6 Preface يا أَيُّهَا الإِنسانُ إِنَّكَ كادِحٌ إِلىٰ رَبِّكَ كَدحًا فَمُلاقيهِYusuf AliO thou man! Verily thou art ever toiling on towards thy Lord—1 painfully toiling,—but thou shalt meet Him. This life is ever full of toil and misery, if looked at as empty of the Eternal Hope which Revelation gives us. Hence the literature of pessimism in poetry and philosophy, which thinking minds have poured forth in all ages, when that Hope was obscured to them. “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” “To each his suffering; all are men condemned alike to groan!” It is the noblest men that have to “scorn delights and live laborious days” in this life. The good suffer on account of their very goodness: the evil on account of their Evil. But the balance will be set right in the end. Those that wept shall be made to rejoice, and those that went about thoughtlessly rejoicing, shall be made to weep for their folly. They will all go to their account with God and meet Him before His Throne of Judgment.