A MINUTE ILLUSTRATION OF TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD (VERSE NO. 17)

      The style of the Holy Qurän, and its mode of expressing thought in language, and exhibiting the spiritual and physical matters, is sometimes through striking parables, some of which are found in the above verse (NO.17). It begins with:ِ

      ``Allah sent down water from the sky.''

      The life giving water which is the source of all movements will flow in different channels and beds according to their capacities. Some form great streams or rivers which may irrigate big pieces of farm lands. Some are clear crystalline brooks coming out of springs so good to drink.

      The heavy rain keeps the rivers and valleys in flood which carries the scum that has only a great show on top of the flood. The scum is not only found on the top of the floods. The metal ores too, when heated to melt is covered with scum for having a lot of impurities, but the fire will separate the gold from the dross.

  This parable of water and scum that can induce general conception, has a likeness to truth and falsehood. The scum will not last on the top of the water, and that which profits man like water itself will remain in the earth, just as the falsehood vanishes and the truth looms and remains.

      God may test His servants through difficulties and ups and downs of life to make known what is vain and useless and what is valuable and useful. God's Grace and Mercy is like the rain which all can receive it. It rains equally over fertile and barren lands through which the garden will produce fruit and flower, but the barren and salty soil gives out nothing, or at the best it may produce some thorn.

SOME POINTS TO NOTE

The recognition of truth and falsehood, which is the knowing of realities and imaginations, may sometimes create difficulties and complexities for man. Quran give some sigmne for truth and falehood so that one may know them easier. Some of the signs are as follows:

A- Truth is always useful like the clean, clear, crystal water that springs out of a spring, where as falsehood is always useless and vain.

B- Falsehood is very noisy, showy, pretentious, futile, and it is characterized by ostentation, while the truth is noiseless, humble, heavy, meaningful and active.

C- The truth is self - reliant, but falsehood takes reputation and validity from truth.

D- Falsehood apears in many forms, and in various guises in different languages.

E- In the avove verse we read that: - "Only those things willremain that profit man, and those things which are useless like the scum will be out casst." The parable of truth and falsehood likened to water and scum is not confined in time and space, and it comes true every where and every time in vavious forms.