Qur'an Studies - Lesson 4
LESSON FOUR: MAIN QUR’ANIC SPIRITUAL CONCEPTS
1. AMR AND RUH
1. Know that (both) KHALQ and AMR are His? (7: 54)
C: Allah’s Work knowable by us are two: KHALQ which is creation and AMR which is the implementation of His Will in the form of EVENTS happening to the creatures. Without something happening to a creature it is as good as nothing. All are in constant change, all are change. And that change depicts the implementation of Allah’s irresistible Will. Faith is true when Allah’s Will is not vainly resisted but watched with wonderment and praises while unfolding. This does not mean that we don’t or cannot play a part. Our part comes in when Allah throws at us a rope of opportunity we cannot mistake although we can foolishly miss. What He enables you to LEGITIMATELY do that is your opportunity. Opportunities He throws at you on the one hand and what He has told you to be haram on the other are meant as TESTS. In other words a saving and blessing opportunity is when we get a chance for joining in with the implementation of Allah’s Will is that allows us to contribute to its fulfilment by doing a legitimate act. For example, if a person needs help in something legitimate and you know about it and can help in a legitimate way and do help then you helped Allah’s cause, you participated in or rather chose to be an instrument for the implementation of Allah’s Will. If the need or the act is not legitimate two options are open to you. You desist and get reward for your piety or you go ahead and do it and register another sin. In either case though, you have done Allah’s Will and no less, although the results could not be more different. Is everything lost in the case of sinning? No. The damage may more than be undone. If Allah wills, by repentance and compensatory good works you can more than undo the damage. But there is one fine point to consider: You must never sin deliberately, coolly calculating that you later utter words of repentance and thereby both sin to your hearts desire and make an overall profit.
2. They (the hypocrites) had sought trouble before and plotted many affairs to undermine thee until the Truth came and Allah’s Amr became manifest despite their aversion (9: 48)
C: Here Amr means Allah’s implemented Will. Whatever the hypocrites tried to undermine and hopefully frustrate the Prophet sws and his aims they eventually found out that Allah was on the Prophet’s sws side and his successes continued to grow as his success was due to his being on Allah’s side in what Allah was implementing as part of His Will. The hypocrites detested it but that was it.
3. And the rest are left to Allah’s Amr, He may either punish or relent towards them (9: 106)
C: Some wavering Muslims had slipped away when the hardest of all the Prophet’s military expedition, that to Tabuk, was starting out. Because these waverers were not really hypocrites but a bit weak in resolve, all concerned had to wait how Allah would display His Will when He would later bring about the events for all to see relating to these people. In the event those who, despite having proven their sincerity in the battles like Badr and Uhud had lapsed in the case of Tabuk were forgiven- forgiven because they were so ashamed of themselves and so mournfully repentant.
4. He then occupied the Throne managing the Amr (10:3)
C: ‘After’ creating the creatures it was again Allah Who could put them to realise their potentials by interacting with each other. He had to assume command (amr) and give orders to each creature to play its part in the implementation of His Divine Will. In this verse we have the first example of Amr meaning command. However in the case of Allah command and implementation are really the one and the same: His commands are invariably obeyed and fully implemented. His Amr in the sense of command however must not be confused with his commandments which in Arabic are called ‘farz’ which a responsible creature like man of jinni may or may not obey. In either case Allah’s Will is still implemented.
5. Say: There is no protector against Allah’s Amr today (11:43)
C: This is Noah’s AS warning to his son who refused to board the ark despite the accumulating signs of the flood. The son had said that he would take protection in high mountains. Here again Amr means implementation of Allah’s Will which in this case was that only boarders could survive the floods.
6. And the water withdrew and the Amr was executed (11: 44)
C: Obvious
7. Thy Lord’s Amr has arrived and they are to be visited by a punishment impossible to repel (11: 76)
C: The visiting angels had told Abraham that Lot’s people were doomed. He sought to have them forgiven but the Lord’s angels had to explain that His Will was about to be implemented and could not be overruled no matter what.
8. Allah’s is the Unseen (ghaib) of the heavens and the earth and all Amr in its entirety goes back to Him (11: 123)
C: The universe is not only what it seems to us but contains only too many imperceptible contents or elements which we have no way of detecting let alone studying. All these imperceptibles are before the Eyes of the Creator at all times. All events, involving whatever elements in their coming about can be traced to Him as the Ultimate Commander and Enabler for their occurrence, which occurrence is another example of the implementation of His Will.
9. For him (each man) are accompanying observers from his front and from his back protecting him by Allah’s Amr (13: 11)
C: Each man is flanked by various angels from his front and his back (i.e., he is not free to go back from what is destined for him or go forward to hasten what is destined for him or get what is not made for him) because Allah’s implementation of His Will must and will take place at the appointed hour whether the man likes or expects it or not.
10. Are they (the unbelievers) awaiting angels to come to them or Allah’s Amr to come? (16: 33)
C: The unbelievers are in a quandary. To check the claims of the Prophet sws they would like to have Allah’s angels visit them. Yet they may be in for a surprise: Allah may suddenly implement or make known His Will- which is the inescapable punishment of the unbelievers.
11. The Amr of the Hour is like the blink of an eye and even closer (16: 77)
C: Allah implements His Will regarding the death of somebody or the destruction of a people with such speed that the dead or the destroyed are stunned by its speed and finality.
12. They are asking you about RUH (Spirit). Say, the ruh is part of Allah’s Amr; you have not been given the knowledge (thereof) but a just a little bit (17: 85)
C: Now we break new ground when we learn that RUH is one of the various forms of Allah’s implementing His Will. A sentient being like man feels himself to possess a free will simply because Allah blew into him of His quality of having a Free Will along with consciousness and intelligence and the man may think that he may be able to beat Allah in a competition of wills. Whatever he commits with his small and relative freewill is countered by Allah’s Will so that only what Allah wants prevails at all times. Because man only wills by the PERMISSION of Allah, man’s reality of will can never pose a threat to the implementation of Allah’s Will as destined. Yet in its always limited and besieged scope man’s will is real and responsibility for his acts remains. This shadowy imitation of Allah’s Consciousness in general and His Will in particular is man’s RUH, it survives bodily death and enjoys or suffers the consequences of its acts committed while animating the body. But man is not alone in being a ruh at the core. Each of the other sentient beings including the jinn and the angels also is a ruh at the core and as such plays a conscious and wilful role in the implementation of Allah’s Will. All these partial ‘arwah’ (plural of ruh, i.e. spirits) are dwarfed by a Great Ruh which is the Cosmic level of Allah’s Consciousness and Will. This Ruh is called Ruh al Quds (Holy Spirit) as well as Ruh al Amin (the Trustworthy Spirit, Spirit of Truth) and is often associated with Gabriel although it must exceed Gabriel since Gabriel is also a creature. Angels sometimes accompany the Holy Spirit on its descent from Allah’s Throne. Able to influence innumerable creations the Holy Spirit is particularly effective in inspiring and steadying the Prophets and also individual believers. That is because this Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and anybody in possession of truth in his heart cannot be separate from the Holy Spirit.
13. All made prostration except Iblis. He was one of the Jinn and therefore departed from his Lord’s Amr (18: 50)
C: Although angels do have freewill, they almost always choose to obey Allah perfectly. Some said that angels have no freewill and some even went beyond and said that they are not conscious. These are contradicted by both the Qur’an and the Hadith. Angels’ respectful objection to Allah’s creating Adam is narrated in the Qur’an (2: 30). Gabriel’s dialogues with the Messenger of Allah sws are in the Hadith and also in the Qur’an (e.g., 75: 16- 19 and 19: 64 which is quoted below) . Interestingly, those who issue such gems then turn around and say that all particles in the universe are alive and conscious because Allah is Alive and Conscious. Then why Allah calls some beings, like a dead man dead and the earth as dead (which Allah then revives by rains) nobody explains. As usual, naïvely reading too much into the unavoidably ambiguous nature of verbal expressions people are weaving webs of so-called mystic insights and then forgetting or refusing to check with the owner of the expressions, in this case Allah. As for the jinni they are not so near perfect or secure as the angels. They have less understanding and appreciation of the Divine and may therefore be deceived by their ignorance or lusts and disobey Allah badly. Iblis being one such jinni could not master his lust for having Allah’s rights, thought that Allah’s deputyship meant the usurpation of Allah’s prerogatives and could not check his jealousy of Adam/man when Allah declared man as His deputy on earth. He therefore defected from Allah’s loyalty and lost out in the worst possible way to the humbler-looking, humbler behaving but subtly more talented and deserving Adam.
Here is a very important if subtle lesson for us: If you want to succeed and win you must never begin your relations with other people by displaying pride and arrogance and know-all criticism but with humility and deference. When people are intimidated by your shows of greatness they begin to fear and hate you because they regard you a threat to their own claims on some prize. But if you are genuinely humble and do not show off with your potential and capabilities your apparent smallness please them, for you seem to pose no threat to them. If you are really capable and your capability only comes out gradually without you putting on a show your new friends add admiration to their initial liking for you. Adam was like this and he was promoted and Iblis was boastful from the start and was demoted. Lastly please remember that all above are true but metaphoric statements of spiritual facts. Their ultimate understanding (Taw’eel) must wait Allah’s Pleasure and Permission.
14. We do not descend except by the Amr of thy Lord; His is what is in front of us and behind us (19: 64)
C: They mean to say “We only leave Allah’s Court when He Almighty wants us to descend through the seven heavens and if necessary all the way down to your earth and even to the centre of it, each of us with a commission to implement a given part of His Will (Amr), being endowed with His Spirit for the occasion.
15. He manages the Amr (the business of running the universe) from the heavens to the earth. Then the Amr returns to Him in a day whose magnitude is a thousand years as you count (32: 5)
C: All Allah’s Amrs are so momentous pre-destined events that they get into the ‘pipeline’ of implementation ages before their actual occurrence and their results take equally long ages to filter through the heavens back to Allah for a ‘mission accomplished’ mark, so-to-speak. In both phases it is the angels that carry them. In verses like this quantifications like ‘a thousand years’ are not meant literally or quantitatively but are employed as figures of speech and signify great lengths of time. It is like saying to a man “You need a thousand years to understand what I am saying”.
16. When Zaid goes through divorcing her We wed her to thee (o Prophet sws)… Allah’s Amr is a destiny destined (33: 37-38)
C: This is about Zaid’s RA divorcing Zainab RA, one male and one female companion the Messenger of Allah had married but had to divorce later on account of painful incompatibility and Zainab’s desperate love for the Prophet sws from a very young age. The Prophet sws was quite prepared to relieve the sufferings of Zainab RA but the ancient Arab ban on a man marrying the divorcee of his adopted son (who Zaid RA was) stood in the way. Then Allah showed mercy to all three: He allowed the divorce to the great relief of both Zaid RA and Zainab RA and this was a predestined Amr which was then implemented. Yet the clause “Allah’s Amr is a destiny destined” is a great revelation in itself whatever the context; it means that the Amr is the actualisation of what is potential as well as necessary in Allah’s Choices. Again this makes it the implementation of Allah’s Will.
17. When Allah’s Amr comes true and just judgment is enforced and these falsifiers come to grief (40: 78)
C: This is about the idolatrous unbelievers (and of course about every unjust person). When Allah’s true and just Judgment which Islam is, comes and is put into effect by the successes of the Prophet sws and his companions RA, the falsifiers of truths who the idolaters were came to grief- they lost out and soon, as a religious group, were extinct.
18. In it (that Night) each wise Amr (destined affair) is picked out (for implementation) (44: 4)
C: This is about Lailat al Qadr, the Night of Splendor and Destiny. In that night the angels come down with the RUH, the Major Command of Implementation of Allah and then they set the wheels in motion, so-to-speak, for the actualisation of all affairs about everybody and everything for the coming year. See also verse 22 below)
19. We have given them proofs concerning the Amr (i.e. the religion We wanted them to follow); they did not fall into dispute but only after the knowledge came to them and that out of the hostility among them (45: 17)
C: This refers to the loss of ways Israel suffered. Allah through his prophets had given them the proofs of right belief and righteous action but because of the selfish-based hostilities among their factions they lost their ways. The ‘Amr’ Allah is talking about is the True Religion which was meant for full and genuine implementation.
20. It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and likewise in the earth (seven layers of it); the Amr descends between them in order that you know that Allah is Able to do all things and that Allah encompasses everything with (His) knowledge (65: 12)
C: Allah’s Command (Amr) destined to be implemented moves through the heavens and the earth converting each part it reaches into the form Allah wanted.
21. The angels and the RUH descend in it (that Night) by their Lord’s permission concerning all Amr (97:4)
C: As in verse 19 above, in the Night of Splendour and Destiny all affairs to come on stream the following year are sorted out and buttons are pressed for their realisation, so-to-speak. That is why the believers should grab the opportunity to implore Allah to make things better for themselves. Praying through that Night is so effective in getting good results for the servant that it is more than praying the nights of a thousand years without such a crucial night in them.
22. (To Mary) We sent OUR RUH and It took the form of a perfect man (19: 17)
C: This ‘Our Ruh’ is the same as ‘MY RUH’ which Allah mentions in the verse “When I (Almighty) arranged him (Adam) and blew into Him of My Ruh (the angels) fell prostrating to him” (15: 29 and 38: 72). What Mary was seeing was not a physical male human being but the Angel Who was most fully intimate with Allah and therefore could be most identified with Allah’s Ruh/Spirit and here and in many other contexts Ruh/spirit means PURPOSE which is the basis of WILL. The Holy Spirit (Ruh al Quds) with which Gabriel is an exporession of is often associated is the All-encompassing Loving and Caring PURPOSE OF ALLAH which appears in many guises, from a most needed rain cloud to a happy turn of events but its most perfect manifestation is in the form of a perfect man and this perfect man may be a truthful apparition of an angel and in a peak psychic experience it can be the Archangel Gabriel.
23. “And We gave Jesus son of Mary clear proofs and We supported him with the Holy Spirit (Ruh al Quds) (2: 87 and 2: 253)
C: Allah kept Jesus on his destined tract of godliness and teaching godliness by constantly keeping him filled with the holiest, godliest purpose possible which filling was so great that he could revive the dead or cure the leper simply because when his mercy was stirred and his tongue fluttered in prayer for Allah’s help the help did not fail to arrive. Because Jesus had so totally identified himself with Allah’s All-Gracious Purpose for man that Allah returned his prayers with acceptance; Allah and Jesus were inseparable friends and as such each was all out to please the other. So can we all be if we try hard enough sincerely enough.
24. O people of the Bible, do not boil over (do not go to excesses) in your religion and do not say other than what is just and true about Allah. Jesus Christ son of Mary is but Allah’s messenger and His Word He cast to Mary and a Spirit from Him” (4: 171)
C: Jesus AS is Allah’s Word cast to Mary: Allah made his flesh and mind to embody His Will and Grace which Will and Grace is seeded in the Word “LA ILAHA ILLALLAH”. Mary was imparted this most holy “La ilaha illallah’ so strongly that she needed no male agency to develop a male foetus which was even more densely embedded with the Word “La Ilaha Illallah”. Because this Most Holy Word implies that the Real Cause behind all events (amr) is Allah and Allah can bypass as many intermediary created agencies as He wants to bring about an event. This is what is called the ‘al maqam Kun fa Yakun’ among Sufi masters. It is not that a saint says ‘Kun’/Be and ‘fa yakun’/ it just happens as commanded. The saint simply feels in his entire being that something Allah is about to create by His Divine Command ‘Kun!’ and the saint being so much absorbed in his Lord gets the unmistakeable inkling that the thing is about to happen and in full approval of Allah’s Will he issues his own ‘let it be so’, i.e. ‘amen’ He is like a passenger on an ocean-going ship: He sees a dangerous rock and senses that the captain is already taking action and manoeuvring the ship but all the same he is delighted to say “let’s steer the ship clear of the rocks” and later feels as if he was part of the success. Prophets and saints (who are only truest believers and no more) never pray unless their hearts are warm for the subject and the object of the prayer and the warmth of their hearts indicates to them that Allah is permitting and demanding the prayer. That is why their prayers are answered.
In other words theirs are pre-answered prayers! Of course this may not always be the case. Occasionally prophets and saints also may pray without adequate inspiration by Allah, as Noah had prayed for his wayward son and Abraham for the people of Lot. But such exceptions are simply allowed by Allah to prove the rule and are forgiven. In fact prophets’ and saints’ fallibility is similarly intended: They prove the rule of Allah’s unique and exclusive infallibility and keeps the prophets and saints in the position of humility they need more than anything else. Please listen to this: Human greatness is none other than human humility before God and if a person feels truly humble before God he has no difficulty being humble before all creation, man or otherwise, I mean nobly humble and not mean or despicable. True humility in a man makes him look great to other man without offending them or making them jealous except the devilic-minded.
25. “And that (woman, Mary) who protected her private parts and We blew into her from our Ruh/Spirit” (21: 91)
C: Allah gave Mary as a daughter to her mother who had in fact prayed for a boy whom she promised Allah to dedicate to the Temple (Masjid al Aqsa) as a devotee. Being landed with a girl instead left her wondering what to do with a girl who was not supposed to be a temple devotee, i.e, a nun. Jewish Tradition did not regard women highly and Temple mission was closed to women. Yet that Allah would be sending His promised Messiah of the Jews as a man born of a chaste virgin was part of the Jewish faith and in fact Mary was intended as that blessed virgin. Accordingly Allah explained this to Mary’s confined mother, the priests in the know recognised the girl baby as the future mother of their awaited Messiah/Christ and in due course the girl was given a cell in the Temple to grow up into the saint required under the spiritual mentorship of her uncle prophet Zachariah .
In due course again the Spirit/Purpose of Allah was inspired into her reproductive organs which were triggered on to generate a foetus destined to grow into Jesus Christ. Because his conception was less mediated than the conception of other human beings who had the usual additional mediation of a father, his spirituality was more explicit and pronounced. The reason for such an extraordinary creation was to stun the perennially disrespectful and dismissive Jewish people with the EXPECTED miraculousness of the birth of their last and greatest prophet but it still did not register with most of them when Jesus grew up and called them to Allah. This new show of lack of good faith only increased the Jews’ liabilities and within a generation they met their second epic and greater disaster in that after the first disaster the Babylonian exile and slavery they were now dispersed all over the world after great massacres in the hands of the then invincible Romans. Incidentally, the Ruh blown into Mary was the secret of ‘la ilaha illallah’ which explains how a chaste virgin could conceive, since ‘la ilaha ilallah’ means, among other things, that Allah needs no help from anything or anybody to implement His Will, like producing a boy with no male agency being involved. This humble writer cannot thank Allah enough for inspiring him that the ‘Kalima’/Word Allah blew into Mary was the secret contained in the word ‘la ilaha illallah’.
26. “Angels descend with the RUH (the part of Allah’s Will) on whom Allah wills from among His servants (to the effect that) “Warn that there is no god but I, therefore fear Me” (16: 2)
Another confirmation of and expansion upon the above insight! The Ruh with which the angels descend and impart to a prophet of Allah is the meaning contained in the words “Because there is no will and power other than Allah’s the servants that men are must fear Allah and follow His guidance instead of their vain minds devoid of that guidance”. This again confirms that RUH means ‘meaning’ a meaning laden with value, desire and aim. We must remember that man as a spiritual being rises or falls on the merits of what meaning, value and purpose he ascribes to things, persons and circumstances; let these be realistic and noble and we have a wise man bound to rise and protected from sinking- sinking into disgrace. He may pay with his life for his good choice but in his death is glory, a glory better than a disgraceful survival.
27. Say: The Holy Spirit brought it down from thy Lord with Truth in order to steady those who believe (16: 102)
C: The Word of Allah the Qur’an was brought down to the Prophet thanks to the All-Gracious Purpose of Allah for mankind. This Purpose is embodied in Gabriel the Archangel of Revelation and this angel being so pure it only could carry and deliver the Message of Allah with all its truth intact. Most of the Qur’an, among other blessings, helps to steady the believers. The help is there simply because the All-Gracious Purpose imparted to the believers satisfies their hearts as nothing else can.
28. They are asking thee about the Spirit/Ruh. Say: The Spirit is of part of my Lord’s AMR/Will Implementing Action. You are given little knowledge (of it) (17: 85)
C: Most events in the universe are too routine or automated to need any special facilitators or conscious action by the agents involved. For example water freezes routinely when temperature goes low enough. But many events in which conscious beings like men are involved need some intelligent and purposeful action. Teaching a child moral values is one such action. Unlike teaching morals a child needs not to be taught how to walk but instinctively tries to walk and eventually masters it. Morality cannot be acquired like that. Allah wants His human servants to acquire morality and live happy communal lives thanks to good morality regulating their behaviour. To implement this part of His Will He imparts Spirit, i.e. a knowledge of good and evil and a desire to seek the good, into man’s social life by which each and every member feels the inclination to learn and teach morality. Even criminal gangs have codes of morality except that it applies only to its members while outsiders are fair game for the gang. The Spirit imparted and in fact all spirit is so subtle and intangible that to know about it fully is impossible and man has to grope for his way by trial and error, offering repentance when he commits a wrong and trying again and again to do better.
29. The Trustworthy Spirit brought it down on thy heart for you to become one of the warners (26: 193)
C: Thanks to your utter trustworthiness o Muhammad sws you deserved the descent on you of Allah’s Moral Truth which the Trusted Angelic Messenger of Revelation then transmitted to you. This also means that the whole bulk of morality must be packaged in a material called truthfulness.
30. He (Almighty) the Raiser of Ranks, the Owner of the Throne casts the RUH/Spirit (the noble meaning and purpose behind man’s creation), on whom He wills among His servants for him (the servant) to warn about the Day of Meeting (40: 15)
C: Allah the Most Gracious wants to raise the ranks of perfection of His human servants until they meet Him with shining faces, having accomplished great moral triumphs through many tests and trials. To enable them to attain this greatness He chooses the best servant among them to implement this Will of His. The noble motivation of the chosen prophet is caused by the Spirit (of Allah) when it descends on the prophet and touches down on and settles permanently in the heart of the prophet. He in turn transmits gradations of this Spirit to any willing recipients among his people and both the prophets and the believers he wins begin a gradual process of moral elevation which is terminated when Allah brings them to His most intimate nearness. Amen.
31. They (the sincere and hard working believers) are those on whose hearts Allah wrote/engraved faith and confirmed and supported them by a Spirit/Ruh from Himself (48: 22)
C: Once the believer proves his sincerity with consistency and hard work for Allah He Almighty engraves the true faith on his heart so that it becomes permanently indelible. Allah the Most Gracious and Loyal Friend then imparts them a RUH from Himself, His Own All-Gracious Will for universal and eternal felicity for all who want. Constantly underpinned and underwritten with this Will as their will the believers succeed beyond all expectations despite all odds and attain a happiness no words can describe and no imagination can conceive. Amen.
32. He Who beautified the form of every created thing and began the creation of the human being from mud and continued its offspring from a lowly liquid. He then formed it and blew into it from His Spirit and made for you hearing and sight and heart (consciousness)- how little are you thanking! (32: 7- 9)
C. Since here Adam is not mentioned and the creation of the human being in a general or generic sense must be meant. As such we realise that each and everyone of us are blown into us of Allah’s Spirit directly which imparts us sensory abilities in the context of a personal consciousness with many abilities like reason, thinking, understanding, discovering, inventing and socialising as well as developing morality based on a conscience. All these follow from the Divine Spirit Allah endowed us with upfront.
CONCLUSIONS
Amr than is Allah’s Will, expressed both in the form of a Command and in the form of an accomplished fact which is the implemented aim of the Command. A vital part of this Amr, in fact its main plank is Ruh/Spirit which embodies the ultimate reason behind all Allah’s ‘Amrs’. This reason is Allah’s Loving Mercy which He wants to impart to all His creatures under one form or another. Allah’s RUH is His all-inclusive Mercy and His Amr is His Will which becomes His Command and then His Creation/Work embodying the Mercy!
From the success of the cosmos Allah created, success in the sense that it has been and will most probably survive for inconceivably long times to the success of life in its perhaps hundreds of millions of forms in the sense that despite all odds and overall living species have been doing very well indeed we find Allah’s word “My Loving Mercy included all things” (7: 156) to be true. Even the hunting and devouring of a gazelle by a leopard, despite its terrible-looking features is an act of mercy for both the killer and the killed; the leopard, like all predator is just another innocent actor in nature given the role of population control of the species it is occasionally killing. We men also cull wild animals for wise and merciful purposes so that they do not get overcrowded and die out from starvation and epidemics. Although death itself looks the to be the worst prospect for any living being it is still the most inescapable fate for each and everyone of them simply because in death of one there is life for others and in the case of man death helps the man who dies in that his naturally increasing pains come to an end and if he was a believer in ultimate truths death is then the beginning of his painless eternal happiness. What Allah will do with the unbelievers He told us and we must take care lest we fall in to that category but We can hardly rule out His Mercy towards all, one way or another, but mercy, undeniable mercy all the same. Amen.