threatened the Mothers of Islam with. Dante’s Divine Comedy addresses the
epitome of primal human fear by putting a signpost over the entrance of hell:
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” This ultimate disgrace is the absolute
absence of Providence: i.e., the complete absence of Allah’s grace and
provision for human comfort in peace and security accompanied by total
exposure to endless misery and torment.
Therefore, the babe cries out and trusts that all of its needs will be met
according to the pre-incarnate covenant with Allah as Lord.^58 This faith and
trust is in Allah and not in the parents. The parents are merely Khalifa or
stewards of the ‘Trust Fund’ of Allah’s provision and they must answer the call
of this creature whom He caused to be drawn out from their loins. Make no
mistake: they will be held accountable if they betray this trust of Allah.
"The skins of those who fear their Lord shiver from it (Al'Qur'an) when they hear it
or recite it. Then their skin and their heart will soften to the remembrance of
Allah." (Q, 39:23)"And those who make unlawful their wives by Zihar and wish to free themselves
from what they uttered, the penalty in that case is the freeing of a slave before they
touch each other ." (Q, 58:3)When fear overtakes a man he literally shivers. The nerves responsible for
this response are in the skin. The initial mediator of trust is an intricate nerve
system also within the skin. No matter how well they are fed, babies will
develop slowly or sicken and die without the mediation of skin-to-skin
contact. Even if they survive, their sense of well-being is severely hampered
or maladjusted throughout life. A more impressive fact of the human
condition is that if a well-nursed infant is not spoken to it will most likely
sicken and die, and we must bear in mind that speech is mediated through
58
From Mohd. Asad’s Translation of Surat 7: 172- 3
“AND WHENEVER thy Sustainer brings forth their offspring from the loins of the children
of Adam, He [thus] calls upon them to bear witness about themselves: "Am I not your
Sustainer?" - to which they answer: "Yea, indeed, we do bear witness thereto!" '[Of this We
remind you,] lest you say on the Day of Resurrection, "Verily, we were unaware of this"; or
lest you say, "Verily, it was but our forefathers who, in times gone by, began to ascribe
divinity to other beings beside God; and we were but their late offspring: wilt Thou, then,
destroy us for the doings of those inventors of falsehoods?" “And thus clearly do We spell
out these messages; and [We do it] so that they [who have sinned] might return [unto
Us].”