives his or her share from the table of the Most Merciful of the Merciful according to the degree of his or her ability. Even though they are in different Paradises or on different "floors" of Paradise, they will be able to meet, for Paradise's eight levels are one above the other and share the same roof—the Supreme Throne of God.

Suppose there are walled circles around a conical mountain, one within the other and one above the other, each one facing another, from its foot to the summit. This does not prevent each one from seeing the sun. (Indeed, various narrations or Traditions indicate that the levels or floors of Paradise are somewhat like this.)

Related Items:

• Eleventh Truth (Four Indications)
• "God is the Greatest,"
• "Houris are clothed in 70 garments, yet the marrow of their leg-bones may be seen"
• "Some inhabitants of Paradise will be given a place as large as the world"
• A look at the death and the Hereafter in the light of the Qur'an