Perfection in anything, whatsoever, is the prerogative of the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Perfection, by definition, is a one hundred per cent situation in which everything is exactly right. This, thus, makes perfection an exclusive virtue of the divine. To be perfect is, simply, to be flawless. Given these characterizations, perfection would seem to be one of the impossibilities in human life; belonging only to the divine and the spiritual world where there’s no birth, death, illness or old age.
If mankind even as the best of Allah’s creations fashioned, as stated in Qur’an 94:4, in the best of moulds in addition to being imbued with the highest mode of intelligence and mental power is yet without any monopoly over wisdom; it goes without saying that he would ever remain far from achieving perfection in anything he does. Likewise, the fact that the authority to say “Be” and “It becomes” is absolutely the prerogative of Allah also makes man to be in dire need of every element of perfection from the Omnipotence, Allah (SWT). Achieving perfection requires the attributes of absolute omnipotence and absolute wisdom both of which exclusively belong to Allah alone.
In order to appreciate perfection, it’s important to understand the wonders intrinsic in Allah’s creation of the universe. Allah states in Qur’an 51:49 “And of everything we have created in pairs that ye may receive instruction”. As we can see, Allah created life and death, heaven and earth, paradise and hell, day and night, inside and outside, sun and moon, right and left, up and down, cold and hot, front and back, sweet and bitter, wet and dry, clean and filthy, good and evil, wealth and poverty, health and illness, knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, belief and disbelief, male and female, young and old, tall and short, fat and thin.
Allah reminds us in Qur’an 53:45 and says, “That, He did create in pairs, male and female”. Have you ever cared to imagine, for instance, how life on earth would have been with perpetual day that has no night or vice versa? Or with mankind consisting only of males without females or vice versa? It is Allah (SWT) who, according to Qur’an 27:88, “disposes of all things in perfect order”. In the physical environment too, we have positive and negative, on and off. Qur’an 13:16 affirms, “…Say: Allah is the Creator of all things. He is The One, the Supreme and Irresistible”.
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Qur’an 20:50 tells us that it’s Allah (SWT) who gave to each creature its form and nature, “and further gave it guidance” so that every being and thing would reflect divine perfection. There’s great wisdom in the form Allah has made every creature. However, this wisdom can only be grasped and valued by minds that are spiritually alive to conceive Allah’s immeasurable mercy. In His infinite wisdom, Allah gave mankind two eyes, two ears, one head and one mouth. The discomfort that man would have experienced in life is better imagined if Allah (SWT) had given him three instead of two hands; or two instead of one head.
Great wisdom lies in Allah’s choice to give man one head. If there were two heads in one man, there would have been be serious problems as the legs, hands, eyes, and fingers would endlessly continue to receive conflicting instructions. Greater wisdom, however, lies in giving man two ears and only one mouth even though both were created for mutual communication among living beings. If you were to ask anyone to mention what he uses his mouth for, he would be quick to tell you he uses it for eating even though he uses it to talk more than he eats with it. He is unlikely to mention those offensive or terrible things for which he uses his mouth including hate speech, telling lies, rumour-mongering, and back-biting. In the case of ears, a person asked to mention their functions would say he uses them to listen and may not remember to state that he uses his pair of ears to eavesdrop.
If the art of mutual communication involves listening and speaking which are the respective roles for which the ears and the mouth have been provided, why then (if we may ask) did Allah gave man two ears but just one ear? The wisdom behind this 2:1 proportion in the number of ears and mouth is that Allah wanted man to talk less and listen more. Allah prefers that we listen twice as much as we speak. If Allah had wanted man to talk as much as he listens, He (SWT) would have given him two ears and to mouths; fixing them perfectly in their places in the same way the eyes and the ears are perfectly placed in the human body. Talking less and listening more further signifies the virtue in silence, which many of us have failed to recognize.
If Allah had willed, He could by the same token have created mankind with three or more or less fingers. But because He (SWT) is perfect in all He does, He created man and gave him five fingers; each serving specific functions to suit the purposes for which it was created. How difficult could holding the pen to write have been for man if he were created without the thumb and index finger? The thumb is also man’s basic instrument of signature to validate documents. Were man created without the ring finger, from where would fiancées and women generally fetch the good-look that rings add to their natural beauty? Even the middle or long finger and the small or pinky finger each has roles assigned to them by God’s perfect creation.
The realization and understanding of Allah’s attributes should lead man to knowing his creator better. The more a Muslim knows Allah, the better and sincerer he becomes in worship. The sincerer a Muslim becomes in worship, the closer he gets to Allah. Indeed, Allah admonishes believers saying, “Know me before you worship me. If you do not know me, how then could you worship me? May Allah guide us to appreciate Allah’s omnipotence, wisdom and perfection in creation, amin.
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