First station:

The All-Compassionate Creator, All-Munificent Provider, All-Wise Maker shapes this world as a festival, a place of celebration for the World of Spirits and spirit beings. He has decorated it with His Names' most wonderful inscriptions, and clothes each spirit in a body equipped with suitable and appropriate senses so that it may benefit from the innumerable good things and bounties therein. Each spirit is sent here only one time.

He divides the festival, which in terms of time and space is very extensive, into centuries, years, seasons, and days, and then certain parts. Each one is an exalted festival during which all animals and plants promenade. Especially in spring and summer, Earth's surface is a vast series of festivals for small creatures, an arena so glittering and attractive that it draws the gaze of angels and the heavens' other inhabitants, and spirit beings in the higher abodes. For those who think and reflect, it is an arena for reflection so wonderful that we cannot describe it appropriately.

However, the displays of the Divine Names the Most Merciful and the Giver of Life in this Divine festival are counterbalanced by the Names the All-Overwhelming, the All-Crushing, and the One Who Causes to Die via death and separation. This does not seem to be in line with the all-embracing Mercy expressed in: My Mercy encompasses all things (7:156). Nevertheless it is so in several ways, one of which is as follows:

After each group has completed its turn and the desired results have been obtained, the All-Munificent Maker, the All-Compassionate Creator, causes most of them, by His Compassion, to feel weariness and distaste for the world. He grants them a desire for rest and a longing to emigrate to another world. Thus, when they are to be discharged from life's duties, He arouses in them an enthusiastic inclination to return to their original home.

The Most Merciful One bestows martyrdom on soldiers who die in the course of duty (defending their sacred values). He rewards sheep sacrificed in His way with an eternal corporeal existence in the Hereafter, and with the rank of being a mount for its owner on the Bridge—like Buraq.[1] Therefore, it is not far from His infinite Mercy that other living beings who die and suffer while performing their God-given duties, in accord with their nature and obedience to the Divine commands, should receive a spiritual reward and wage based on their capacities from His Mercy's inexhaustible treasuries. In that way, they will be pleased to depart from this world. Only God knows the Unseen.

The same is true with humanity, the greatest beneficiary of these festivals as well as the one most immersed in them. When death approaches, God, out of His Mercy, gives each person a mood whereby he or she feels distaste with this world and longs to go to the eternal world. Whoever is not lost in misguidance benefits from this mood and dies with a tranquil heart. I will give five of the many reasons leading to this mood:

One: The Most Merciful One uses old age to show the stamp of transience and decline on that which is beautiful and tempting in this world, as well as the bitter meaning they have. By causing us to become dissatisfied with the world, He causes us to seek a permanent beloved.

Two: Ninety-nine percent of our friends have died and gone to the other world. By engendering within us a longing for the same place through that heart-felt attachment, He enables us to meet death with joy.

Three: He causes us to feel our inherent infinite weakness and impotence, to understand the great weight of our life's burdens and responsibilities. Then He implants within us a great wish for rest and a sincere longing to go to another world.

Four: He uses the light of belief to show believers that death is a change of abode, the grave is the door to illuminated worlds, and this world is like a dungeon when compared to the Hereafter. To leave this dungeon and go to the gardens of Paradise, from the troublesome turmoil of bodily life to the World of Rest and the Realm Where Spirits Soar, and to slip free of the distressing noise of creatures and go to the Most Merciful's Presence is a journey and a happiness to be desired most earnestly.

Five: By revealing the knowledge of truth in the Qur'an, as well as the world's true nature through the light of truth, He explains that love for and attachment to this world are meaningless, for:

• The world is a book of the Eternally-Besought-of-All. Its letters and words point to Another's Essence, Names, and Attributes. So learn and adopt its meaning, abandon its decorations, and go.
• The world is a tillage; sow it, harvest your crop, and preserve it. Throw away the chaff, and give it no importance.
• The world is a collection of mirrors that continuously pass on, one after the other. Know the One Who is manifest in them, see His lights, understand the manifestations of the Names appearing in them, and love the One they signify. End your attachment for those fragments of glass, for they will break and perish.
• The world is a moving place of trade. Do your business and leave. Do not tire yourself by uselessly pursuing caravans that leave you behind.
• The world is a temporary place of recreation. Study it to learn what you need to know. Ignore its apparent, ugly face, but pay attention to its hidden, beautiful face, which looks to the Eternal All-Gracious One. Go for a pleasant and beneficial visit and then come back. When the scenes displaying those fine views and beautiful things disappear, don't cry or be anxious.
• The world is a guest-house. Eat and drink within the limits set by the Munificent Host Who has built it, and offer thanks. Act and behave in accordance with His Law. Then leave and go away without looking back. Do not interfere in it, or busy yourself with things that leave you and do not concern you.

He shows the world's real character through such plain truths, and makes death less painful. He makes death desirable to those awake to truth, and shows that everything He does has a trace of His Mercy. The Qur'an's verses also point to other particular reasons.

[1] The heavenly mount that bore the Prophet through the heavens during his Ascension. (Ed.)