GOD'S COVENANTS (VERSE NO.7)
At first the verse refers to God's favour or bounty on Muslims, advising them not to forget it. Although the bounty here is used in singular, it can be taken in common gender to mean all kinds of bounties.
The favour here may also mean Islam, which is a wide variety of bounties collected under the title of Islam religion. Islam cleans them spiritually and physically. They were foes, Islam made them friends. They were idolater with many gods and Islam converted them to Monotheists. They were cruel and oppressors in conduct, Islam made them kind and gentle. They were stubborn and savage, and Islam civilized them. These and countless other bounties they may obtain under the light and shade of Islam.
As for the convenant that has been pointed to in this verse, there are two views:-
1) It can be the convenant that the Muslims made with the Messenger of God, in Hudaybeyeh, or it might be the first and the second covenant of Aqabeh, in a vally near Mina, which was ratified some fourteen month before Emigration. Either it might be the tacit obligations that they bore morally when they converted by testifying that there is no God except Allah and that Mohammad S.A. is God's Messenger.
2) The second idea, holds the covenant as the obligations that arise from man's creation and are due to his spiritual or physical nature, and his relations to God. Allah created man, and implanted in him the faculty of knowledge and wisdom. He taught him contemplation and reasoning. He further sent Messengers with Book and teachers for giving line, and guiding them in their individual and public life.
Therefore there is a natural covenant in man's very creation that imposes different obligations upon him. One of the most important Divine obligations is that of his conscience. The covenant of creation or that of the world of particles (atoms) flows through the seeds of the children of Adam, transferring from one to another:-
``When your Lord drew forth from the offspring of Adam, from their loins their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves. God said to them:- `Am I not your Lord?' They said:- `Yes you are.' Lest you say in the day of judgement:- `We were unaware of this status.'' QURطN - S 7:172
By giving the children of Adam the faculty of knowledge, learning, wisdom, contemplation and reasoning, Allah has practically taken convenants from the seeds of Adam and his children, and has laid many obligations on them.
Hazrat Imam Ali (AS), in his first sermon in NAHJULBALAGHA, has called this Divine Covenant as the covenant of Creation. This covenant is also known to the Muslims as the covenant of the world of particles, the world in which man existed in the form of particles and atoms. This covenant consists of, and contains all sorts of obligations that man may bear, and for which he has to answer.
