What Quran Says about Reaching Companionship with God
Seminary scholar Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi Tehrani, in a Quran interpretation session, highlighted some points from Surah Al-Maarij, excerpts from which are as follows:
Surah Al-Maarij begins with the story of a person who asked God send him a punishment. God said the punishment is certain and disbelievers cannot run away from it.
“Someone has demanded to experience the torment (of God), which will inevitably seize the disbelievers.” (Verses 1-2)
It then talks about ranks that God gives people. “From Allah, the Lord of the ways of Ascent. To Him the angels and the Spirit (Gabriel) ascend in a day, the measure of which is fifty thousand years.” (Verses 3-4)
In his Al-Mizan Exegesis of the Holy Quran, Allameh Tabatabaei refers to Maarij as the ranks that the believers reach and ascend to God by believing in the truth and doing good deeds.
Another description by Allameh Tabatabaei for Maarij is reaching the status of companionship with God, a status that can be achieved by having faith and doing good deeds. He stresses that Maarij is a status that the Angels have.
In interpretation of this Surah, Allameh Tabatabaei says that Maarij is a true status not a constructional one.
A constructional status is one that is limited to this world. For example someone who is a president, member of parliament, lawyer, etc, has achieved a position that can be lost at any moment. However, reaching companionship with God is a true status whose positive effects remain forever.
A person who has achieved this spiritual status by doing righteous deeds, can dominate heaven and earth and make the whole world obey him.
Reaching companionship with God is possible when man does not attribute any ability or capacity to himself and reach the belief that everything he has is from God.
Surah Maarij is a Makki Surah (revealed in Mecca) and has 44 verses. It describes the features of the Day of Judgment and the conditions of the disbelievers on that great day. Its names, Maarij, which has been mentioned in verse 4, refers to the place in heavens where the angels ascend.
