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altitude, the dazzling palace looked absolutely amazing. I desired to
continue to enjoy the view from above. In order to do so, I hovered
around it a couple of times. It then occurred to me that Saleh was
waiting for me, so I decided to land. The vehicle or one could call it
‘
Sheesh Mahal
’ – ‘a palace of mirrors’, slowly landed in the area where
Saleh was waiting for me.
Saleh greeted me with a loud chuckle as I got off the vehicle and
said:
“I thought you mistook this palace for the Throne and started to do
Tawáf around it. It is good that you didn’t go around seven times!”
Saleh’s interesting comment also made me laugh, as I moved
forward to embrace him. Separating himself from me, he said:
“Would you like to view your palace or would you rather eat first?”
“I am captivated by the beauty of this place. I could never imagine
that beauty could take such shape and form.” I replied.
“Abdullah, whatever you see till the Grand Gathering at the Court is
what the Qur’an had referred to as ‘
Nuzul
’, meaning just a welcoming
present. What you will receive after the gathering will be something no
one has ever seen, heard, or imagined.”
“You are correct, Saleh. These things have been mentioned in the
Qur’an and sayings ascribed to the last Prophet
PBUH
Saleh replied, “The reason for that is that the picture of Paradise
painted in the Qur’an was in the context of what Arabs at the time of its
revelation considered to be the ultimate expressions of luxury and
enjoyment. So, the things considered particularly luxurious by them
were mentioned in the book. But it would be foolish to think that
Paradise is limited only to those luxuries.”
. However, Paradise
is different from the description in Qur’an. I mean it is way more
beautiful than what was mentioned in the book.”
“I agree. It would have been difficult for the Arabs of that time to
even imagine the luxuries that were invented in my era, called the
Information Age. Therefore, Qur’an focused on the ideas of welfare and
extravagance imaginable by a man living in the Agricultural Age. But my
friend, the vehicle I just used surpassed even my wildest imagination.”
“You will come across many things that will have the same effect.
Anyway, what are your immediate plans?”
Ignoring his question, I started to look around at the beautiful
surroundings. I wanted to absorb the details of everything around me
through my eyes.
When Saleh noticed my distraction, he said jokingly:
“Perhaps you are looking for the Maidens? They came out to
welcome you but now they have gone back to their homes. However, if
you wish…”
Before Saleh could complete his sentence, I replied earnestly:
“In my time, there were two major ideological leaders of mankind.
One was Karl Marx, who considered stomach and hunger as the most
important reality and motivator in life; while the second was Freud who
deemed...”
I left the sentence incomplete and paused for a moment.
Saleh chuckled loudly.
Smelling the strong aroma of roasted meat, I added, “And at this
point in time, I intend to follow the lead of the great Karl Marx.”
===============
In the world, lives of all humans were spent as slaves of time. The
wheel of time moved forward passing through seconds and minutes,
hours and days, and months and years. Changing seasons depicted the
passage of time. However, in this new world, time was enslaved to
human beings. The time as measured in seconds, hours, months, years,
decades, centuries and millennia was no more. The days when time
would pass one by were gone, like the days bygone.
The only remnants of time left behind were the various times of day
and the seasons. Even those were under one’s control. Different parts
of this empire ruled by the human beings had different weathers and
times of the day, and all at the same time. Therefore, there were places
where the morning twilight was present throughout; in other parts, the
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