Another  example:  a  peahen  lays  one  hundred  eggs  and  they  are  worth  five hundred kurush. If the hen sits on the hundred eggs and eighty go bad and twenty hatch into peacocks, can it be said that the loss was high and the affair, evil; that it was bad to put the broody hen on the eggs and an evil occurred? No, it was not thus, it was good. For the peacock species and egg family lost eighty eggs worth four hundred kurush, but gained twenty peacocks worth eighty liras.

Thus, through the sending of prophets and the mystery of man’s accountability, and through striving and fighting with satans, in return for the hundreds of thousands of prophets and millions of saints and thousands of millions of purified scholars they have  gained,  who  are  like  the  suns,  moons,  and  stars of the  world  of  humanity, mankind has lost the unbelievers and dissemblers, who are numerous in regard to quantity, insignificant in regard to quality, and like pernicious beasts.

THIRD QUESTION

Almighty God sends calamities and inflicts tribulations; isn’t this an injustice towards the innocent in particular, and animals even?

T h e  A n s w e r : God forbid, sovereignty is His. He holds sway over His possessions as He wishes. Moreover, a skilful craftsman makes you a model in return for a wage and dresses you in a bejewelled garment that he has artistically fashioned. Then in order to display his art and skill, he shortens it and lengthens it, measures it and trims it, and he makes you sit down and stand up. Can you say to him: “You have made the garment that makes me beautiful ugly. You have caused me trouble, making me sit down and stand up.”? Of course, you cannot say that. If you did, you would be crazy.

In just the same way, the All-Glorious Maker has clothed you in an artistically wrought being bejewelled with such faculties as the eye, the ear, and the tongue. To display the embroideries of various of His names, He makes you ill, He afflicts you with tribulations,  He makes  you  hungry,  He  fills  you,  He makes  you  thirsty;  He makes you revolve in states like these. To strengthen the essence of life and display the  manifestation   of  His  names  He  makes   you  pass  through  numerous  such conditions. As is indicated in the comparison, if you ask: “Why do you inflict these calamities on me?” a hundred instances  of wisdom will silence  you. In any event, calm, repose, idleness, monotony, and arrest from motion are forms of non-existence, and  harm.  Motion  and  change  are  existence  and  good.  Life  finds  its  perfection through motion, it progresses by means of tribulations. Life performs various motions through the manifestation of the divine names; it is purified, finds strength; it unfolds and expands; it becomes a mobile pen to write its own appointed course; it performs its duty and acquires the right to receive reward in the hereafter.

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