Between Animal and Angel
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Welcome. Nearly a thousand years ago, in the Persian city of Isfahan, lived a scholar of language and the Quran known as al-Raghib al-Isbahani.
His dictionary of Quranic words is still used today. But in this book, he asks a bigger question. What is a human being, and what is he for?
He begins like this. Allah created three kinds of living beings. Animals, made for this world. Angels, made for the next. And human beings, made for both.
So the human stands in between. Like the animals, he eats, desires, has children, and quarrels. Like the angels, he has reason, knowledge, truthfulness, loyalty, and worship.
Why both? Because, he says, if we were only animals, we could never worship Allah, or live near Him in Paradise. And if we were only angels, with no bodily needs, we could never build and tend the earth.
So Allah joined the two in us. And that tells us something. We belong to this world, and to the next. Did you think, Allah asks, that We created you without purpose, and that you would not return to Us?
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