Discourses of Rumi

FIHI MA FIHI V 363And whoever does an atom’s weight of goodShall see it,And whoever does an atom’s weight of evilShall see it.”Someone asked a question about the followingquote from the Koran:“God declared:‘I am setting in the earth a viceroy.’The angels said:‘What? Will You set there oneWho does corruption, and sheds blood,While we proclaim Your praise and call You holy?’“Since Adam had not yet come into the world,how could the angels know beforehand that thehuman race would be corrupt and shed blood?”Rumi answered: There are two explanations—one traditional, and the other rational. The traditionalversion says that the angels read from thePreserved Tablet that a people would come forthwho would act like this. The rational version saysthat the angels deduced by reasoning that peoplewould come forth from the earth, and such peoplewould have to bear the qualities of the earth,like animals. Although the spiritual elementwould be present in human beings, namely thatthey could speak, yet since animality would also