Hope!

Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad

Hope is the nature of life; indeed, it is another name among its names. For life has been nothing but a hope realized for its possessor without his will, and no living being has ever existed except as a wish in the unseen conscience, in which advance prevailed over retreat, success over failure, and the law of creation over the chaos of neglect. Thus it is a balanced essence, a sentient soul that appears preceded by hope, driven by hope, and guided by hope. Were it not that hope was the title of nature, no living soul would have found a path to existence.

Have you seen the tiny grain of wheat left where ancient remains are abandoned? Where is it, in its smallness and insignificance, against the elements of doubt surrounding it, and the threats of fear lying in wait for it? The earth weighs upon it with its crust, the winds warn it with their scorching blasts, and above it hangs the sickle of harvest, which has reaped before it ears and grains, nay, tribes and nations, and colors and kinds of life’s growth. What it lacked in every particle of soil was a loud warning, and in every expanse of space a mighty foe.

That grain, had it paused for a moment in its hiding place to weigh its strength against those forces, to divide its body against those masses, to establish its right to grow upon what differences appeared to it, and to build its hope of success upon what befell the perished crops of old—what refuge would it have seen more merciful to its weakness and humiliation than the soil? And what abode more deserving of it than that hidden grave? It is its shelter where it fears nothing, and in the grave the dead are secure!

But hope does not submit to this barren logic. It says to the grain: rise, and it rises; tear your husk, and it tears it; split the earth’s crust, and it splits it; struggle against the winds, and it struggles; attain your share of perfection, and it attains it. Then it becomes a splendid crop, standing firm upon its stalks, delighting the farmers. How blessed is the fortune of the living!

That grain does not consult philosophers, nor heed the counsel of sages.  

It pays no heed to those intellectual leaders who grant their nations the right to live only by measuring their weakness against the strength of opposing forces. They tell their people at every turn: you are frail, and they are mighty. They ridicule the grain for its daring, though if it had shared their caution and hesitation, no plant would ever have risen upon the earth, and humanity itself would have perished of hunger before being born into this reckless, tumultuous world.

O Hope! How much mankind needs you, and how easy your path to them. Thus we have known the most essential needs of the living: air, water, and light. By my life, their need for you is greater, and your path to them easier and nearer. You have carried them beyond the barriers of death, extending for them beyond it a vast canopy in which they delight in expectation before delighting in companionship

You flung open the gates of heaven, and humanity filled them with its beloved and its allies, lifting prayers and thoughts toward that vast expanse until the heights and depths of the universe grew familiar, as though man dwelt within them at the heart of his own home. You became the ordained ether, the unseen element without which no space could exist. Indeed, you are the ether of the soul—for without you, no light would ever shine upon it, nor would the beauty of the heavens wander through its realms.

It was said to one: how is Hell? He replied: a place where there is no hope. And he spoke the truth. For where despair reigns, there is grievous torment and a cursed devil; and where hope resides, there is a paradise of bliss, a revelation from God, and peace.