In the Name of God, the Lord of Grace, the Ever Merciful
People! It is you who stand in need of God, whereas He alone is free of all wants, worthy of all praise. If He so wishes, He can do away with you and bring in your place a new creation; this is not difficult for God. (The Originator, Fatir, 35: 15-17)
These Verses start a new passage in which the Surah again urges people to look at their relation with God and at themselves. It also comforts the Prophet, seeking to alleviate his distress at their rejection of his message. This is in fact a continuation of the previous passage, but the Surah adds here a reference to the nature of following divine guidance and the nature of going astray. It makes it clear that the difference between them is as profound as the difference between blindness and sight, light and darkness, coolness and scorching heat, life and death. It asserts that following divine guidance, having eyesight, light, cooling shade and being alive are similar, interlinked. Likewise, blindness, darkness, excessive heat and death are similar, interlinked. The passage ends with a reference to the fate met by earlier communities, serving as a warning.
“People! It is you who stand in need of God, whereas He alone is free of all wants, worthy of all praise. If He so wishes, He can do away with you and bring in your place a new creation; this is not difficult for God.” People need to be reminded of this truth within the context of God’s message, inviting them to accept and follow it, and urging them to abandon the darkness they are in to emerge into the light of His guidance. They need to be reminded that they are in need of God, while He has no need of them or of anyone else. When they are invited to believe in God, worship Him and praise Him for His bounty and favors, they must remember that He has no need for such worship and praise, because He is the Praised One. They are not immune to whatever God wishes of them. Should He wish, He can take them away and replace them by a new creation, either of their own type or of a totally different type. It is all so easy for Him.
People need to be reminded of this so that they do not give themselves airs. They need to be reminded that God in His limitless glory takes care of them and sends them messengers who strive hard to bring them out of the darkness into the light. They should not feel themselves too important for God, or that their worship or their following His message will increase His kingdom in any way. God is indeed free of all wants and worthy of all praise.
God Almighty bestows such great care and mercy on His servants, and adds to this by sending them His messengers who suffer much hardship from those who reject His divine message. It is all part of His essential attributes to give in abundance and without reckoning. The recipients, mere humans, do not contribute anything to God’s kingdom by following His guidance, nor do they decrease it in anyway when they turn blindly away from it. They are not irreplaceable.
What man receives of God’s grace is amazing, considering how man is so small, ignorant and weak a creature. Man is then but a small creature on Earth which, in turn, is a small satellite of the sun, which is one of countless stars. Gigantic as they are, stars are no more than small dots scattered in open space, the limits of which are known only to God. Yet this great space in which the stars are thus scattered is merely a small portion of God’s creation.
Yet man receives all this care from God: He creates him, puts him in charge of the Earth, equips him with all he needs to discharge his task, be these in his own constitution or in the things of the universe available to him. Yet this creature goes astray and becomes arrogant to the extent that he denies his Lord, but God nevertheless sends him one messenger after another, giving each books of guidance as well as miracles.
God’s favors continue and He sends them His final message, in which He gives them accounts of what happened to earlier communities, and speaks to them about themselves, their abilities and potentials, as well as their frailties and weaknesses. He even speaks to particular individuals, saying to one, “you did this, and you omitted that,” and saying to another, “here is the solution to your problem, and this is how you relieve your distress.”
Man should remember his position in the universe and reflect upon the fact that he has been given all this care by God. It is He who created this universe, with all that it contains, by merely willing it to be, and He can replace it all in the same way. People should consider this so they appreciate the extent of God’s care and grace. They will then feel ashamed if they turn away from God and deny Him and His grace. Thus we see that these verses represent a confirmed truth in addition to their inspirational effect.
The Qur’an touches people’s hearts with hard facts, because fact and truth have a greater effect. Moreover, the Qur’an is the word of truth, and it was bestowed from on high to lay down this truth. In short, it states nothing but the truth.
