Disobedience
by Prof. Mirza Habib-ur-Rahman, M.A.
The Light (Pakistan), 24th February 1982 Issue (Vol. 62, No. 4, pp. 7–9)
A Mental Disease:
Disobedience is the negation of fear, denial of faith, and defiance of authority. When fear totters or vanishes from the human heart, the wish to disobey is rendered agreeable and acceptable to man. When faith grows weak and superficial, disobedience gets the upper hand. Man rises against authority with the rage of a maniac. Absence of fear instigated Satan to defy God’s authority. He tempted Adam and Eve to taste the fruit of the Forbidden tree and thus brought disgrace upon himself. This incitement to evil drove out both Satan, and Adam and Eve from the precincts of Paradise. Disobedience is like a fallen beautiful green leaf screened by bright lovely flowers, within which glimmering with streaks of red and white, a snake hides itself to bite him who picks up the fresh sweet roses. It is like a gleaming diamond, which peeps through the filthy mire so deep that, when a man jumps into the bog and catches it, he remains firm and fixed in it. It tends to originate sins and crimes and makes virtue a pander to vice. Man brings, upon himself and his associates a hundred and one vexations by disobeying authority. It is hurtful to him who disobeys, and painful to him who is disobeyed.
Degenerates Man:
Unless disobedience is uprooted from the heart, man cannot command anybody’s respect. He cannot live in peace and cannot elevate himself in the day to day activities of the world, nor he can exalt in rank and status. It is only the observance of obedience to God, to persons and to laws that can elevate the mind above the world, and enables a man to develop and refine his spiritual excellences. Disobedience is the drug of those who venerate the world and its temptations; obedience is the plant of those who cherish God’s fear and love, and thus ennoble themselves by renouncing the world, its pageants and ostentations. Disobedience is capable of degeneration into injurious acts. From it proceed greater crimes and delinquencies, while obedience morally and socially uplifts man, and reforms his mental calibre and degree of merit. It is only through submissive prayers and faithfully following the precepts of God, that man’s finest stamp of merit is fixed on his brow and face.
Disobedience Proves Fatal:
Disobedience inflames defiance, which in its turn enkindles revolt in the human heart. Man grows rebellious in spirit and his very heart beats rebellious tunes. Like scorpions, the rebellious man’s stings are deadly. Such a ruinous man brings disasters and catastrophes, wherever be happens to play his part. Destructive and not constructive actions, as a rule, are the hallmark of his misguided genius. In several cases, such rebellious persons play the devil, that tears everything to bits. It is, therefore, not easy for them to get rid of this devildom, unless some more powerful agency arrests his progress. Peace, harmony, order and administration are swept away in the general catastrophic upheaval. All this goes to prove that man who could, by his prayers and Divine worship, command the respect of God, debases himself by following the Devilish path and dashes himself down into the fire of Hell.
Defiance to Divine Precepts Plays Havoc:
Remember, those men or nations, who do not believe in one God and whose sins and crimes outweigh their good deeds, cannot be allowed to reign supreme; they are annihilated and their works and deeds are permanently decimated — it is the Law of God and none can challenge it. Pharaoh bade defiance to Prophet Moses and called himself God of the people. He along with his gallant troops were drowned in the rushing waves of the river Nile, while Moses and his followers, the Israelites, were saved. Abraham exhorted his people to stop worshipping idols and believe in one God, the Supreme Lord of the heavens and earth. But they declared hostilities against Abraham and rejected his appeals. So the guilty ones were thrown headlong into the pits of Hell.
Noah asked his people to fear God and obey him. But they threatened the Prophet saying that if he did not desist, he would be stoned to death. God saved his apostle Noah and his obedient followers in an Ark, while all other people were drowned in the rolling waves, that issued forth from the heaving earth. The tribe of ‘Ad, in the sway of insolence, set at naught the messages of Hud, who counselled them to believe in one God, fear Him and obey Him. But they disobeyed and were destroyed. Similarly, apostle Salih was disobeyed by the tribe of Thamud, who in spite of his strict warning not to inflict any harm on the she-camel, hamstrung her. So Thamud were severely punished and crushed to death. Lot exhorted to his people to become righteous. But they persistently disobeyed him and so were extinguished by a violent storm of rain and stones. Allah repeats in the Holy Quran:
“And never did We destroy any township but it had warners to remind. And We are never unjust. And the devils have not brought it. And it behoves them not, nor have they the power to do it. Surely they are far removed from hearing it. Call not, therefore, on any other God beside Allah, lest thou become one of those who are punished” (The Holy Quran, 26:208–213).
Divine Chastisement:
In the present era, scores of people die daily of violent accidents, caused by storms, rains, earthquakes, collisions and murders. Several tracts of land inhabited by people have been utterly destroyed by the convulsions of nature. What does all this indicate? Let us realistically apply just so much forethought as is necessary to safeguard our spiritual life. We shall then fully realize that the Holy Quran reminds us in clear and unambiguous terms that the fiendish of the world has made us forget the real object of our life — the supreme ideal, to obey His injunctions and be righteous in our worldly affairs. If we desist and continue to indulge in acts that cast glamour over our eyes, we shall surely be doomed to death and be cast into the raging fire of Hell. The wages of sin is hell — Beware! Ah, beware!