(3:34).
They had a foretaste of the peace that reigns in Jannah:
Therein shall they hear no vain talk, but only peace (19:62).
Feelings of ill-will and rancour cannot enter a mind wherein love
and peace hold sway:
And we will remove whatever rancour may be in their breasts. Face to
face (they rest) on couches raised (15:47).
They taste the joy of disinterested companionship and are members
of a society which pursues the good and the beautiful with a single-
minded devotion. The earthly career is but the prelude to the real
development of the self of man. The joy of self-fulfilment is
symbolised by a heavenly beverage:
Verily, the righteous shall drink of a cup mixed with (the water of)
Kafoor, a fountain whereof the servants of God shall drink and make it
gush forth abundantly (76:5-6).
A member of such a society makes steady progress in self-
realisation. If he fails to keep pace with his comrades, the
responsibility lies on his own shoulders. The Qur'an says:
This is a warning to men. To him of you who desires to advance or lag
behind. Every self lies in pledge for its own deeds (74:36-38).
The path of those who move forward, is illumined by the "light of
their forehead" moving along with them. They are thankful for the
light and desire more of it. "Our Rabb! make perfect for us our light''
(66:8). They continue to climb higher and higher in the scale of
being. Their progress is hampered by nothing, as the Qur'an states
clearly:
For those who keep their duty to their Rabb, for them are higher
apartments over which are (other) high apartments built, streams
running beneath them (39:20).
This is the Jannah which the Order of Rububiyyah assures to
those who "sell their life and what they possess for the cause of
Allah."
Jannah, therefore, is not a mere abstract idea. The believers feel it
to be real and eminently desirable. They can form an idea of it on
the basis of the foretaste of it during this life. It is thus interlocked
with living experience.
III. AllahWe have seen that the covenant described in an earlier section, isIslam: A Challenge to Religion 193