Do not envy one another, do not vie against and undercut one another, do not hate one another, do not turn your backs on one another
(Sahih Muslim)
Bigotry, prejudice, exclusivity and hostility – phobias in a variety of shapes and hues – appear to have emerged as the hallmarks of large tracts of humanity. They are no less evident in those who harbour a visceral hatred of Islam than amongst some of our own Muslims who mistake the grist for the wheat – the exoteric contingencies for the cardinal verities. It is one thing to maintain a detached and confident distance of objective criticism; it is quite another to collapse an entire world view – founded upon a universal edifice of purposive spirituality – into an obscurantist pit of regressive rigidity.
To be fair and objective is a divine imperative: “Do not let the hatred of a people cause you to swerve from justice; be just! For that is nearer to God-consciousness (taqwa).” (Q, 5: 8). To be reactionary, on the other hand, is satanic and a mark of spiritual dementia. It is what happens to reductionist ideologues and conspiracy theorists who conflate oceans of human complexity into shallow and tiny puddles of delusional certainty. And so they sit and stare at their little puddles with the full complacency that they have discovered the vastness and diversity of an ocean. Richard Dawkins, in my opinion and paradoxically so, is part of this “god delusion”. We know it all. Yet the Qur’an tells us – and I do not quote this for the edification of those who do not believe in Him (I am not a missionary) – that “Of knowledge we have given you but a little!” (Q,17: 85).
To undo this Pharaonic disease might require a miracle such as the staff of the Prophet Musa (as). Thrice he had to strike with it. Once to cleave a path of liberation across the Red Sea, another to devour the serpents of the Pharoah’s magicians, and a third to elicit the gushing forth of twelve springs of water from a crust of solid rock. But miracles are not for everyone – nor are they often the recommended way. What we need is a yearning to know; and an even greater yearning to know that we do not always know. We need to be blessed with the passion of the seeker – the murid (the one who yearns). For these lessons we need to turn to the likes of Ibn ‘Arabi (ra) – sages we are afraid to face, not because of our fear of God, but because we are afraid to stand face to face with our selves.
My palm grasped my stick, my staff smote my rock;
The river of constellations flowed from it: Twelve heralds!
I said to myself: Oh I! Add constancy to my constancy!
These are the sciences of life, scattering light from all that
grows upon my being.
Where in me does that subtle secret reside that God has
placed within my essences?
(Ibn ‘Arabi: The Universal Tree and the Four Birds)
Rumi (ra) eminently represents the Way of Love (mahabbah) and Beauty (Jamal), and Ibn ‘Arabi (ra) the Way of Majesty (Jalal). While both, simultaneously, have strong undercurrents of each, Ibn ‘Arabi – in typical Ghazalian-esque fashion – articulates the desire to realise the connection between the created order and God in a manner designed to inspire awe and reverence. And so he speaks about the “scattering” of light by the shadows of our existence from the “essence” of his being. But existence itself can be both a veil and an unveiling. This is not so much a question of discursive reason as it is one of vision and experience. The language of reason speaks of commitment and responsibility – the necessary correlatives of our earthly obligations. These reference the sphere of our social existence as attachments qua attachments; and not worldly “attachments” as the antonymous condition of spiritual “detachment”. Islam has dispensed an entire legal framework to ensure that our earthly responsibilities are met and honoured. “Detachment”, on the other hand, is one of spiritual vision and experience. It is one of responsiveness and not one of responsibility. Responsiveness belongs to the realm of the heart – not the discursive faculties. When existence as a combined tellurian and temporal condition eclipses the inherently sacred nature of things – the entelechies, as it were – infused within this fleeting earthly domain, then existence itself becomes a veil. In other words, we become “attached” in the worldly sense. On the other hand, if we open our hearts and minds to the presence of the sacred through purification of the lower self (nafs) and find ourselves responsive to such words of God as: “He is the First and the Last; the Inner and the Outer” (Q, 57:3) and “Whithersoever you turn there is the Face of Allah” (Q, 2: 115) – words that speak of the inherent and divinely ontic nature of things – then the created order in all its paradoxical manifestations of allurements and temptations on the one hand, and beauty and aesthetics on the other, may well act as our “gathering” instead of our “scattering”. And so, through the superficial mists of this earthly domain Ibn ‘Arabi persisted in his soulful yearning where he took to his
…complaining of my passion so that my signs would appear upon my eyelids from the essence of my creation. Then He lavished gathering upon my scattering.
And continues:
My essence conjoined passionately with my essence, for my essence, my whole life long.
[Italics mine. The Universal Tree and the Four Birds]
Even more significantly he states:
When the signs of witnessing were lifted from me and the suffering of spiritual combat was removed, and harmony and succour began to flow through me, I mounted the Buraq[†] of my spiritual aspiration and departed from the cycle of this grief. I fell into the sea of this hylic matter, and beheld the next world and the present one.
[The Universal Tree and the Four Birds]
The created, material order – this “sea…of hylic matter” – is a double-edged phenomenon. In the divine scheme of things, it is deliberately so. It is an “order” that can drag us to the lowest of the low (the asfal al-safalin in Quranic terms), or it can elevate us to the most sublime of heights. In our quest for detachment from the world we do not need to turn our backs on it; we merely need to understand and realise that the diversity that characterises the created order has a symbolic significance that has the potential to powerfully impress upon us the overwhelming presence of the One, the Ahad. Referencing the ontic connection between these two modes of being Allah states:
We shall reveal to them Our symbols, both upon the horizons and within themselves, until it becomes manifest to them that He, indeed, is the Truth. (Q, 41: 53)
In our journey from the periphery to the centre, from diversity to Unity, we do not need to abandon the periphery. We merely need to understand both its significance and location in the hierarchical structure of the cosmic and the meta-cosmic scheme of things – of the mulk and the malakut. William Wordsworth – a great admirer of the Prophet (saw) and who influenced Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Revolt of Islam” – articulates the paradox of our earthly existence in two poems. In the one, whose opening line is also the title of the poem, he says:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
In another – and one of his most famed poems composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey – he states:
…And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
In like manner we may understand the apparent antinomies within the Qur’an where, on the one hand it states “And what is the life of this world other than mere deceptive enjoyment.?” (Q, 3: 185) and, on the other, it urges us to meditate and reflect upon existence through the exhortation: “Do they not reflect upon the camels, how they have been created; and upon the sky, how it has been raised; and upon the mountains, how they have been fixed and set up, and upon the earth, how it has been spread out…?” (Q,88: 17-20). The question is one of perspective and perception.
The Arabic word used to reference “world” in the former verse is dunya (from the root word dana – to be near). In this dunyawi delusion we are amongst those referred to in the Qur’an as Zalimun li Nafsihi – those who have imprisoned our souls in the domain of the mundane and the profane. On the other hand, the objective of the spiritual journey (of suluk) is to gain nearness to Allah – to become of the muqarrabun (another word connoting nearness from the root word qurba, meaning “to be near”). The muqarrabun are those whose hearts have been brought near to Allah. They are the ulul al-bab (the possessors of the inner kernel of knowledge) – those of whom Allah says:
Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, there are signs for a people of profound understanding ( ulul al-bab).
Those who remember Allah, whether standing, sitting, or lying down; and who contemplate the marvels of creation in the heavens and the earth with the full realisation: Our Lord, not in vain have You created all of this! Glory to You! So protect us from the Fire. (Q, 3: 190-1). [Italics mine].
They are those for whom the doors of inner perception – at the very core of their hearts – have opened. For them, diversity is a liberation and not a limitation. For them, to unleash bigotry and hatred against the “other” while claiming to worship a merciful Creator is tantamount to the radiant fluorescence of a rose denying the vitalising sap of its roots. While the roots cannot rival the rose in its beauty, the rose cannot find its beauty without its sap. In the eye of the intractable exoterist the roots remain relentlessly buried and disowned. This is lucidly expressed by the metaphor of the shajara tayyiba (the “wholesome tree”) and the kalima tayyiba (the “wholesome word”) in the Qur’an. The kalima tayyiba as the Qur’an declares, is
As a wholesome tree whose root is firmly fixed and whose branches reach into heaven.
It brings forth its fruit at all times by the permission of its Lord. (Q, 14: 24-5).
We notice here the function of figurative speech – and of the metaphor in particular – in delivering a wealth of meanings to explicate a reality that pulses with the immediacy of experience. While literal understandings have their uses, their hegemony in exegetical exercises must be challenged. These hegemonies, these barriers to the heart and mind, must be transcended. There is the false notion in counter-Traditionalist thinking that the admission of majaz (metaphors) in the Qur’an is prohibited. These views are promulgated by people who often suffer a serious paucity in their own understanding of literature and language. This notion is reinforced by the equally false notion that literal meanings (and their accompanying denotations) are free from ambiguity. So it is in the zahir – the external, the outer, the literal – meanings, and the zahir alone that they seek their understanding. This approach is inspired by the oftentimes incorrigibly incorrect idea that the literal word or sentence is free of ambiguity. In Traditional and classical approaches, the assumed literal meanings were the default point of departure; but they were not regarded as the summum bonum of what the divine word possibly meant. And so we have a wealth of interpretations within that Tradition – the mesmerically profound and the fabulously superficial. Moreover, ambiguities within the literal word or sentence may even have fatal consequences. A telling modern example is that of a British court ruling during the 1950s that dealt with the case of a young man named Derek Bentley and his friend Chris Craig. Craig was in possession of a gun at the time of Derek’s arrest. The dispute resulted from an order Derek gave to his friend when he said: “Let him have it Craig.” Craig whipped out his gun, shot and killed the policeman. The question in court was whether Derek meant “Let the policeman have the gun” or “Shoot the policeman.” The jury voted in favour of the latter and Derek was hanged. Craig was too young to be executed. This case is still a sensitive matter of moral debate[‡]. The point is that there is nothing metaphorical about the sentence “Let him have it.” Given factors such as context, ambiguity, allusion and cognitive content, the apparent monovalency of the literal word or sentence was usually considered with the overarching universe of the multivalent metaphor in mind. This was the case with much of Traditional exegetical exercises. We may seek our comfort in literal meanings but the consequences, at times, could be devastating. We are also reminded here of the story – more hilarious than devastating though – of a companion of the Prophet (saw) who interpreted the verse referencing the fast: “And eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct from the black” (Q, 2: 187) by tying two strings of white and black threads to the toes of his two feet and then settled down in the dark to watch when the one would become distinct from the other. The Prophet had to remind him that it was the white and black “threads” of the skyline at dawn he had to observe. More problematic, of course, is when we attempt to apply the a somewhat troubled, anthropomorphic literalism to the Qur’anic verse “All things will perish except the Face of Allah.” (Q, 28: 88).
Returning to our metaphor of the “wholesome word” and “the wholesome tree”, the efficacy of Qur’anic text lies in the realisation that its text qua text is not a mere facsimile, or simulacrum, of an undifferentiated supernal reality. The reach of the branches and leaves of this tree is universal and represents the wonders of the diversity of God’s creation. By the same token, these wonders lie obscure and obfuscated in the minds of those who have chosen the way of bigotry, of revelling in division and divisiveness, and of a compulsive focus on worldly power and other allurements of the dunya while pompously speaking in the name of religion. These hold true for all those who speak in the name of the Qur’an, the Bible, the Torah and all other sacred texts.
Those who persist in reading the universality of the sacred text of the Qur’an in a narrowly exclusivist and selective way have chosen to remain as inmates of their dunyawi delusion. And so Allah emphatically questions this stubbornness, this refusal to embrace and recognise the spiritual richness and moral generosity that lie deeply embedded within all human creatures – for creatures (as created miracles ) of God we are. For it is us, as humans, in our sublunar existence, who have reduced the Word of God to mere communication and have demonstrably – through our limitations – shown a complete lack of understanding of the Word of God as creational revelation viz. a creation that is reflexive of an infinitude that is exegetically inexhaustible. The Qur’anic language is profoundly metaphorical – it lives, it breathes, it inspires. It is through God’s Word “Kun! – Be!” (Q, 2: 177) that all creation was brought into existence. The command prefigures – or adumbrates – the inexhaustible divine narrative articulated in the verse:
Say: If the ocean were ink for the words of my Lord, then the ocean would be exhausted before the words of my Lord, even though we brought the like thereof to help. (Q, 18: 109).
By its own testimony the Qur’an reminds us that while the word of Allah in the Qur’an – as recited text – is the perfect word, it is, nonetheless, not the complete word. It can never be, for the creational Word is both ineffable and inexhaustible. It is our earthly vocation to strive for perfection in this world. “Today” the Qur’an states “I have perfected for you your religion.” (Q, 5: 3). On the other hand, it is our spiritual vocation to embark on a journey of gaining nearness to Allah; and it is through the power and fluidity of the metaphor – forever stretching the horizons of our understanding and imagination – that we are allowed to undertake this journey of ever-unfolding realms of spiritual ascensions that lie at the centre of humankind’s deepest yearnings. We are forever longing for something greater than ourselves. It is at this level that unilocular literalism fails – and fails abysmally. The literalist is merely interested in communicating rules and regulations – a world both confined and claustrophobic. The outlook is a mechanistic caricature of the human being’s subordination to his/her own self-imposed limitations – and, in addition, to reduce others to their own narcissistic self-impositions. In this world of literalism there is an absence of, or an incapacity to behold and embrace, the finer and subtler edges of language – the ironies, the metonyms, the allegories, the sublime echoes of the metaphor; in short there is a failure to recognise that the Word of God is eminently creational as substantiated by the word “Kun”. The Word of God creates; that of the human names. This process of naming is an attempt to insubstantiate; to infuse and invest meaning in an order of creation vitalised by the Word of God – and not named by Him. “And God taught Adam the names of all things.” (Q, 2:31). Yet it was not in the naming of things that he gained his originally sublime station – he had witnessed the First Order of creation before he was taught the names. And before he was taught to communicate he inhabited the as yet un-named Edenic bliss of the Garden – the product of the creational Word of God. And he and Hawwa stood naked in the presence of God for they had no names with which to label, to classify, or to pronounce upon. There was only pure being – a purity that met its greatest challenge and nemesis in the “forbidden tree.” And it has since been the spiritual purpose of all the sages and saints to return to that nameless state of unadulterated and pure being represented in the first incarnation of the Edenic state. In our earthly sojourn – after the great expulsion – the greatest challenge has been to reclaim this inner Edenic state that resides, by virtue of Divine providence, within the hearts of every human being. And so we are referred to as Bani Adam (the Tribe Of Adam) to remind us of our original fitra – the original primordiality of the human condition. So that during our lifetimes our lineage is ascribed to our fathers, and, when we die, while lying in our graves, the Death Sermon ascribes our lineage to our mothers. We arrive into this lesser earthly domain with our lineage ascribed to our fathers and depart from it to the higher celestial domain with our lineage ascribed to our mothers.
Yet all the while during this earthly sojourn we pride ourselves on an ultraprecise naming of objects and imagine that we have excavated the meanings of life that reference the heart of all things. And so we mistake the ostensible importance of the profane for the sacred. And deep within the god-like insubstantiation of our hyperactive egos we imagine that we have stumbled upon the complete Word of God – without, needless to say, understanding either.
And so we plod – with self-righteous verve and vigour – along our zealous and violent paths of destruction and spiritual nihilism. When we are invited to observe and glorify the beauty of the diversity of this world we pronounce kufr (unbelief) and reprehensible innovation (bid’a) upon all which does not find a correspondence – or a home – within the narrow dormitories of our compulsive naming. We easily forget that the charge of kufr (unbelief) against another is no less serious than the kufr of denial, the kufr of marginalisation and the kufr of contempt against the perceived “other”. We also forget that the charge of kufr – particularly against a fellow Muslim – is a charge against the Divine Word of Allah, and so it is that the hadith is quite emphatic that if one lays the charge of unbelief against another that either of the two must be an unbeliever. One could either be right, or, worse still, one could be wrong, and hence pronounce a declaration of kufr upon oneself. This is the nature of the takfir circus: one could either utter a word of truth, even in jest, as is the wont of clowns; or one could have one’s head ripped off in the jaws of a lion – if one is not careful.
It comes as no surprise therefore, that to pour scorn upon the rest of God’s creation is tantamount to what God refers to as an “evil word”:
And the similitude of an evil word is as an evil tree uprooted from the earth and has no stability. (Q, 14: 26)
The “tongue” as the Prophetic traditions maintain, is the source of the greatest evil and mischief. In the majestic amphitheatre of God’s creation and upon the resplendent canvass of His Artistry, we scandalise the “Word” of God in both our refusal to listen and in our abnegation of diversity. Most aptly we find in Surat al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage) God, the Most High, asking:
Have they not travelled through the land, and have they not hearts receptive to wisdom, and ears with which to listen? For indeed, it is not the eyes, but the hearts within the breasts that grow blind. (Q, 22: 46).
It is through a pilgrimage of the heart that we come to honour and magnify the symbols (sha’a’ir) of God. It is only through hearts enlarged and enlightened by an intense consciousness of Him – through taqwa – that we are able to appreciate and respect the diversity of the divine canvass. Beyond this, God has prohibited injustice upon himself, and likewise prohibited it amongst ourselves. The gravity of this condition lies in Him prohibiting it upon Himself. A veiled warning more than dire against despots, tyrants and belligerent extremists – those censorious impostors who speak in the name of their god-selves while they claim to speak in the name of God. Whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or whatever. In the eye of the fanatic one is either with them or against them. Not even God speaks in a language of such benighted binaries. It appears as a matter of pure providence that, in one way or another, fanatics always lose. They either lose their humanity or they lose the battle.
Far removed from this condition of implosive and insensate insecurities are the inspiring Qur’anic implorations to encounter His creational Word with awe, respect and a refined sense of all things aesthetic – whether of the natural or the human order. These implorations may flow from the Qur’an as commands – as recountered earlier – or they may flow as descriptions. Says the Qur’an:
Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky? With it We then bring forth produce of various colours. And among the mountains are tracts white and red, of various hues, and (others) raven-black.
And so amongst people, and crawling creatures and cattle, are they of various colours. Those truly fear Allah amongst His servants who have knowledge, for Allah is exalted in Might, oft forgiving. (Q, 35: 27-8).
The human order too, is further revealed in a frame of reverential diversity:
And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours. Indeed herein are signs for those who have knowledge. (Q, 30:22).
Throughout the Qur’an – and beyond these commands and descriptions – are revealed a constellation of human typologies almost unparalleled in the genre of sacred literature. There are those described as being unjust to themselves (zalimun li nafsihi), those of a balanced disposition (muqtasidin) and those who are amongst the foremost in spirituality (sabiqun). In addition, there are those described as the ashab al-mash’ama (the people of the left hand), the ashab al-maymana (the people of the right hand), the sabiqun as-sabiqun (the foremost of the foremost) and the muqarrabun (those drawn near to God). There are also a special category of those beloved to Him: the muhsinun (those of spiritual excellence), the tawwabun (the repenters), the mutatahhirun (the spiritually purified), the muttaqun (the intensely God-conscious), the sabirun (the people of endurance and patience), the mutawakkilun (those faithfully but actively reliant on God) and the muqsitun (those who are just and fair). Along with these we encounter a host of contrarieties such as the munafiqun (hypocrites), the kafirun (deniers and unbelievers), and zalimun (oppressors). Indeed there are many more. Yet generically all humans are referred to as the khulafa (vicegerents) of Allah on earth. As khulafa and particularly as khulafa with the ever-present potential for tawba (repentance, reformation and change) we are either promising children of the moment or providential gifts of the future. In other words, the ever-present nafs al-insan (soul of the human) is perpetually exposed to the redeeming and liberating nafasa r-Rahman (the Breath of the Merciful).
While Islam holds no prisoners, we may yet allow ourselves to be haunted by the demons of the past, which is an injustice in itself; or, far worse, try to hold others accountable for theirs. These may either be the demons of our own sins and errors, or those of others. Much more terrifying, however, is to unleash our inner demons of bigotry, hostility and self-righteous anger upon the very order that God has created in a state of original innocence and designed to embrace purity, goodness, virtue and wisdom:
So turn your being to religion and follow the natural disposition according to which Allah has created humanity. There is no altering the nature created by Allah. This is the right religion, but most people does not know. (Q, 30: 30).
Indeed the pristine and primordial nature of things cannot change, but they can be rejected. An understanding of this primal condition of creation – including its manifested aspect of outer diversity – requires not only observation and reflection, but also the realisation and absorption of its inner symbolic meanings. We need to understand that the “outer” and the “inner” – the zahir and the batin respectively – of God’s inflected creational Word act as complementarities that unremittingly urge us to seek both the Beauty and Majesty of His uniqueness through the diversity of His Divine creative act. And this is an act that is in a state of flux and change for as long as creation continues to exist. Says Allah:
Say: “Are there any of the partners you associate with Allah who can originate creation and then reproduce it?” Say: “It is Allah who originates creation and then renews it. How then are you deluded from the Truth?” (Q, 10: 34).
The thread that binds the splendour of diversity into the ultimate goal of the realisation of unity and unicity is the unchanging, unalterable fitra within which the created order is cast – that pure, spiritually nurturing womb within which everything resides and grows. And so it is that every child is “born on his/her fitra.” It is the discursive mind that comprehends change; it is the heart that connects with the sapient stability of the fitra. These verses, amongst others, speak of a God that rejects the reductionism of myopic binaries – the reductionism of creation into a spiritually and socially corrosive “we” and “they”; or, more emphatically, into a demonic division of a belligerent acknowledgment of, and acquiescence to, the ideas of ghayr (“other”) and ghayriyyyah (“otherness”) as expressed by Shaykh Yusuf of Macassar. Or we could choose the path of la ghayriyyah (a rejection of a divisive sense of “otherness”), of God the Creator Who is neither of the East nor of the West, and so connect with the Light:
God is the Light
Of the heavens and the earth.
The similitude of God’s Light
Is like a niche within which is a lamp,
The globe of glass as if it were a shining star;
Lit from a blessed olive tree
Neither of the East or the West,
Its Light nearly luminous
Even though fire did not touch it.
Light upon Light!
God guides to this Light
Whomever God will:
And God gives people examples,
And God knows all things. (Q, 24: 35)
Or we could choose to mire ourselves in the veil of “ghayriyyah” and sink into
…the darknesses
In an ocean deep and vast
covered by waves billowing upon waves
and above them clouds.
Darkness, one on top of another.
If one stretched out a hand ,
One would hardly see it.
And whoever God gives no Light
Shall have no Light at all. (Q, 24: 40).
The former verse represents the essence and way of the fitra, eminently represented in the Divine Himself; the latter the way of fitna (rebellion in all its forms and particularly against the spiritual).
Nonetheless, as Muslims we ought not to be remiss in recognising our blessings, for the blessings of God are indeed innumerable. “And if you would count the favours of Allah you would not be able to enumerate them.” (Q, 14: 34). We also have a sacred Tradition – despite the rampant materialism of our contemporary age – embodied in the hearts of those sages and saints through whom waves of timeless and unceasing barakah continue to animate the shores of our present times with regaling sprays of a living spirituality. Those of us who are mere lovers of the Lovers of God may be thankful for that. Even during our bleakest moments we are required not to despair. “Do not despair of Allah’s Mercy, for Allah forgives all sins” (Q, 39: 53) – particularly so in contemporary times. While totalitarian rejectionism is not the way of Traditionalism – its defining features are measured consideration, balance and equilibrium – yet there can be little doubt that modernity has ushered in a formidable potential for destruction, a tormented consumerist addiction along with its associated fear of materialist failure, and a trenchant capacity for decentring the sacred from the lives of individuals and communities on a scale unparalleled in history. We may colonise the moon, or we may colonise Mars, but as long as we ignore the heart we will remain enslaved to the lower self. Said the Prophet (saw):
Indeed, Allah has receptacles from amongst the people of the earth, and the receptacles of your Lord are the hearts of His righteous slaves; and the most beloved of them to Him are the most benign and gentlest ones. (at-Tabarani). [Italics mine].
He (saw) also warned: “Beware of extremism (ghuluww) in religion, for it is extremism that has destroyed those before you.” (Nas’ai, Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal). The ways of darkness and spiritual myopia are many. The blameworthy attributes of that subaltern existence have been lucidly listed by Imam al-Ghazali in his Ihya Ulum al-Din. Amongst them he counts the following: tahawwur (recklessness), jumud (indifference), jawr (tyranny), hamq (foolishness), badhkh (conceit), istishata (quick to anger), takabbur (pride), ‘ujb, (vainglory), hirs (greed), waqaha (obscenity) tabdhir (extravagance), riya’ (ostentation), hasad (mailicious envy) and shamata (malice)[§]. These are amongst the attributes that have found a defiant home in many contemporary extremists today. It behoves us to note, however, that extremism in Islam is not merely to be an obnoxious fanatic, it is to declare war against destiny itself. In the domain of the Divine there is just not one single predetermined destiny; there are multiple destinies – destinies that may be altered through prayers. Said the Prophet (saw): “Nothing can deflect the course of destiny except prayers.” (at-Tirmidhi).
We need to hold onto the rope of hope (raja’) and, in deference to the Divine command, keep the bane of despair firmly interned in the trenches of bad faith. In the sacred scheme of things, however, we need to acknowledge the reality of choice: to either choose the path of liberation and enlightenment – the way of the fitra; or to choose that path imprisoned in an abyss of mindless bigotry – the way of fitna, the way of discord and self-destruction. In our acknowledgment of that reality though, and along with an acknowledgement of the efforts of those who are striving to protect a heritage of a purposive and all-embracing spiritual grace, we should also never forget the power of prayer.
[†] The Celestial Steed upon which the Prophet Muhammad (saw) travelled from Makkah to Bayt al-Maqdis in Jerusalem during his Mi’raj (Night Journey).
[‡] Van den Brink-Budgeon, Roy 2010 Critical Thinking for Students. Howtobooks: Cambridge. p.7. This is a highly controversial case though and has been debated extensive both in the media and the by the legal fraternity.
[§] Extracted from Winter T.J (Trans) 1995 Al-Ghazali On Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires. Islamic Texts Society: Cambridge. pp. 20-1.
Salams
My God, this is an excellent article! I have embraced Islam fairly recently. I have also been following developments at the Alliance of the Middle Way. God willing, scholars such as these along with Sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Sheikh Abdallah bib Bayyah and others will lead our Muslims into the 21st Century.
With people like these there is hope. Thank you so much for the post.
Salaam.
Impressive Sheik, very impressive. I definitely second bro Clyde on his remark. It took a while but it was worth reading every line alghamdulillah. Your students must be blessed to have a teacher like you.
Salams
Upon reading this posting do not be surprised to find that you have probably never before seen such clarity of thought and expression together with breadth of knowledge. This is a great read which will make you appreciate the true essence of Islam.
I only wish the general public could be shown the true meaning of this stainless teaching. As in all religions, the real purpose is to purify oneself of ignorance & self grasping. An amazing read
Peace upon those who follow right guidance!
Shukran to you Sheikh,
After reading this i can only Shuqr Allah for honouring me to be one of Your mureeds.
I do not have the words to thank you enough, for your amazingly vast knowledge that you so eagerly love To share with your mureeds.
May Allah reward you abundantly and grant you the best of good health, wealth and that everlasting wisdom to Teach us the way to Islam and be with us for many, many more years to come, Insha Allah, Ameen.
Salam and Regards
Abdeyah
Reblogged this on journeytoithaca.
shukran yaa sheigh.all teachers of azaawiyah says the same.die ghak sal nooit verander nie.student of sheigh Magedie and in particular sheigh ghazeem for close to 20years till his time of departure.once again thank you.we still blessed