Moral Factors Decide A Nation’s Fortunes
“My people! Ask your Lord for forgiveness and turn to Him in repentance. He will send down abundant rains upon you from the heaven, and will add strength to your strength. Do not turn away as those given to guilt.” (Qur’an, 11:52)
The above verse of the Holy Qur’an underlines the fact that seeking forgiveness from Allah and turning to Him in repentance which is the essential requirement of piety yields a person Allah’s bounties and blessings.
Verses 3 of Surah Hud says, “Seek the forgiveness of your Lord and turn to Him in repentance, that He may grant you good enjoyment until an appointed term.” Here is the reiteration of the same statement. If a person turns to Allah in sincere devotion, He will enable him to spend his life felicitously. Allah will lavish upon him His bounties, confer on him a variety of blessings, provide a life of prosperity, grant peace and tranquility, and cause him to live honorably rather than in ignominy and disgrace. The verse dispels the Satanic misconception that good people are inevitably destined to live in abject poverty and utter misery.
We also learn here that the rise and fall of a nation’s fortunes depends on moral factors. For Allah’s rule over the world is based on moral rather than physical laws which are bereft of all distinction between good and evil, truth and falsehood. The Qur’an has repeatedly mentioned that. When a nation receives Allah’s Message through a Prophet, the fate of that nation depends entirely on how it responds to it. If that nation accepts the Message, Allah lavishes His bounties and blessings upon it. However, if that nation spurns the Message, it is destroyed.
This is a provision of the moral law according, to which Allah deals with human beings. Another provision of this law is that any nation which, deluded by its worldly prosperity, slips back into wrongdoing and sin, is doomed to destruction. However, if the people in question while proceeding speedily towards their tragic end, realize their mistakes, give up their disobedience of Allah and sincerely return to His worship and obedience, their evil end is averted and their life term is extended.