Allah created a sense for beauty in the souls of humans. However, this disclosure and the development of aesthetic understanding is directly related to faith and occasion of his mind won by his faith. Maturation of a person’s faith and his or her longing for paradise, increases the pleasure one gets from the beauties by the will of Allah.
Allah has informed us about the beauty and the aesthetic understanding of the environment in heaven which is promised to sincere believers in the Qur’an. As the verses inform us, Almighty Allah equipped paradise with blessings which the human soul is loves and is mostly affected by. Allah created people in “beautiful appearance”, in an instinct to enjoy all kinds of beauty, aesthetics and art.
A believer takes great pleasure when he sees similar environments in paradise as places in this world and gives thanks to Allah for these blessings.
Human Spirit Takes Pleasure from the Natural Beauties
The human spirit takes indescribable pleasure from the beauties of the nature, numerous different types of flowers, unique view of green leaves, and landscapes. Natural beauty and the greenery of lands are the wonderful blessings of paradise. It is antoher beauty that it is placed nearby the mansions and shadows, inside gardens and springs. Here are some other characteristics of paradise from information in the Quran:
Paradise has a pleasant climate which is informed by another verse “... neither burning sun nor bitter cold... ” (Al-Insan, 13) that never discomforts people. Heat that makes people sweat or swelter doesn’t belongs to there. Allah will place the believers “into cool, refreshing shade.” in the paradise. (An-Nisa’, 57)
“Refreshing shade” expression in this verse signs that all media and conditions in paradise would be willed by people and would make people comfortable and be prepared to comfort people, provide a real sense of satisfaction for the human soul. Everything and every place in paradise would be “after one’s own heart” for a Muslim.
One of the natural beauties that Allah mostly gave news in the verses related to paradise is the “outpouring water”(s) (Al-Waqi‘a, 31) Human spirit takes great pleasure from water, especially flowing water. A lake, stream, waterfall or a river falling through the forest gives great pleasure to people. Images and sounds of flowing water give peace and comfort to the human heart. Images and sounds of water falling from high above gives pleasure to the soul. Aim of the palaces, mansions or ponds which are made in the gardens of the mansions, pools and fountains or the natural rivers all comes from this aesthetic longing.
Main reason that these images are aesthetically pleasing is that the spirit of a believer had created compatible to paradise. This beauty is described in another verse as below:
“In them are two gushing springs.” (Ar-Rahman, 66)
Human Spirit Takes Pleasure from the Beautiful Sounds
Another beauty that awakes beautiful feelings in the human soul are sounds. Reason why the music has a very important place in every era is the deep effect that makes in the human soul. The human soul takes great enthusiasm, excitement and pleasure from beautiful human voices, as well as a ripple of flowing water.
The Human spirit takes pleasure from the beautiful voices but has trouble with the negative images, and distorted and negative sounds. Excessive sharp, noisy music playing, in a noisy environment, a high sound of an engine running or a siren sound can make the environment disturbing in little time. The Sound of thunder, a storm, sounds like screaming also cause disturbance in the human soul. And these are the natural reactions of men to what hell might sound like. Almighty Allah informs us about some of the sounds of hell in the Qur’an as below:
When they are flung into it they will hear it gasping harshly as it seethes. (Al-Mulk, 7)
“There will be sighing for them in it and they will not be able to hear.” (Al-Anbiya’, 100)
Human Spirit Takes Pleasure from Spiritual Cleanliness
Cleanliness is one of Allah’s predication and it is most appropriate attitude for the souls of the believers and their creations. Therefore, the cleanliness they fervently pursue as when prayer gives, is a great pleasure and comfort to the believers.
Cleanliness understanding of Islamic moral values is very different from the understandings of a society living away from the religious moral values. First of all, cleanliness is lived in soul. Fully getting away and purifying from all of the behaviours, patterns and life styles which are not suitable for the morality of the Qur’an. Man who has a spiritual cleanliness draws away all kinds of evil from his mind and conscience. He never has ugly feelings such as hatred, jealusy, cruelty, selfishness that people who are unaware of the moral values of the Qur’an live by seeing them as extremely regular feelings. He has a high moral values. Therefore, Muslims do not only give importance to their external appearances, they also give importance for the cleanliness which they live in their souls.
Bright, spacious and aesthetically furnished, clean environments which Allah gives to men as blessings reflect the balanced and peaceful spiritual structure of a person and make positive influence on the other side. The dark, gloomy, asynchronous and distributed environment gives trouble to the human spirit whether he realises it or not.
Human Spirit Takes Pleasure from Beautiful Morality
Beautiful morality gives the most pleasure to human spirit. Morals of the Qur’an is the synthesis of all of the beautiful features which Allah informs that He is pleased with. These lofty morals include such things as sacrifice, being considerate, ccompassion, loyalty, honesty, justice, loving, beautiful candor, docility, peace, brotherhood, tolerance, and understanding.
For example, people love and respect a person who gives his or her meal to poor people although he is himself in need. Similarly honesty is one of the occasions that directs the spirit to positive feelings. Because people feel love and intimacy for the people who are honest and have beautiful morals. Allah created the human soul to have love and affection for beautiful morals.
Excellent Results are for the Ones Who Have Taqwa
Single responsibility of a person for all of the beauties that Allah gives him as appealing to the human spirit is properly giving thanks to Allah and to live a life which Allah is pleased with. The beautiful results which believers take on the day of judgement and the punishment which unbelievers will face is informed in a verse as:
“What is the Garden promised to those who have taqwa like? It has rivers flowing under it and its foodstuffs and cool shade never fail. That is the final fate of those who have taqwa. But the final fate of the unbelievers is the Fire.” (Ar-Ra‘d, 35)
