DEEDS THAT ARE MIRAGES

    The argument has now turned from light, towards darkness; and again to the believers who prosper, and to the non-believers who are afflicted in utter darknesses, for rejecting the light of reality and truth.

      The word revolves around a poor thirsty, and meanwhile ignorant traveller in a wide desert, who is in need of a glass of cold water, but actually goes after a mirage:ِ

      ``As to the non-believers, their deeds are such as a mirage....''

      The man, dying of thirst, sees the mirage as a lake of standing water; but when he comes to it, finds nothing there!

      In fact, we have a metaphor here to show us that; he who rejects faith and ignores the light of God, he will be led to utter darknesses.

      Darkness is not an entity by itself. It rather is the absence or the nullity of light. Darkness is falsehood, and light is the truth. Then the state of a person who refuses to use the light of truth, is somehow the like of a thirsty man, who runs after water in a hot and barren desert; from a distance he sees the mirage which seems to him like a lake; in which water stands glittering. When he rushes on, and comes near; he finds nothing at all! Thirst is the truth which is still with him, and the illusory things which are like mirages which he has worked for, will lead him to his destruction. He has to die of thirst, because power, wealth, and luxuries, will not satisfy the spiritual thirst of Man. So, anyone who leaves light and lives in the darkness, he deserves all sorts of afflictions and misfortune.

WHAT IS THE MIRAGE?

      MIRAGE is an illusion of land or water where none exists. By definition; it is an effect caused by total reflection of light at the upper surface of shallow layers of hot air in contact with the ground, the appearance being that of pools of water in which are seen inverted images of more distant objects.

      The mirage usually happens near horizon, and is caused by non-uniform atmospheric refraction of light. The most common is the WATER MIRAGE that has decieved so many desert travellers. It occurs over land that is warmer than the overlying air. Light travels faster in the lighter and warmer air near the surface, than in the progressively cooler air above. The effect is to curve the light upward. Light from the sky appears to come from below the horizon, producing the illusion of a lake of standing water. This type of mirage also occurs over water that is warmer than the overlying air.

1ِCHAMBERS DICTIONARY OF SCIENCE

2ِATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH, BY: J.H.RUSH

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

      In the second metaphor, the likeness of the deeds of the non-believers, is said to be comparable to the darknesses in the depths of a great sea:ِ

      ``Or like darknesses in depths of a vast ocean, covered with wave over wave, above which are clouds.''

      So much so that he who has been afflicted in such a darkness, when stretches out his hand, he is almost unable to see it.

      The light of reality and truth in our life is the light of faith, without which all the space around us will be dark. Irrecoverably dark. Dark even amid the blaze of noon!

      The three kinds of darknesses that are mentioned herein this verse; may refer to the darkness of deed.

      Some commentators have understood them to be the darknesses that are stages of ignorance. That is to say:ِ

      1ِThey don't know, and yet do not know that they don't know.

      2ِThey don't know, and yet they think they know.

      3ِThey don't know, but are aware of their ignorance.