﴿ وَإِذَآ أَنْعَمْنَا عَلَى ٱلْإِنسَٰنِ أَعْرَضَ وَنَـَٔا بِجَانِبِهِۦ ۖ وَإِذَا مَسَّهُ ٱلشَّرُّ كَانَ يَـُٔوسًۭا ﴾

“for [it often happens that] when We bestow Our blessings upon man, he turns away and arrogantly keeps aloof [from any thought of Us]; and when evil fortune touches him, he abandons all hope.”

When man is granted ease and affluence, he demonstrates great self-confidence, becoming stubborn and unwilling to accept any new proposition, as if he were made of iron that cannot be bent. It is when he is deprived of all material props that he experiences a state of helplessness. Then he loses all courage and falls a prey to frustration. In the present world everyone undergoes this experience, but there is no one who discovers himself in the process. In this world, where man is granted full freedom, he shows total disregard for the truth and does not try to imagine what his plight will be when Doomsday comes to take away all his power. How weak man is, yet how powerful he considers himself to be! People’s circumstances and bent of mind gradually lead them into forming a particular mental framework (shakilah) within which their thoughts are conditioned. But the right way of thinking is that which accords with divine knowledge. And the wrong way is that which runs counter to divine knowledge. This is the point on which man is being tested. What man has to do is break this framework formed by his mental conditioning, so that he may see things as they are. That is to say that he should start seeing things from the divine viewpoint. Those who break free of this mental conditioning and discover the divine way of thinking are the ones who are rightly guided.