It was only a couple of days ago. I was busy as usual, and as expected of any believer, reading and rereading the Quran in order to discover, not how knowledgeable I was of and about its inner content and latent meanings, but how ignorant I still remain of its wonderful world. Yes. I am always happy to plead my ignorance of the emeralds and treasures that nest beneath each word and each ayat -sign- in the last testament. I know that no single exegesis and not one exegete has succeeded in explaining what, for example, the letter ‘Wa’ or letter ‘Sin’ in the Quran means and could mean, and incontrovertibly too.
In other words, despite their best efforts, the tafasir of al-Asyuti, Ibn Kathir, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-Zamakhashari and others are incurably far behind as far as data about and of this world furnished by the Quran especially in relation to the continuities and changes in the contemporary period. Whereas the letters and the semiotics of the Quran remain unchanged and unchangeable, we are therefore fated and perpetually too to seek new meanings from our realities while being guided by divine ministrations.
Thus, it came to pass that I found myself in Surat Hud, ayat 108 where the Almighty says: “And as for those who are successful, they shall abide in the paradise as long as the heavens and the earth endure; unless your Lord may will otherwise…”. As soon as I read this ayat, my mind became flooded by a series of questions: essentially who are successful? How can I be one of them? How do we determine success here on earth and what parameters has the Quran laid down with which extra-terrestrial success would be determined?
The above question became urgent for me when I remembered those things usually considered as indices for earthly success in our world today. To be successful, today, as it was many years ago, is to have huge material comforts; to have large families- children: boys and girls. To be successful is to have huge bank balances; to be an owner of big estates; to be the consort of beautiful women in the city.
Yes. Earthly success is also often determined by status- being the C.E.O, the Manager, the C.M.D. They are deemed successful those we refer to today as your Excellencies.
Earthly success is also associational in nature. Whereas a man may have less than his friends, he may however consider himself successful having friends with big ‘fat pockets’, heads of corporate organizations and leaders in public governance.
Taken together as a problematic, it is axiomatic that earthly successes, especially those defined by humans using humans as parameters, are soapy, greasy and slippery. They are contingent, not immanent; just like sexual gratification, they depend for their realization, the presence or intervention of the other who could be a compassionate benefactor or a querulous iniquitor.
Earthly successes are also transient. They are fated to the incertitude and vicissitudes of time. What you consider a factor of success of today could be a factor for failure tomorrow. Status and stations of life that often give false notions of terrestrial successes, are usually ephemeral and transient.
Then I remembered my village. I remembered our fathers and their own fathers all of whom considered themselves successful each time they contemplated how large their families were. I realized that they are no more there in our homestead. The last time I went there, the question that crept to my mind was – “where are we?”. Many decades ago, we were over thirty children living together, and happily too, in that compound. But today, we are no more there! Our big compound has become a mansion for lizards and boulevards for ants and termites! We have left our past behind us. Or rather, the past has left us for the future! Or rather, the Owner of the past and the present has caused that familiar and inimitable change such that success and the successful in the past find no bearing and meaning in the present, not anymore!
Where then lies permanent success? It lies, unequivocally, in holding firmly to the fundamentals of our faith in line with Quran 23: 1-10: in being heedful and dutiful in your daily acts of worship to and for the Almighty; in your constant awareness of the necessity for you to avoid vain talks and frivolities; in your resolve to not engage in adultery and fornication keeping in mind that the more forbidden the act, the easier they come your way. Eternal success is guaranteed only to those who come to their Lord on the day of resurrection and their hearts are pure and free of iniquities (Quran 26: 89).
