Two Edges of the Day

"I thought you fell off the edge of the earth" is an expression I am fond of. It couldn't be more pictorial and embodiment of its figurative meaning. Now, imagine sitting, not at the edge of the planet but, at the edge of a cliff, your legs hanging down, watching the light of the day break into the darkness... All shades of night blue, red and yellow display their glorious beauty, leaving you in awe. And the sun enters the scene, spreading bouquets of energy for the day...

And imagine sitting on the opposite side of the same cliff towards the evening. Watching the fade of the sunlight through countless tones of yellow and red, you feel the loss of a loved one, engulfed in feelings of abandonement and solitude. And the night sets all around. As if peeking at an endless ocean through the window of a ship cabin, you watch the endless heavens. The sound of the crickets bring you back to the now and here. You are alone atop a lonely cliff surrounded by nothing but darkness. Scared by the uncertainty, longing for company, you take out the Quran from your backpack, turn on your led light and read:

                I swear by the early hours of the day, And the night when it covers with darkness.
                Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He become displeased.
                And surely what comes after is better for you than that which has gone before.
                And soon will your Lord give you so that you shall be well pleased.
                Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter? 

                And found you lost, and guided (you)? And found you poor, and made you rich?
                So, as for the orphan, do not oppress, And as for him who asks, do not repel,
                And as for the favor of your Lord, do announce.
                                                                                                                                Chapter 93

With a careful look, the triplets in this chapter and the correspondance among them draw your attention:

First triplet: 

- Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He become displeased.

- And surely what comes after is better for you than that which has gone before.
- And soon will your Lord give you so that you shall be well pleased.

Second triplet:

+ Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter?
+ And found you lost, and guided (you)? 

+ And found you poor, and made you rich?

Third triplet:

* So, as for the orphan, do not oppress, 

* And as for him who asks, do not repel,
* And as for the favor of your Lord, do announce.

It is interesting that the first lines of these triplets can be combined into a different group. The same can be done for the second and the third lines. As you will see, although the main addressee in these verses is the prophet Muhammad, the underlying lessons can be generalized.

First combination:

- Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He become displeased.

+ Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter?

* So, as for the orphan, do not oppress, 

This first combination of verses is about the psychology of an orphan and how to treat them. However, God is not just telling His messenger what to do, but also reminding the way He treated Muhammad pbuh when he was still an orphan child. To grasp the lesson here, it is necessary to remember a few things. An orphan is someone who, in their babyhood or childhood, lost either of the parents or both of them. So, mentally and psychologically, the notion of a stable home and a safe ground is absent in their world. To avoid the feeling of not having a safe ground, they have a subconscious urge to make themselves loved. They are more likely to blame themselves for the things that don't work in a friendship or in the family life. For a person of such sensitivity, even the silence of a close person can be worrisome or even devastating, although the same situation may not mean anything to other people. So, one has to be more careful when dealing with the orphans. 

Second combination:

- And surely what comes after is better for you than that which has gone before.

+ And found you lost, and guided (you)? 

* And as for him who asks, do not repel,

This second combination of verses is about someone who is in search of truth and a safe ground. The more you search after the truth the closer you get to it; or perhaps the broader is your comprehension of the great truth in your existence and in the existence of the universe. This quest takes you through life experiences with many people. You ask them, you share with them, you discuss with them. Not too many of these people, though, are apt to this quest. So, you may feel thrown here and there in your journey to truth. But in the end, when you look back, you feel wholeheartedly that it was all worth it. With this lesson in your mind, if someone who is in search of truth comes to you, treat them in the best manner possible, for you have been treated by your Lord in the best way possible in your own search for truth.

Third combination:

- And soon will your Lord give you so that you shall be well pleased.

+ And found you poor, and made you rich?

* And as for the favor of your Lord, do announce.

In this last combination, we see someone who is needy and is in search of the means to meet those needs. Being needy and staying so for a long time impacts a person not only physically but also psychologically. There are two ways to look at this. 

For the first, imagine yourself fasting on hot, long summer days. You feel a hunger and a thirst that feels unquenchable. But, when the time to break the fast comes, you quickly feel satisfied. Similarly, in these verses, the All Wise Creator reminds us that our needs that may seem mountainous, but they are not really so. The Devil, however, pushes us to the opposite conviction so as to cause deviation in our actions. So, it is essential to keep in mind that our needs are important and essential for us, but the extent and magnitude of our needs are not as large as we feel.

For the second perspective, just look at these verses as they are. God tells that He is going to give so abundantly so that you are going to be well pleased. As a proof, He tells His grace in the past. So, clearly and most certainly, He is going to do it again. And when that day comes, He wants you to do what you naturally would do: announce your happiness to everybody. After so much time of poverty and uncertainty, when you find abundance and safety, you feel joy and happiness to the smallest bit of your existence, and you feel like telling about it. In this joy, it is important not to forget the fact that it is God who gave you those means. So, you should tell about His grace and wisdom, and you should help others so that they can also feel the same experience and see God's grace.

In all these three situations, whether you want to survive the crushing weight of time or you want to empathize with the others or you just want to contemplate the journey you had in you life, watching the sunrise and the sunset in solitude can be helpful by virtue of the feelings they evoke in the spirit.