Allah’s Glad Tidings

Winds drive heavily laden clouds, the clouds deliver showers of nature’s mercy—the rain that fertilises hitherto dead soil. The winds, the clouds, the rain are but Allah’s glad tidings in physical and spiritual sense:

‘’It is He Who sendeth the Winds like heralds of  glad tidings, going before His Mercy: when they have carried the heavily laden clouds, We drive them to a land that is dead, make rain to descend on, and produce every kind of harvest there with: thus shall We raise up dead: perchance ye may remember’’ (Al A’raf: 57)

In the Holy Verse quoted above winds herald glad tidings as they drive clouds laden with rain. The rain irrigates hitherto dead land bringing it to life. This is what the parable conveys in its physical sense. In the spiritual sense, winds are akin to great motive forces in the mind of a man or in the world around him, while clouds they drive are akin to Allah’s mercies which descend to fertilise souls, hitherto spiritually dead.

The argument is enforced in the Holy Verse following the one quoted above:

‘’From the land that is clean and good, by the Will of its Cherisher, springs up produce, (rich) after its kind, but from the land that is bad, springs up nothing but that which is niggardly: thus do We explain the Signs by various (symbols) to those who are grateful’’   (Al A’raf: 58)

The parable yet again has physical as well as spiritual sense. From the land that is clean and good springs forth the rich produce, while bad land may have little or no yield. In the spiritual sense a clean soul evokes positive responses of all kind, while as from a soul that has chosen evil, such responses may not be expected, as it remains polluted—a spiritual hazard.