Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

“Oh Allah. Make my best day be the Day of Judgment- the Day I meet You.

Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim.
Alhamdulillahi rabbil Alameen. Ameen.
–

Some brief thoughts and links.

PBS aired a documentary on this you can watch to get an idea of the shocking nature of concern related to technology. You can watch it here.

They talked about how young children can’t distinguish between virtual and real world…so if they see themselves swimming with dolphins in virtual reality- they think one week later that was real. They showed how people die from video games, how video games are used by the US Army to recruit teens, and unmanned airplanes are used like video games in Iraq, and how Second Life is used for business meetings so people rarely ever talk to each other in person. It’s sickening.

My concern is our sisters who are stuck at home overuse the Internet and I’m wondering what implication that will have. One brother mentioned they need to get their “kicks” somehow…so they sisters live through the Internet. I know how heavily sisters use the web, via forums and twitter and Facebook (even without their pics) and how easily they can pose as someone else. Of course, sisters may not misbehave at all, but even then the danger is there of how easily photos get moved around. I don’t know what sisters think, so if they want to comment, I’d love to hear it. My 2 cents is technology exacerbates modesty into desperation, digging that desperation deeper because they lack a real world experience, and instead take the online or media view on relationships as the ideal, whereas in the past, before so much technology, this electronically fleshed out ideal didn’t exist, and that this “relative virtual ideal” robs us because reality can’t compete with the virtual ideal- whether its on TV or the web.

Personally, I find a correlate for our community among the males and females- the more religious someone is, the more wired they are. And personally, I think minorities, especially black people use the web much, much more as an escape from their alienated realities. And that means, the less capable they are in face to face interactions, the less empathic they are, its harder to have compassion, be sincere, the more their Islamic experience is stripped of the real life world…the application of Islam to the minute aspects. The result is the Internet is not allowing us to experience our own religion and therefore, an increasing number of Muslims today haven’t truly experienced Islam- but are under the illusion that they have experienced it. We feel we have experienced Islam because it’s visible (in the form of Youtube, Islamic junk mails, etc.) and we believe this superficial experience is real Islam, and associate that with authenticity. What is missing is the magical ingredient of sincerity- ikhlas or sidq- and you cannot experience that online, because the Internet makes it irrelevant. All experience is flattened out, everything is convenient and easy, so nothing really is as special as putting in a unique effort, and so we are robbing ourselves of the real stuff of humanity that religious sincerity brings out- sacrifice, emotion, adversity and development of patience and struggle. I’ll give an example: most dawah is done online now, with advertising and emails. Now, that is seen as Islamic work, but it sadly has become the major component of dawah- so now if you are doing dawah outside the web, you won’t use more effort than you did in sending that email- so you will hand out a flier, as ineffectual as that is, and are unable, and don’t see the necessity in making dawah to someone face to face. Very often, a sister will do something wrong, another sister will pick up on and then she will note it in her head, go home, write up a big long email to that sister, but will not have the guts to say it to her face or talk to her in person. Where is the barakah in that? If you are giving advice in ease, at your own convenience and comfort, then how do you expect that advice, which by comparison, is more difficult to apply than just sending an email, to be taken seriously?

Consider how the Quran talks about people preferring the immediate pleasures (ajila) over what is more enduring (the akhira), their love and chase after illusory worldly pleasures and frivolities, and ultimately how people oppress themselves. “They forgot Allah, so He caused them to forget their own selves.”

My argument in short about technology: We think we are becoming more religious, the reality is we aren’t. We just have made Islam more visible, just as we have made social life more visible and have used the Internet to multiply the experience of the dunya exponentially, distracted from Allah, and therefore divide the experience of the akhira into ever-smaller bits. You will not only deal with one person face to face, but also deal with them on the cellphone, Facebook, Twitter, texting, and email. So we live our days behaving with an awareness that seems to say, “the dunya is more All-Seeing and All-Encompassing than Allah is or ever was to us,” (astaghfirullah). That means, we have to deal with more arguments (and I would say arguments happen much more often in digital text than in real life), more distractions, more ideas, aimless curiosities, more pseudo-events in our day, and therefore more worrying, indecisiveness, dissatisfaction than ever before because digital technology has begun to suffocate us. Technology’s metallic coldness is constantly scratching at our psyche, wiring our desires ever-closer to us, constantly and forcefully making us confront and oblige to our desires, whims and what ever else entertains our minds, than ever before.

Wa ma hayatud-dunya il-la mata’ al-gharoor

And this life is but the enjoyment of a deception (Surah ale-Imran)

Imam Ali said Nabi Sallalhu alayhi wasalam said that one of the signs of the End of Time is “takhtariful ahwa”- desires will be diversified or multiplied. (This means, they don’t just want a coffee, they want a mocha-latte, with 3 creams, 2 sugars, with artificial sugar…and in terms of Internet and virtual self, we want more and more new experiences, the next big thing, or try out the new Google Wave or new Ipod and choose if we want to talk, chat, text or email each other. So we create new choices and thereby create new desires, text now or call or shout across the street, and use advertising to inculcate those desires and stress their importance, even though in reality they are empty and void of meaning.)

More readings:

What sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity

Being online: identity, anonymity, and all things in between

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah wa salat was salam ala rasulullah.

The following are 20 some reflections on this ayah. The reflections are metaphorical, philosophical and imaginary in nature…not tafsir, so they are expansive and for pondering.

I should point out why this is special to me. I spent a good 2-3 days reading a 400 page book of quotations, obviously from Western sources (I think it was Bartlett’s). But then on the last day, I spent some time relaxing reading the Quran. Well, it wasn’t so relaxing because this ayah was more strenuous, more sapping of my mental abilities because it was much more meaningful than that 400 page book!

Concentrate on the imagery of this ayah!

“And among His Signs are the ships, in the sea, like mountains. If He wills, He causes the wind to cease, then they would become motionless on the back (of the sea). Verily, in this are signs for everyone patient and grateful. (Surah Shuara: 33)

wasiya kulli shay- My mercy encompasses all things

-A conversation amongst the righteous broke out as to which form of sabr (patience) is the hardest? After guessing…the answer came: Sabr (patience) WITHOUT God. The man gave a shriek and died at the thought. How can one have patience to even live without Allah?

- One can wonder: if the ship stops in the middle of the sea, has the ship arrived? Will it ever arrive? That is to say, how do we know when we are there, perhaps a detour or stopping in the middle of the sea is the goal of the journey.

-Does this ayah describe the ummah today? We are simply waiting…complacently and lazily or is it a trial? If so, then where is the patience and gratefulness we need to endure this?

- If we were in this scenario, we would wonder, “What is the time? And what place are we at?” It is like an existential vacuum, we are marooned from God, like a cripple that has feet but is paralyzed, blind/deaf/dumb.

- In this ayah we also see a warning on transportation and the excesses in our usage of it. Traffic congestion today occur regularly. We have cars that can go to 200km/h but when its a traffic congestion, where everyone has cars, the average speed of a car slows to about 5 km/h. So despite the ability to move fast, we are powerless. Just as this verse demonstrates, that no matter how capable we are, Allah can prevent us very easily, bringing all our might to a futility.

- Verse prior to this one: “And among His Signs are the ships, in the sea, like mountains.” Are then mountains moving or are they stationary and the Earth and mountains are moving alltogether, as if the ships and ocean are moving togather- both with Allah’s will? (Consider the Quran and Science articles on how mountains stabilize the Earth).

-This ayah relates to 2 other ayahs in the Quran: Fa’aina tafkhoon (So where are you wandering?)/Fa’ina tadhaboon (So where are you going)?

-There is a saying that it takes the same amount of stress to be a success as it does to be a failure. Here its the same stress- but failure and success are contingent upon God.

- I imagine this ayah represents a figurative representation of people’s progress in their journey towards Allah.

- Perhaps this ayah speaks of a representation of people’s growth and maturity, in dealing with relationships and life’s difficulties- and how they make the same mistakes over and over, not learning from them and so are always at a standstill in life. But with sabr and gratefulness, they succeed in maintaining successful relationships.

- “Nothing really happens when it happens all the time” so when the wind stops, something feels like its happening, because its challenging. And that is the utility of sabr. Similarly, then, when the wind picks up its as if something new is happening. There is then more gratefulness.

- The soft wind is considered in Islam to be a blessing and closely related to Allah’s Will. So stranded in the sea is like imprisonment and hell is where there will be no breezes or calming winds

- Now and on judgment day, our khayr is at a standstill before the ocean of the akhirah.

- Consider the phrase, “sea with out a shore” (I can’t recall the Arabic phrasing). Muslims used this term to describe great things in the past. The scholars were afraid of fighting the Crusaders and described them as a sea with out a shore, but Saladin, refused and went and fought. So the wind stopped and the Crusaders glory stood still and was destroyed by the Muslims.

- Consider the ayah above along with this ayah from Surah Kahf:109 “Say (O Muhammad SAW to mankind). “If the sea were ink for (writing) the Words of my Lord, surely, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord would be finished, even if we brought (another sea) like it for its aid.” And so we can only advance because of His Words (commands) and even that depends on his mercy (wind).

- How does the story of Nuh alayhi salam and the Ark relate to this?

- A ship marooned in the middle of the ocean without a wind is like a brain without a thought, a catatonic state.

- Or imagine a ship (marooned?) carrying sabr and shukr driven by the mercy of Allah (we can only have these through His mercy and help) stuck out in the middle of the sea and we swim so hard to get some of that constancy in sabr and shukr, but on the way there swimming hard towards that ship, we develop sabr and shukr when we arrive and it is that journey itself, that when we arrive on that ship we find ourselves with sabr and shukr; shows how hard sabr and shukr are so hard to obtain and maintain (that in reality, one must turn in on oneself, applying sabr and shukr in order to be able to give life to it).

- The sea water represents the ease with which we can move…but the absence of wind is showing how without the mercy, even ease is difficult.

- If it then rains when you are marooned like this…you may think it is not the mercy you need, but it could be only to let you survive and live, or do wudhu and pray for rescue.
- “And (it is) a Quran which We have divided (into parts), in order that you might recite it to men at intervals. And We have revealed it by stages. (in 23 years)” (17:106) …it is a mercy to have sabr and shukr and in this situation of being stuck in the middle of the sea, you would exhaust your sabr and shukr (hopeless and hateful to God), but Allah moves the ship forward bit by bit, so you make sabr and shukr in intervals and develop sabr and shukr bit by bit, in ways that are easy and within your limit (shaytaan makes you think reverse, that it is hopeless and be hateful) until you can handle much much more.

- but with your sabr, you show shukr (show gratefulness in expectation) and with your shukr you have sabr (when you are still waiting! it isn’t so bad yet)- they exist together (given time to show shukr and without theose periods of sabr, you wouldn’t show shukr and without shukr you wouldn’t be ready to show sabr)

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Maybe I’m an idiot but there is something I totally missed. Somehow I find wherever I read- Muslim scholars and thinkers have made their primary concern not Islam, but reconciling Islam with modernity, post-modernism, science and democracy. They talk more about modernity, science and democracy, than they talk about Islam! Isn’t this a slippery slope?

My question is where does this urgent project come from? Allama Iqbal embarked on it and between today’s Tariq Ramadan and Iqbal’s time, what progress has been made? What progress will ever be made?

Modernity’s Necessity: A Wild Goose Chase?

There is, I believe a false obligation to reconcile these two, fueled by the Muslim inferiority complex. Too often the rhetoric has base presumptions of Muslim inferiority, when in reality this is a new phenomenon. They mention how Muslims want to take over Europe from us, (who is us?) in revenge for the fall of al-Andalus. They mention how Islam’s Golden Age planted the seeds of the Renaissance. All this is mentioned, by Muslims and non-Muslims, in order to appease Euro-centric views of the world. It was all for the West. Fi sabil Rum- for the sake of the Romans. This is NOT a rational view of things- nor a sociologically sound view.

A rational, logical view of things would take into account the facts that the Muslim world has always been the daddy to Europe. Muslims took the fruits of European intellect- they didn’t purposefully carry the “torch of knowledge” for the sake of Europe,  as historians try to make things out to be- no, we carried it for ourselves. It was Muslims who ruled half of Europe. It was Muslims who kept slaves, of all races, included white-skinned slaves. It was not that long ago that Europeans came to Muslims asking for monetary aid and relief due to their famines. This facts are undeniable yet pleasantly “spun” in contemporary discourse to suit a Euro-centric narrative of the world.

A sociological view of things states, there are often historical reasons (subjugation) that led to resentment and future conflict. But today, no one will say that the West’s war against Islam/ic terrorism, has to do with this previous history. No one will say that the West resents the past history of being subordinated by the Muslim world. No- the “White Man” doesn’t resent, any of that past history- after all he is above that, since he carries the “White man’s Burden”- he is nobler. And its this false humility which is characteristic of the interaction between the West and the Muslim world today. The ideology of the White Man’s Burden cannot exist, knowing, that Muslims ruled over them, knowing Muslims are the only threat, the only equal to Western hegemony.

Imagine if China were to occupy and rule half of Europe, take Europes best ideas, and keep white people as slaves…and then if the Chinese went back to China- wouldn’t Europeans want revenge?

To put it bluntly historically Europe was the Muslim world’s b*tch. The media and Muslim scholars who have internalized this inferiority complex, by being bought and sold to believe all this fancy industrial machinery (i.e. dunya)  is better than the Poverty and Zuhd of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. This false obligation has been used to make Islam come to and grovel to modernity, for conciliation and to combine with it. Honestly speaking, there really is no measure for this project of reconciling modernity and Islam- how can you measure the success of it? Its really akin to worshiping Allah one day of the week and another on another day of the week- because the modern world has its gods too, and it worships them with great devotion. No- rather, modernity and the West should come to Islam and solve this riddle they have posed themselves- the Muslim thinkers should not go to them.

But alas, how many would prefer to run to America instead of staying in the villages and tyrannies of the Muslim world?

Yet the more I read of Western commentators (Chris Hedges in particular) the more I realize they are admitting the West is in complete and total decline, from the very top of the theatrical plays of terrorism and democracy and patriotism, to the very bottom of suicide, meaninglessness, cultural genocide, and increasingly a failure of the white man, to carry his own humanity and cope with the responsibilities of the human condition.

This false obligation needs to be recognized as nothing more than a chimera. Its a ruse, a red-herring or wild goose chase, to distract the Muslim world and intended to consume the energies of the minds of Muslim thinker and scholars. To make concessions bit by bit, decade by decade, year by year to modernity, until, these thinkers have been so caught in the modernity-Islam project, Islam gets crowded out all together, withers and dies. Forgotten. This may seem an exaggeration- but look at how Islam has historically interfaced with village superstitions and rituals, which characteristically have the same romantic allure as industrial machinery and technology. You’ll find those ancient rites and superstitions have never been Islamisized or absorbed into Islam- they have remained separate with people recognizing they are contradictory to each other. And Islam has always remained the superior. Similarly, the worldly lifestyle, the complications of living in the West is conflicting with the Zuhd of the Sahabas, and one reason why Fiqh is so challenging to Muslims now is because Fiqh is designed for simple lifestyles- not hectic, adventurous, “dunya-flooded” lifestyles, were you are inundated with advertising and other forms of worldly meaninglessness.

Rotten fruits of the Muslim minds and Akhira- consciousness

Every high-caliber Islamic work today, is deemed high-caliber because of its underlying Western thought, terminology and values employed- not because of anything particularly Islamic. How often have we seen uniquely and entirely Islamic content- works that aren’t tainted with Western ideas, but rather represent wholly the Muslim imagination and the spirit of Islam? It is as if they are writing for an audience of educated, white, non-Muslims. Works of poetry, artwork, social design and even at the substance level of education- we resemble the West. From the very get-go we are walking in the footsteps of a watered down, impaired, vision of Islam. We pride ourselves on people converting to Islam, but all of this has the (un) intentional (depending on who it is) effect of converting Islam itself into something else. Its a type of fabrication- a plagiarism of the West but produced by Muslims, who probably love it more than they love Islam all on its own.

Muslim comedians and Muslim rock and roll singers, are only so popular because they imitate the American egotistic love for spectacle, of the self and represent the true life (al-hayawan), as a life of fame or visibility- not as a pursuit of Jannah. The Muslim love of sloganeering, jihadist theater, and the wealth of conspiracy theories all demonstrate Muslims are internalizing  what has been called the  “American spectacle,” of being in the spotlight, of knowing you exist, and matter and are important, in some way, because you are on the stage of the world. The stage before the entire world, to Muslims, is higher and greater than the stage before Allah. That’s where deen and dunya collide today. And our religious leaders, scholars and thinkers quietly acquiesce to this Muslim spectacle, so today, what we see as reality was a fantasy a few decades ago, and yet it carries all the consequences and fruits of a fantasy: delusion. Because Muslims are on some sort of platform or mainstream medium, whether its the news or being published in some American journal- this somehow feels like progress, when it is a decline of Islam, a ruse and fantasy of the dunya Shaytan has arranged to delude us. We forget there is more ajr in obscurity than there is in fame. And it is these pseudo-events, where we think something has been achieved when it really hasn’t (RIS?) that will help foster passivity, and over a period of time, become permanent, until we Muslims see the West as the standard and lose the capacity to think in other ways- ways which are more harmonious to the deen. And this is not necessarily to call us away to obscurity and hide away from the world- but rather to push us to develop Muslim creativity, and develop a Akhira-consciousness, cognizant of spirituality, our mortality, and the temporary stay we have in this world. Our creativity will have the safety net of piety and be guided to innovate in ways that “thrive inside Islam” and not outside it or foreign to its spirit.

Muslims need to ignore and give up on the modernity-Islam project and all the baggage it carries. They need to realize democracy and modernity are not ascendant, but rather Islam is ascendant and transcendental. They need to focus their creative energies on something wholly Islam-ic, with our values, terminologies and spirit.  We don’t need Muslim thinkers to do the thinking of the West for them. We need Muslim thinkers, for Muslim thought. We don’t need Muslim thinkers thinking about modernity or paying literary tributes to the project of the West. That can only happen if they stop regurgitating Western thinkers, study their own tradition and have the courage to be creative. And that will happen when Muslims start questioning the necessity of modernity, rather than questioning Islam and our own tradition. If we do that, we’ll come closer to Islam and realize, modernity and the worldly life it represents, cannot compare with Islam, and all it enables for humanity to achieve.

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika wa ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

More reading:

The Decline of the Decline of Arabic Science

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

Know this no nobler means will you find, no knowledge of which you may master that will aid you more than Fear of God. Remind yourself of Him, your grave, that Day of 500 years with God waiting for the Judgment on the Plains, those 500 years of panic, and then the standing before your Lord in the face of Judgment. How can it not be, when, “there are rocks which fall down for the fear of Allah.” (Surah Baqara: 74)

Know that your Death is too close! It is imminent and near. And it is as if the Judgment is being rendered now and here. Know that you will be accountable for not just your sins, but also your glances, steps and gestures. And fear that even your good deeds will not be accepted. And know that Fear of Allah (at-Taqwa or khawf) is of 3 ranks: the fear of a bad deed, the fear of the Death (dying not in a state of Islam) and the fear of the Seal (fearing what was written as ones destiny in the womb of the mother).

‘ulkiha ulahi fin-nar wala ubari

I throw these into the Fire and I have no concern, (no emotion)

wa ‘ulkiha fi Jannah wala ubari

And I put these into Jannah and I have no emotion

-Hadith

The fear of God is the guide of the Sahabas and the Salaf and those Righteous who have followed them. Know that the fear of God is the foremost guide that has been forsaken by the teachers and students of our times. Instead they wait and seek in vain some illusive miracle, a shortcut to Heaven, as if the Sahabas were ignorant of this. Even in the search of God, they follow their desires.

Enclosed are a selection of quotations from Hujjatul Islam, Imam al-Ghazali’s Book of Fear and Hope. Of the 100 page English translation by William McKane, I have included only 10 short pages of excerpts below but it is recommended the reader read the entire text. Upon reading it, one should make note of key quotes, write them out by hand and memorize them and remind oneself of them often.

A WARNING: Know that this fear of God is manic, it will induce anxiety, chase away your sleep, forcing you to stand in prayer at night and chase away your appetite the more you consider it in your thoughts. You may chase after worldly thoughts and pleasures, but they will evaporate like a phastasm, a shadow that barely existed, gone with nothing of benefit remaining, with no attachment or care for you. And then you will find yourself left alone…with what is more real and more frightening and more present: the Fear of an All-Powerful God. Contemplate Him and you will find your fear of God will increase infinitely. Know then that what you read and hear of this fear of God, is not mythical, fantastic or vain tales but it is all the more real.

Embark for the time is short!

Entire text  16471358-Al-Ghazali-Bookof-Fear-and-Hope

—

Ghazali’s Fear and Hope Quotes
Keep your wits. God has never had a saint who was mentally deficient.
-Sahl at-Tustari speaking against excessive fasting

Yahya b. Mu’adh [G. 77, S. 61-2, d. 258/871] said: The person who magnifies self-deceit is, in my opinion, the one who prolongs his sins, while he hopes for pardon without repentance and expects to draw near to God without obedience, and expects the crops of the Garden with the seed of the Fire, and seeks after the dwelling-place of obedience with the deeds of disobedience, and expects the reward without the deed, and has wishful thoughts of God in company with remissness.

This then is the exposition of the state of hope and how knowledge produces it and how action is produced from it. And a tradition of Zayd al-Khayl [I.H., iv, 245 (Guillaume, 637).] is a pointer to its producing these actions; when he said to the Messenger of God: I have come to enquire of you about God’s way of identifying the person who aspires and the person who does not aspire. So he (Muhammad) said: How do you go about it? He said: I have made a practice of loving virtue and its people, and, whenever I have the capacity for anything belonging to it, I make haste towards it and I believe firmly in its reward. And, when anything belonging to it eludes me, I am grieved thereby and yearn after it. So he said: This is God’s identification mark in respect of the one who aspires, and, if He had desired you for other things, He would have prepared you for them; then He would not be concerned in which of their wadies you perished. So he (Muhammad) has mentioned an identification mark of the person by whom virtue is sought, and, consequently, whoever hopes that there may be the intention of virtue without this mark is self-deluded.

Sufyan [T.T. iv, III (199), d. 161/777; T. 190; E. 72 f.] said: Whoever commits a sin and knows that God has assigned it against him, and (yet) hopes for His pardon, God will pardon him his sin. He continued: For God upbraided a group of people saying: That then, the supposition which you have entertained with respect to your Lord has caused your destruction. (Q. xli, 22). And He said: And you entertained evil suppositions and you were a people of perdition. (Q. xlviii, 12). And he (Muhammad) said: Truly God will say to His creature on the Day of Resurrection: What obstructed you from loathing the hated thing, when you saw it? So, if God has given him a grasp of his defence, he will say: O Lord, I hoped in You and I feared the people. He (Muhammad) said: So, God will say: I have forgiven you it.

And according to the tradition God revealed to David: Love Me and love whoever loves Me and commends Me to My creatures. So he said: O Lord, how do I commend You to Your creatures? So He said: Mention Me for My gracious goodness and commemorate My bounties and well-doing and their recollection of that, for they know Me only as One who is gracious.

And Aban b. Abi `Ayyash [T.T., I, 97 (174), d. 138/755-6] had a vision in his sleep (he was in the habit of recollecting again and again the categories of hope) and he said: God halted me in front of Him and said: What is it that has spurred you on to this habit? So I said: I desired to commend You to Your creatures. So He said: I have pardoned you. And Yahya b. Aktham [T.T., xi, 179 (311), d. 142/759-60] was seen in a vision after his death and it was said to him: How did God deal with you? So he said: He halted me in front of Him and said: O Shaykh, you have repeatedly committed evil. He continued: Then trembling took hold of me with respect to what God might know. Then I said: O Lord, this is not the report I had of You. So He said: And what was reported to you about Me? So I said: `Abd ar-Razzaq [T.T., vi, 310 (608), d. 211/826-7; T. 331] related to me from Ma’mar [T.T., x, 243 (439), d. c. 153/770; T. 178], from az-Zuhri [T.T., ix, 445 (732), d. 124/742; T. 102], from Anas [T.T., i, 376 (690), d. c. 93/711; T. 42], from Your Prophet, from Gabriel, that You said: I am in accord with what my creature supposes about Me, so let him suppose about Me what he will. So I supposed of You that You would not punish me. God said: Gabriel has spoken the truth, likewise My Prophet and Anas and az-Zuhri and Ma’mar and `Abd ar-Razzaq and yourself. He continued: And I was fitted out with clothes and the two attendants walked before me to the Garden and I exclaimed: What joy! [Wright, ii, 53 d.].

‘Ali said: The knowledgeable person is simply he who does not make people despair of the mercy of God and does not make them feel secure from the strategems of God.

And according to certain traditions: The believer is preferred more than the Ka’ba. Also: The believer is good and pure. Also: The believer is preferred more than the angels in the sight of God. And according to the tradition: God created Gehenna out of the excess of His mercy as a whip. With it God drives His creatures to the Garden. And in another tradition: God says: I have created men solely that they might exploit me and I have not created them to exploit them. And according to a tradition of Abu Said al-Khudri [T.T., iii, 479 (894), d.c. 65/684; T.41] on the authority of the Messenger of God: God has not created anything but He has matched it with what dominates it, and He has made His mercy to dominate His wrath. And according to the celebrated [mashhur According to A. Guillaume (The Traditions of Islam, 1924, p. 181) a tradition vouched for by more than two Companions] tradition: Truly God inscribed mercy on His Self before He created men; truly, My mercy dominates My anger.

And he (Muhammad) said on a certain day: O generous Pardoner. So Gabriel said: Do you know what the interpretation of generous Pardoner is? It is as follows: Surely He has pardoned evil deeds in mercy; in His generosity He has substituted good deeds for them. And the Prophet heard a man saying: O Lord I ask You for the completion of blessing. So he said: Do you know what the completion of blessing is? He said: No. He said: The entrance into the Garden. The Scholars said: God has completed His blessing for us in His approving Islam for us, when He said: I have completed My blessing for you and have approved Islam as your religion. (Q. v, 5)…

And Muhammad b. al-Hanafiya [T.T., ix, 354 (586), d. 80/699; I.S., v, 66 f.] related on the authority of `Ali that he said: When He sent down His saying: Be magnanimous on a handsome scale, (Q. xv, 85) he (Muhammad) said: O Gabriel, and what is a handsome magnanimity? He (Gabriel) said: When you have pardoned whoever has wronged you and do not upbraid him. So he (Muhammad) said: O Gabriel, God is too magnanimous to upbraid the one whom He has forgiven. So Gabriel wept and the Prophet wept, and God sent Michael to them both and he said: Truly, your Lord sends both of you His compliments and says: How would I upbraid the one whom I have pardoned? This would not be like My magnanimity. And the traditions which have to do with the means of hope are more than can be numbered.

And Ibrahim b. Adham [T.T., I, 102 (176), d. 160/777; E. 73; S. 36-8] said: I was performing the circumambulation in solitude on a certain night, and it was a dark rainy night, and I halted at the obligatory place beside the gate and said: O my Lord keep me from sin so that I am never disobedient to You. And the voice of One unseen called out to me from the House [i.e. the Ka'ba]: O Ibrahim, you are asking Me to keep you from sin, and all My believing creatures seek that from Me. But, if I should keep them from sin, upon whom should I bestow My bounty and to whom should I grant pardon?

And it is said: There was a certain tippler who gathered together a party of his cronies and tossed to his boy four dirhams and bade him buy some fruit for his party. And the boy passed by the door of the sitting-room of Mansur b. `Ammar [K. 126-7], while he was begging something for a poor man and saying: Whoever tosses him four dirhams, I shall offer four petitions for him. So the boy tossed the dirhams to him and Mansur said: What is it you desire that I should ask for you? So he said: I have a master from whom I desire to be released. So Mansur prayed. Then he said: Next request. That God would replace my dirhams. So he prayed and then said: Next. He said: That God would bring my master to repentance. So he prayed; then he said: Next. He said: That God would pardon me and my master and you and the multitude. So Mansur prayed and the boy returned and his master said to him: What detained you? So he told the tale to him. He said: And what did he pray about? So he said: I asked freedom for myself. So he said to him: Go your way, for you are a free man. He said: And what was the second prayer? He said: That God would replace the dirhams. He Said: You possess four thousand dirhams. And what was the third prayer? He said: That God would bring you to repentance. He said: I have repented towards God. He said: And what was the fourth prayer? He said: That God would pardon me and you and the multitude, and him who spoke the prayer. He said: This one is not in my power. So, while he was passing that night, he had a vision in sleep, as if someone were speaking to him: You have done what was in your power, do you then think that I shall not do what is in My power? I have pardoned you and the boy and Mansur b. ‘Ammar and the crowd which was present, all of them.

And it is related on the authority of ‘Abd al-Wahhab b. `Abd al-Hamid ath-Thaqafi [T.T., vi, 449 (931), d. 194/809-10; T. 294. Hamid which appears in both the 1908 and 1939 editions is apparently a mistake for Majid] who said: I saw three men and a woman bearing a bier. So I took the place of the woman and we went off to the cemetery, and we prayed over the corpse and buried it. So I said to the woman: What was the relationship of the deceased man to you? She said: My son. I said: And did you not have any neighbours? She said: Yes, but they despised his condition. I said: And what was it? She Said: He was a mukhannith [A mukhannith is a male who dances so as to simulate a female]. So I had compassion on her and brought her to my house and gave her money and corn and clothes. That night I had a vision. It was as if someone came to me, like to the moon on the night when it is full, wearing white robes. And he began to thank me and I said: Who are you? So he said: The mukhannith whom you buried today. My Lord had compassion on me for that the people contemned me.

And Abu ‘l-Qasim al-Hakim [G. 63, d. 513/1119-20] said: Whoever fears anything flees from it, and whoever fears God flees to Him. And it was said to Dhu ‘l-Nun [E. 80 f.; S. 52-4, d. 246/861]: When is the creature a person who fears? He said: When he has brought himselfdown to the level of the sick man who is abstemious for fear that his sickness may be prolonged. In the attributes by stifling the lusts and blackening the pleasures, so that the disobediences beloved by him become abhorrent, just as honey becomes abhorrent to the man who desires it, when he ‘knows’ that there is poison in it. So the lusts are burned up by fear and the members are trained, and self-abasement and humility and submissiveness and lowliness obtain in the heart, and pride, rancour and envy abandon it.

And, for that reason, al-Fudayl b. `Iyad [T.T., viii, 294 (538), d. 187/803; T. 225; E. 74; S. 41-2] said: When it is said to you: Do you fear God?, keep silence. For, if you say: No, you are an unbeliever; and, if you say: Yes, you are a liar. And he indicated by this that it is fear that restrains the members from deeds of disobedience and binds them to deeds of obedience, and whatever does not take effect in the members is no more than an impulse [hadithul nafsi] and a fleeting motion which does not deserve the name of fear.

God said: And guidance and mercy to those who reverence their Lord. (Q. vii, 153). And He said: Only the knowledgeable among God’s creatures fear Him. (Q. xxxv, 25). He attributed to them knowledge in respect of their fear and said: God was satisfied with them and they with Him. This refers to whoever fears his Lord. (Q. xcviii, 8). And everything which points to the merit of knowledge points to the merit of fear, because fear is the fruit of knowledge. For that reason it has come down in a tradition of Moses: As for those who fear they possess the Highest Companion [i.e. God]. So observe how he has singled them out for the fellowship of the Highest Companion, and that is because they are knowledgeable and the knowledgeable possess the rank of the fellowship of the prophets, because they are the heirs of the prophets, and the fellowship of the Highest Companion belongs to the prophets and whoever overtakes them. And for this reason, when the Messenger of God was given the option during his mortal sickness of remaining in the world or going to God, he said: I ask of You the Highest Companion.

And Muhammad said: The head of wisdom is the fear of God [Cf. Ps. cxi, 10; Prov. ix, 10]. And he said to Ibn Mas’ud: [T.T., vi, 27 (42). d. 32/652; T. 13]. If you are desirous of meeting me then multiply fear after me. And al-Fudayl said: If a man fears God, fear points him to every good. And ash-Shibli [G. 35, 49, 127. d. 334/945-6] said: There is no day that I have feared God, but that I have seen in respect of Him a category of wisdom and admonition which I had never (previously) seen. And Yahya b. Mu’adh said: No believer performs an evil deed but two good deeds overtake it, namely, the fear of punishment and the hope of pardon, just like a fox between two lions. And in a tradition of Moses: As for the abstemious, there remains no one except the abstemious but that I make the closest examination of him and scrutinize what is in his hands, for I feel embarrassment on their account (i.e. on account of the abstemious) and have (too much) respect for them that I should halt them for the reckoning.

Yahya b. Mu’adh said: If Miskin b. Adam had feared the Fire as he feared poverty, he would have entered the Garden. Dhu ‘l-Nun said: Whoever fears God with his whole heart, his love to God is intense and his most inward part is right with Him. Dhu ‘l-Nun said again: It is fitting that fear should be more dominant than hope, for, when hope is dominant, the heart is disordered. And Abu’l-Husayn ad-Dirrir used to say: The mark of bliss is fear of being a reprobate, because fear is a rein between God and His creature, and, when his rein is severed, he perishes with those who perish. And it was said to Yahya b. Mu’adh: Who of God’s creatures is most secure for the morrow? He said: Those of them whose fear of today is most intense. And Sahl said: You will not experience fear, until you eat what is permitted. And it was said to al-Hasan: O Abu Said, how can we set about sitting down with parties who threaten us, so that our hearts almost fly away with terror? So he said: By God! if you mix with parties who threaten you until security overtakes you, it is better for you than that you should fraternize with parties who make you feel safe until fear overtakes you.

Abu Sulayman, ad-Darani [E. 76 f., d. 215/830] said: Fear has never abandoned any heart but a ruin. And `A’isha [T. 26, d. 57/676-7] said: I said: O Messenger of God: Those who give what they give and their hearts are fearful (Q. xxiii, 62). Does this refer to the man who steals and commits adultery? He said: No, but to the man who fasts and prays (the statutory prayers) and gives supererogatory alms and fears that it may not be accepted of him.

And `Uqba b. `Amir [T.T., vii, 242 (439), d. 38/658-9; T. 119] said: What is salvation O Messenger of God? He said: Keep a rein on your tongue, keep to your house and weep for your sins.

It was customary with Muhammad b. al-Munkadir [T.T., ix, 473 (767), d. c. 130/755; T. 119] when he wept to wipe his face and beard with his tears and to say: I have heard that the Fire will not consume a place which tears have wiped.

So the most ultimate objective of the believer is that his hope and fear should be in equilibrium, and the dominance of hope with the most of people would be a leaning on self-deceit and a dearth of ‘knowledge’. For this reason God has united both of them in the description of the persons whom He has eulogized. For He said: They pray to their Lord through fear and yearning. (Q. xxxii, 16). And He said: They pray to Us through yearning and awe. (Q. xxi, 90).

So Yahya b. Mu’adh said: Whoever serves God with undiluted fear is drowned in a sea of reflection. And whoever serves Him with undiluted hope goes astray in a desert of self-deceit. And whoever serves Him with fear and hope is established in a highway of recollection. And Makhul [T.T., x, 289 (509), d. 113/731-2; T. 101] of Damascus said: Whoever serves God with fear is a Kharijite [Haruri. Dozy, in loc., who says that the meaning is strong, generous, alluding to the Kharijites who fought under the name of Harurites], and whoever serves Him with hope is a Murjite [One who defers, that is, who postpones judgement, until it is pronounced by God on the Day of Judgement. See M.T., r22-7], and whoever serves Him with love is a free-thinker [Or, perhaps, Manichaean. See L.H.A., 375, n. 2, for observations on zindiq], and whoever serves Him with fear and hope and love is a Unitarian. Therefore these three conditions cannot but be united, and the dominance of fear is most salutary, except at the point of death. At death the dominance of hope and optimism are the most salutary, because fear has the effect of the whip which urges to action, and the time of action has passed away, and so the person who is at the point of death has no power over action. Then the means of fear do not avail, for they cut the sinews of his heart and assist the hastening of his death.

And, when death was present with Sulayman at-Taymi [T.T., iv, 175 (304), d. 172/788-9], he said to his son: O my son, tell me about the indulgences of God and remind me about hope, so that I may meet God supposing the best of Him. Similarly when death was present with ath-Thawri [Sufyan, p. 7, n. 3] and his pangs were intensified, the Scholars gathered around him lending him hope. And Ahmad b. Hanbal [H.A., 399, d. 241/855] said to his son at death: Remind me of the traditions which have hope and optimism in them. And the goal of all that was that he should commend God to himself.

`Ali said: Whoever longs for the Garden is diverted from lusts, and whoever guards against the Fire recoils from things forbidden.

Dhu’l-Nun said: The fear of the Fire in comparison with the fear of alienation is like a drop which is shed in a fathomless sea. And this is the fear of the Knowledgeable [See p. 10, n. 2] according as He said: Only the knowledgeable among His creatures fear God. (Q. xxxv, 25).

And Abu ‘l-Darda’ [T.T., viii, 175 (315), d. 32/652-3; T. 23] was in the habit of swearing by God: There is no one who thought himself secure because of his faith from being plundered by God at death, but He plundered him. And Sahl used to say: The fear of the Sincere at the evil of the Seal is present at every impulse and motion, and they are those whom God has described when He said: And their hearts are quaking. (Q. xxiii, 62). And, when Sufyan was at the point of death, he began to weep and be grief-stricken, and so it was said to him: O Abu `Abd Allah, keep hoping, for the pardon of God is greater than your sins. So he said: Is it then because of my sins that I weep? If I knew that I should die a Unitarian, I would not be concerned should I meet God with sins the like of mountains.

And Sahl used to say: The novice fears lest he may be tried by disobedience, and the Gnostic fears lest he may be tried by unbelief. And Abu Yazid [R.R., 90-103, d. 261/875] used to say: Whenever I repair to the mosque, it is as if a girdle were around my middle [i.e. the belt of a Christian monk], and I am afraid that it may lead me to the Church and the House of Fire, until I enter the mosque and the girdle is severed from me. And this happens to me five times every day [i.e. in connection with the five statutory prayers].

And it is related concerning the Messiah that he said: O band of disciples, you are afraid of deeds of disobedience, and we of the band of the prophets are afraid of unbelief.

And if you say: Surely the fear of many of these people goes back to the evil of the Seal, so what is the meaning of the evil of the Seal? Know that the evil of the Seal has two degrees, one greater than the other. As for the major degree which most inspires dread, it consists in the fact that at the throes of death and the appearance of its terrors, the heart is dominated either by doubt or apostasy, and the spirit is snatched away when apostasy or doubt is the dominant state. And so what has gained ascendancy over the heart on account of the binding of apostasy is a veil between it and God forever. And that decrees alienation in perpetuity and everlasting punishment.

And the second and lesser degree is constituted by a man’s heart being dominated at death by the love of some worldly affair and lust, and this is imaged in his heart which is swamped by it, so that, in that state,there is room for nothing else.

Nor have they inclined to the different kinds of systematic theologians, accepting on authority their divergent sayings; and, for that reason, he (Muhammad) said: The majority of the people of the Garden are simple folk. And, for that reason, the Fathers proscribed research and enquiry and the wading into systematic theology and the examination of these matters.

And, when the throes of death come, the weakness of that love is intensified in impotence, I mean the love of God, with reference to the terror of separation from this world which appears, since it is the object of desire which is dominant over the heart. So the heart is afflicted with the terror of being separated from the world, and sees that it is from God, and so its most inward occupation is the dislike of the power of death over it-and loathing of it in so much as it is from God. So he is afraid that it may arouse in his inner self a loathing of God in the place of love. Just as the person who loves his son with a weak love, when his son has seized his possessions which are dearer to him than his son and has consumed them, this weak love is turned into loathing. And, if the departure of his spirit should happen to fall at that instant in which he is affected by this impulse, then he has been sealed with evil and has perished with an everlasting death. And the cause which leads to a Seal like this is the dominance of the love of the world and reliance on it, and joy in the means to it, together with weakness of faith which determines the weakness of the love of God.

Hence whoever finds the love of God in his heart more dominant than the love of the world (even if he should be in love with the world also) is more remote from this danger. And the love of the world is the head of every sin and is the incurable disease, and includes in its scope different classes of people. And all of that is due to paucity of the ‘knowledge’ of God, since only he who ‘knows’ Him can love Him. And, in reference to this He said: If your fathers and your sons and your brothers and your wives and your clan, and properties which you have acquired, and trade which you fear may grow slack, and dwellings in which you find satisfaction, are dearer to you than God and His Messenger and spiritual combat in His path then wait until God brings His command. (Q. ix, 24).

Therefore everyone whose spirit is severed from him in a state when the impulse of distaste towards God was in his mind and the hatred of the action of God was visible in his heart in respect of its effecting a separation between him and his family and his wealth and the remainder of his objects of desire, his death will be an advance upon what he loathes and a separation from what he loves, and so he will advance upon God as would a runaway slave who is odious, when he is brought forward to his master by force. And there is no concealing what he deserves of chastisement and punishment.

As for him who dies in a state of loving God, he will advance upon God as would the well-doing servant who longs after his master; who has endured the difficulties of actions and the toils of journeyings out of a yearning to meet him. And there is no concealing the joys and delights which he will encounter simply from his reunion, apart from what he will merit in the way of kindnesses of preferment and new benefits.

For a man dies as he has lived and is gathered (to judgment) as he has died, and, for that reason, it is related concerning a greengrocer that he was concentrating at death on the Two Words [i.e. the two affirmations of the Shahada, there is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger. See Ihya', i, 95-9] while he was saying five, six, four, and was preoccupied with counting with which he had long familiarity before death.

And, for that reason, Mutarrif b. `Abd Allah [T.T., x, 173 (324), d.c. 95/713; T. 60] used to say: Truly I do not wonder at the man who perishes how he perishes, but I wonder at the man who is saved how he is saved.

Exposition of the States of the Prophets and Angels in respect of Fear

`A’isha related that whenever the air was stirred and a tempestuous wind blew, the countenance of the Messenger of God would alter and lie would rise up and pace up and down the room and would go in and out. All that because of the fear of the chastisement of God. And he (Muhammad) recited a verse in the Sura al-Waqi’a and then he swooned. And God said: And Moses fell in a swoon. (Q. vii, 139). And the Messenger of God saw the form of Gabriel at Abtah [Y., i, 92], and fell in a swoon. And it is related that when he (Gabriel) engaged in prayer, there was heard in his breast a bubbling like that of a cauldron. And he (Muhammad) said: Gabriel never came to me but he was trembling because of his separation from the Almighty.

And Abu’l-Darda’ said that the bubbling of the heart of Abraham, the Friend of the Merciful, through fear of his Lord, was heard at the distance of a mile, when he engaged in prayer. And Mujahid [T.T., x, 42 (68), d.c. 100/718] said: David wept for forty days prostrate in worship, without lifting his head, so that the pastures sprouted because of his tears and his head was covered over. So he was addressed: O David, are you hungry? If so, you may eat. Are you thirsty? If so, you may drink. Are you naked? If so, you may be clothed. Then he wept so bitterly that he energized the lute, and he was burnt up with the heat of his fear. Then God revealed to him repentance and pardon and he said: O Lord, set my sin in my palm. So his sin was inscribed on his palm, and he did not extend his palm for food and drink or for any other purpose without seeing it, and it made him weep. He (the narrator) continued: And he was brought a bowl two thirds full, and, when he took it, he saw his sin, and would not put it to his lip until it overflowed with his tears. And it is told of him that he had not raised his head to heaven up till the time of his death out of reverence for God. And he used to say in his supplication: O God, when I recollect my sin, the earth, for all its breadth, hems me in, and, when I recollect Your mercy, my spirit is restored. Praise be to You O God, the physicians among Your creatures have come that they may nurse to health my sin, and they all point me to You. So may reprobation overtake them who despair of Your mercy.

And al-Fudayl said: I have heard that David recollected his sin on a certain day and bounded away shrieking, with his hand laid on his head, until he reached the mountains. And the wild beasts gathered to him [See G. 50-51] and he said: Return, I do not desire you. My only desire is for the person weeping because of his sin. So let no one confront me except weeping, and whoever is not a sinner let him not contrive sin for David. And he was chided for his prolific weeping and so he said: Leave me alone. I am weeping before the exit of the day of weeping, before the tearing apart of the bones and the burning of the intestines, and before the angels ordain severe penalties for me. They do not disobey God in respect of what He commands and they perform what they are commanded. And `Abd al-`Aziz b. `Umar [T.T., vi, 349 (670), d. c. 150/767] said: Whenever David committed a sin, his voice was diminished and he said: O Lord, my voice is hoarse among the pure voices of the Sincere. And it is reported that, whenever he wept for a long time and it did not benefit him, his power was straitened and his perplexity intensified and he would say: O Lord, will You not pity my weeping? And God revealed to him: O David, you have forgotten your sin and remembered your weeping. So he said: My God and my Master, in what way do I forget my sin? And yet, when I recited the psalms, the running water desisted from its flow, and the blowing of the wind was stilled, and the birds furnished shade to my head, and the wild beasts were intimates at my palace. O my God and my Master, what then is this alienation which is between me and You? And God revealed to him: That was the intimacy of obedience and this is the alienation of disobedience. O David, Adam was one of My creatures. I created him with My hand and I breathed into him of My spirit and I made My angels do obeisance to him; and I clothed him in the robe of My preferment, and I crowned him with the unique crown of My dignity and image, and I gave him to wife Eve, My handmaid, and settled him in My Garden. He disobeyed Me, and so I expelled him from My precincts naked and abased. O David, listen to Me and I shall speak the truth. You obeyed Us and We obeyed you; you asked Us and We gave to you; and you disobeyed Us and We showed forbearance to you. And, if you return to Us in your former state, We shall receive you.

And Yahya b. Abi Kathir [T.T., xi, 268 (539) d. c. 130/747] said: I have heard that it was David’s custom when he desired to engage in weeping to pass the time for seven days beforehand neither eating food nor taking drink, nor approaching women. And, when it was a day beforehand, the pulpit was brought out to him to the desert, and he commanded Solomon to cry out with a voice that would cross the countryside and its environs of thickets and hills and mountains and deserts and monastic cells and churches [Note the anachronisms]. And in it he proclaimed: Are there not those who desire to hear David’s wailing for himself? Let them then come along. He went on: And the wild beasts come from the deserts and the hills and the lions from the thickets and the reptiles from the mountains and the birds from the nests and the virgins from their bowers. And the people assemble for that day and David comes to ascend the pulpit, and the children of Israel surround him, and every kind according to its class surrounds him, and Solomon stands by his side.

So David launches into an encomium of his Lord and breaks into weeping and shrieking. Then he launches into the recollection of the Garden and the Fire, and the reptiles die together with a group of the wild beasts and the lions and the people. Then he launches into the terrors of the Day of Resurrection and into wailing over himself and a group of every class dies. And, when Solomon saw the large numbers of the dead, he said: O father, you have decimated your audience. They are all decimated and sections of the children of Israel and of the beasts and reptiles have died. So he launches into petition, and, while he is in this posture, one of the devotees of the children of Israel calls out to him: O David, you are over-hasty in seeking your reward from your Lord.

He went on: And David falls in a swoon, and, when Solomon noted what had overtaken him, he brought a mattress and carried him on it. Then he commanded someone to call out: Is there not someone who had a friend or relative with David? Let him then bring a mattress and carry him off, for the recollection of the Garden and the Fire has killed those who were with him. So a woman would bring a mattress and would bear away her relative saying: O you whom the recollection of the Fire has killed. O you whom the fear of God has killed. Then, when David revived, he stood up and placed his hand on his head and entered his chapel and locked its door, saying: O God of David, are You angry with David? And he communed ceaselessly with his Lord. So Solomon arrives and squats at the door and asks for permission to come in. Then he enters and has with him a barley bannock and he says: O father, build up your strength with this according as you desire. So he eats of that cake what God wills and then he goes out to the children of Israel and is in their midst.

And Yazid ar-Raqqashi [T.T., xi, 309 (597), d. c. 115/733] said: David went out among the people on a certain day to preach to them and inspire fear in them. And about forty thousand went out and thirty thousand of them died and only about ten thousand returned. He went on: And he had two slave girls whom he had appointed, so that, when fear came to him and he collapsed and was agitated, they squatted on his breast and legs for fear that his limbs and joints would be dismembered and he would die.

And Ibn `Umar said: John, the son of Zachariah [i.e. John the Baptist], went into the Jerusalem temple (he was a lad of eight years) and looked at their devotees who were clad in shirts of hair and wool; and he observed their zealots who had bored through their clavicles and inserted chains in them, and fastened themselves to the extremities of the temple. And that filled him with awe. So he made to return to his parents and passed by two lads at play and they said to him: O John, come and play with us. So he said: Truly I was not created for play. He went on: So he came to his parents and asked them to clothe him in hair and they did so, and he returned to the temple, and served in it by day and kept the lamps trimmed by night, until he attained his fifteenth birthday.

Then he went out and haunted the lofty mountains and sub-terranean paths of the earth. So his parents went out in search of him and they overtook him by the river Jordan, and he had soaked his feet in the water until the thirst was almost killing him, saying the while: By Your Might and Majesty, I will not taste a cool drink, until I know where I stand with You. So his parents asked him to breakfast on a barley bannock which they had with them and to drink some of that water. So he did it and made expiation for the breaking of his oath and commended filial piety.

Thus his parents brought him back to the temple, and, when he stood praying, he used to weep so that the trees and clods would weep with him, (and Zachariah would weep because of his weeping) until he (John) would go into a faint. And he would weep without remission so that the tears pierced the flesh of his cheeks and his molars were visible to the onlookers. So his mother said to him: O my son would that you would permit me to fetch for you something to cover up your molars from those who look on! So he gave her permission and she procured two pieces of felt and stuck them to his cheeks. So it came about that, whenever he got up to pray, he wept, and, when his tears saturated the two pads, his mother came to him and wrung them out; and, when he saw his tears flowing over his mother’s forearms, he said: O God, these are my tears and this is my mother and I am Your creature, and of those who are merciful You are the most merciful. So Zachariah said to him one day: My son, I have asked my Lord to bestow you on me, that my eyes might be refreshed with you. So John said: O my father, Truly Gabriel has reported to me that between the Garden and the Fire there is a desert which only those who weep will cross. So Zachariah said: O my son in that case weep on.

And the Messiah said: O band of disciples, the fear of God and the love of Paradise produce patience in the face of difficulty and keep you at a distance from the world. In truth I say to you: Surely the eating of barley and sleeping on middens with the dogs is a small price in the quest for Paradise. And it was said: Whenever the Friend [i.e. Abraham] recollected his sin, he went into a faint and the commotion of his heart would be heard for miles. Then Gabriel would come and say to him: Your Lord greets you with peace and says: Do I see a friend who fears his Friend? So he would say: O Gabriel, truly, when I recollect my sin, I forget my friendship.

So these are the states of the prophets and see to it that you reflect on them, for they are the most ‘knowledgeable’ of God’s creatures concerning God and His attributes. May God’s blessing be on them all and on all the creatures of God who are brought near. And our sufficiency is God and the grace of the Trustee [i.e. Muhammad].

And it used to be the case with `Ali b. al-Husayn [T.T., vii, 304 (520), d. c. 94/712; T. 70] that, whenever he performed his ablutions, his colour became pallid and his family would say to him: What is this that has become habitual with you, whenever you perform your ablutions? So lie would say: Do you know before Whom I am minded to stand? (in prayer) And Musa b. Mas’ud [T.T., x, 370 (657), d.c. 220/835] said: Whenever we granted an audience to ath-Thawri, we were as if the Fire had surrounded us in respect of what we saw of his fear and grief. And Mudar [L. vi, 46 (178)], the Reader, recited on a certain day: This is our Book which speaks the truth against you – to the end of the verse. (Q. xlv, 28). And `Abd al-Wahid b. Zayd [T.T., vi, 434 (912), d. c. 170/786; T. 237. Ziyad in T.T. and T] wept until he swooned; and, when he revived, he said: By Your Might, I have never disobeyed You so far as in me lies, so assist me with Your furtherance that I may obey You.

And there was recited in the presence of Yahya al-Bakka’ [I.S., vii, 13]: If you were to see when they are halted by their Lord. (Q. vi, 30). And he gave a shriek and remained ill because of it for the space of four months, being visited from every corner of Basra.

And Malik b. Dinar said: I was circumambulating the House, when I came upon a little slave girl performing her devotions and clinging to the curtains of the Ka’ba, while she said: O Lord, how many a lust there is whose pleasure has departed, and whose consequences have remained! O Lord, do You not possess any other correction and punishment save the Fire? And she was weeping and maintained this her posture until dawn broke. Malik said: So, when I saw that, I placed my hand on my head, shrieking: I am saying may his mother be bereft of Malik!

And `Umar b. `Abd al-`Aziz [T.T., vii, 475 (790), d. 101/720; T. 112] said: It was for nothing but considerations of mercy that God set this negligence in the hearts of the creatures, in order that they might not die for fear of God.

And as-Sari [E., 39 f.; K 110-11. d. c. 253/867] said: Truly I look at my nose several times every day for fear that my face may have been blackened. And Abu Hafs [Probably al-Kahasaf, a friend of al-Muhasibi; E. 38; or Abu Hafs, al-Haddad of Nishapur, d. 266/879-880, Ta'rikh, ii, 213] said: For forty years my belief concerning myself has been that God will direct to me a look of severe displeasure and my deeds point towards that. And Ibn al-Mubarak [T.T., v, 382 (657), d. 181/797-8] went out among his companions on a certain day and said: Truly I took a liberty yesterday with God. I asked Him for the Garden.

And al-Fudayl said: Truly I do not covet the prophet who is sent or the king who is preferred or the creature who is sound in faith. Will not these encounter the resurrection? The only person whom I covet is he who was not created. And it is recorded that the fear of the Fire entered a stripling among the Helpers, and he was weeping to such an extent that it detained him in the house. So the Prophet came and went in to him and embraced him and he fell dead. So he said: Prepare your companion for burial, for separation from the Fire has crushed his liver.

And it was said to al-Farqad as-Sabkhi [T.T., viii, 262 (486), d. 131/748-9]: Tell us the most wonderful thing you have heard concerning the children of Israel. So he said: I have heard that five hundred virgins entered the Jerusalem temple, their attire being wool and hair-cloth; and they were recollecting God’s reward and punishment, and all of them died in a single day.

And `Ata’ as-Sulami [T.T., vii, 211 (391) d. c. 750 A.D. al-Aslami in T.T] was one of those who fear and he would never ask God for the Garden; all he would ask for was forgiveness. And it was said to him during his illness: Do you not desire anything? So he said: Surely, fear of Gehenna has not left a place in my heart for desire. And it was said: Truly he did not lift his head to heaven nor laugh for forty years, and he raised his head one day and was stricken with fear and collapsed, and a slit was made in his stomach. And he would feel his body on certain nights for fear that he had been metamorphosed. And whenever a gale or lightning struck them or dearness of food, he would say: This is striking them on my account, would that `Ata’ were dead for the relief of the people. And `Ata’ said: We went out with `Utba, al-Ghulam [Ta'rikh, ii, 211, a disciple of al-Hasan, al-Basri], and in our company were adults and adolescents, to pray the dawn prayer with the sunset purification. Their legs had become swollen through their long stand, their eyes were sunken in their heads, their skin stuck to their bones, and their veins stood out as if they were whipcords. They became as if their skins were the rinds of water melons and as if they had come out from the grave to report how God preferred the obedient and deposed the disobedient. So, while they were going along, one of them passed by a certain place and he fell in a faint and his companions sat round him weeping on a day when the cold was intense. And his forehead was dripping sweat, so they brought water and wiped his face and he recovered. And they asked him about his experience, so he said: Truly I remembered that I had disobeyed God in that place.

And Salih al-Murri [T.T., iv 382 (641), d.c. 115/733] said: I recited to a man who was one of the devotees: On the Day when their faces will be turned about in the Fire, they will say: O that we had obeyed God and the Messenger. (Q. xxxiii, 66). So he fell in a swoon. Then he revived and said: Give me more of it, O Salih, for I find it perplexing. So I recited: Whenever they wish to come out of it, they will be sent back into it. (Q. xxxii, 20). So he fell dead.

And it is reported that Zarara b. Abi Awfa [T.T., iii, 322 (598), d. 93/711-2] led the people in the morning prayer, and, when he recited: When the Trump is sounded (Q. lxxiv, 8), he fell in a faint and was carried away a corpse.

And Maymun b. Mihran [T.T., x, 390 (803), d. 116/734-5; T. 93] said: When this verse was revealed: Surely Gehenna will be the promised land for them all, (Q. xv, 43), Salman, the Persian [I.H., I, 233-42. T.T., iv, 137 (233), d.c. 32/652], gave a shriek and placed his hand on his head and went out as a fugitive for three days during which they could not contain him.

And it was said: Sufyan ath-Thawri was ill and his symptoms were disclosed to a Dhimmi [Ahl adh-Dhimma, people of the covenant or obligation; a term first applied to the Ahl al-Kitab, that is, Jews, Christians and Sabians, and later interpreted to include Zoroastrians and others. H.A., 170, n. 3.] physician and he said: Fear has severed the liver of this man. And he came and felt his arteries and said: I did not know there was his like in the Muslim community. And Ahmad b. Hanbal said: I asked God that He would give access to a gate of fear, so He opened up and I was afraid for my reason and said: O Lord, according as I can bear it. So my heart was quietened. And ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Amr. b. al-’As said: Weep and, if you cannot weep make a pretence of weeping. By the One in whose hand my soul is, if any of you knew (what was in store) he would scream until his voice was cut off and would pray until his back was broken. And it is as if he pointed to the meaning of his (Muhammad’s) saying: If you knew what I know, you would laugh little and weep much.

And al-’Anbari [T.T., x, 194 (324), d. 196/811-12] said: The Masters of Tradition were assembled at the gate of al-Fudayl b. ‘Iyad and he came suddenly into their view at a window. He was weeping and his beard was quivering and he said: Get down to your Qur’an and to prayer. Woe unto you, this is not a time for traditions. This is a time for nothing but weeping and entreaty and humility and prayer like that of a drowning man. Guard your tongue and preserve your mobility and discipline your heart and hold on to what you ‘know’ and let go what you abhor. And al-Fudayl was seen walking on a certain day and it was said to him: Whither bound? He said: I do not know. And he was walking about dejected with fear.

And Dharr b. ‘Amr said to his father ‘Amr b. Dharr [T.T., vii, 444 (731). d. c. 153/770]: Why is it that the theologians discourse and no one weeps, whereas, when you discourse, I hear weeping on every side? So he said: O my son, the weeping of the bereaved mother is not like the weeping of the woman who is hired. And it is related that a crowd of people halted by a devotee who was weeping and they said: What is it that makes you weep? May God have compassion on you. He said: An ulcer which those who fear find in their heart. They said: And what is it? He said: The fear of the summons for presentation to God. And al-Khawwas [K. 153-4 or E. 38 or E. 72] used to weep and say in his supplication: I am lifted up in pride and my flesh is too weak to serve You, so embrace me.

And Salih al-Murri said: Ibn as-Sammak [G. 43, 48. d. 183/799] came up to us once and said: Show me something of the marvels of your devotees. So I brought him to a man who was in his hut in a certain quarter of the town, and we asked permission to enter, and behold! a man who was working with palm fronds and I recited to him: See the shackles and chains upon their necks; they will be dragged into the hot (water), then they will be stoked into the Fire. (Q. xl, 73). And the man gave a gasp and fell in a faint and we went out from his presence and left him in this state. And we went off to another man, and we entered in to him and I recited this verse and he gave a gasp and fell in a faint. So we went off and asked permission to go in to a third man and he said: Enter, if you will not distract me from my Lord. So I recited: That is for him who fears My judgement-seat and fears a threat. (Q. xiv, 17). And he gave a gasp and blood appeared from his nostrils and he wallowed in his blood until it was dried up. So we left him in this state and went out, and I took him on a tour of six persons, from the presence of each we went out, leaving him in a faint. Then I brought him to the seventh and we asked permission to enter and behold! a woman from within the hut saying: Enter. So we entered and behold! a shaykh in a trance, sitting in his oratory. So we greeted him, but he did not notice our salutation, and so I said to him in a raised voice: Is there not a morrow appointed for the creature? So the shaykh said: In whose Presence? Alas! for you. Then he remained stupified, opening his mouth and, with a fixed stare, crying out with his weak voice: Alas! Alas! until the voice was cut off. So his wife said: Make your way out, for you will not benefit from him for the moment. And, when that was over, I enquired of the people, and behold! three had revived and three had attained to God. And as for the shaykh he remained in his condition, dazed and bewildered, for three days, without performing a religious obligation, and, when the three days had passed, he came to his senses.

And Yazid b. al-Aswad [T.T., xi, 313 (599)] used to be of the opinion that he was one of the Foundation Members [See Lane, in loc., certain righteous persons of whom the world is never destitute. When one dies, God substitutes another in his place. About forty in number-the same number as those who took part in the Battle of Badr. Hence abdal = Substitutes or Successors. See K. 214], and he had sworn that he would never laugh nor sleep in a recumbent position, nor eat butter. So he was never seen laughing nor lying down nor eating butter until he died.

A woman client [mawlat, a Muslim who was not an Arab. See H.A., 172, n. 6] went in to `Umar b. `Abd al-`Aziz and greeted him. Then she took up her stance towards the oratory in his room and she prayed in it with two bows and her eyes conquered her and she was lulled to sleep and was induced to weep in her sleep. Then she was roused and said: O Commander of the Faithful, by God! I have seen a miracle. He said: And what was it? She said: I saw the Fire and its flames were licking its people. Then a bridge [See p. 36, n. 4] was brought and was placed over the centre of it. So he said: Go on. She said: And `Abd al-Malik b. Marwan [H.A., 205 f., d. 705 A.D] was brought and he was borne on it, and he had gone only a little way when the bridge capsized him and he was flung into Gehenna. So `Umar said: Go on. She said: Then al-Walid b. `Abd al-Malik [H.A., 221, d. 715 A.D] was brought and he was borne on it, and he had gone only a little way when the bridge capsized him and he was flung into Gehenna. So `Umar said: Go on. She said: Then Sulayman b. `Abd al-Malik [H.A., 203 f., d. 717 A.D] was brought and he had progressed only a little way over it when the bridge capsized him and he was thrown in the same way. So `Umar said: Go on. She said: Then you were brought and by God! O Commander of the Faithful-then `Umar gave a shriek and fell in a faint. So she came up to his side and began shouting in his ear: O Commander of the Faithful, truly I saw you and by God! you were saved, truly I saw you and by God! you were saved. He (the narrator) went on: And she was calling out and he was shouting and scraping the ground with his feet.

And Tawwus used to roll out his mattress and lie down and toss about like a seed in the frying-pan. Then he would leap up and fold it up and would face the qibla [The direction of the prayer. H.A., 118] until morning and would say: The recollection of Gehenna has dispersed the sleep of those who fear.

And on the authority of Ibn as-Sammak who said: I preached on a certain day in a meeting and a youth in the crowd stood up and said: O Abu `Abbas, truly you have preached today such a word that I should not care were I never to hear another. I said: And what is it? He said: Your saying: The hearts of those who fear have grasped the duration of the two eternities, whether in the Garden or the Fire. Then he disappeared from my view and so I lost him in the meeting. Or, in another recension: I did not see him, so I enquired about him, and I was told that he was sick and was being visited. So I went to visit him and said: O my brother, what condition is this I see you in? So he said: O Abu `Abbas, it is the consequence of your saying: The hearts of those who fear have grasped the duration of the two eternities, whether in the Garden or the Fire. He went on: Then he died and I saw him in sleep and I said: O my brother, how did God deal with you? He said: He has pardoned me and shown me compassion and given me entrance to the Garden. I said: By what means? He said: By means of the word.

Truly the monk spoke the truth of whom `Isa b. Malik, al-Khawlani, (he was one of the most elect of the devotees) related that he saw him halted at the gate of the Jerusalem temple with the appearance of one grief-stricken through extreme dejection, his tears hardly ever dry, because of the profusion of his weeping. And `Isa said: When I saw him, his aspect terrified me and I said: O monk, lay an obligation on me to keep on your authority. So he said: O my brother, with what would I command you if you are able to occupy the place of a man whom wild beasts and reptiles have surrounded, and who is fearful and watchful, fearing lest he may be negligent and so the beasts will maul him, or distracted and the reptiles sting him. So his heart is filled with fear and terror, and he passes his nights in fear, even if those who delude themselves feel secure, and his days in grief, even if the empty-headed make merry. Then he turned his back on me and left me. So I said: Will you not tell me something more, perhaps it would benefit me? So he said: The smallest quantity of water satisfies the thirsty man. And he certainly spoke the truth, for fear will move soonest the heart which is pure, but every warning glances off the heart which is hardened.

And what he mentioned in his hypothesis is that wild beasts and reptiles had surrounded him. And so one ought not to suppose that it is (merely) hypothetical. No, it is reality, for, if you were to view your inner man with the light of insight, you would see it filled with different kinds of wild beasts and species of reptiles, like anger, lust, rancour, envy, pride, self-esteem, self-righteousness and the rest. And it is these which are constantly mauling you and stinging you, if you neglect them for an instant, except that your eye is veiled from the sight of them. So, when the cover is withdrawn and you are placed in your grave, you will encounter them and they will be imaged to you according to the forms and shapes which suit their respective meanings. So you will see with your eye scorpions and snakes and they will surround you in your grave. And these are nothing but the attributes present to you now whose forms have been disclosed to you. So, if you desire to slay and subdue them, you are able for it before death. So do it. But, if you do not, you will become habituated to stings and bites in the kernel of your heart, how much more in your outer flesh.

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

Religion creates the issue of exclusion. So how did the revelation of Islam deal with people who felt left out one way or another?

The following quotations (from Tafsir ibn Kathir) will shed some light on this topic. But a caveat to start: Consider all the trials and difficulties the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam faced and realize that no one was more included than him in humanity, as being the best of humanity, and yet no one was more excluded from humanity, ridiculed from the early days of Islam to today. This then is one of the many unique signs of Prophethood- the relating of God to Man.

Notice how Allah deals with the believers with Justice but also with Mercy- if He was Just only, we’d be destroyed, but with His Mercy He shows us and sets up the spirit of Islam so as to use mercy, generosity, compassion and leniency as the ultimate Islamic panacea.

72 Sects

I will briefly mention this since this explanation on this hadith because this hadith is almost like a super-hadith- it is very common and is used to exclude many people from Islam and has been used by every cult or deviant group throughout Muslim history. This hadith can mean one can enters Jahannam and then still enter Jannah after a purification. No, this hadith mainly refers to those who are purified in this world and will enter Jannah without ever entering Jahannam. This hadith is then to indicate the reward for the exceptionally pious, NOT to indicate the eternal punishment for those who make mistakes. The common narration is 73 sects of which 72 will be in Hell, 1 will be in Jannah, while another narration mentioned by Shaykh Hamza indicates 72 will be in Heaven except for 1 will be in Hell. So contemplate on that and you see how great Allah’s mercy is.

Jannah

-Imam Ahmad narrated a Hadith that contains good news for every believer that his soul will be wandering in Paradise, as well, eating from its fruits, enjoying its delights and happiness and tasting the honor that Allah has prepared in it for him. This Hadith has a unique, authentic chain of narration that includes three of the Four Imams. Imam Ahmad narrated this Hadith from Muhammad bin Idris Ash-Shafi`i who narrated it from Malik bin Anas Al-Asbuhi, from Az-Zuhri, from `Abdur-Rahman bin Ka`b bin Malik that his father said that the Messenger of Allah said,

«نَسَمَةُ الْمُؤْمِنِ طَائِرٌ يَعْلُقُ فِي شَجَرِ الْجَنَّـةِ حَتَّى يَرْجِعَهُ اللهُ إِلى جَسَدِهِ يَوْمَ يَبْعَثُه»

(The soul of the believer becomes a bird that feeds on the trees of Paradise, until Allah sends him back to his body when He resurrects him.)

This hadith is significant because this reward is well-known among Muslims specifically for martyrs, but this hadith with a strong chain indicates it will be enjoyed by all Muslims. The following 2 hadith are from a talk from Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad worth noting:

- Shafa’ati bi ahlil kabair minal ummati (My intercession is for the sinners of my community) i.e. Muslims
- Shafa’ati bi akhthari man fil ardh min khajarin wa mudhar (My intercession will be for the majority of the people of Earth hadith) This hadith can mean non-Muslims as well, and the Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasalam)’s Intercession is accepted by God.

Have-nots

-Al-Bukhari recorded that Usamah bin Zayd said that Allah’s Messenger rode a donkey with a saddle covered by a velvet sheet and let Usamah ride behind him (on the donkey). The Prophet wanted to visit Sa`d bin `Ubadah in Bani Al-Harith bin Al-Khazraj, and this occurred before the battle of Badr. The Prophet passed by a gathering in which `Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul was sitting, before `Abdullah bin Ubayy became Muslim. That gathering was made up of various Muslims as well as Mushriks, who worshipped the idols, and some Jews. `Abdullah bin Rawahah was sitting in that gathering. When the Prophet reached `Abdullah bin Ubayy, the donkey caused some sand to fall on the group. Then, `Abdullah bin Ubayy covered his nose with his robe and said, `Do not fill us with sand.’ The Messenger of Allah greeted the gathering with Salam, called them to Allah and recited some of the Qur’an to them. `Abdullah bin Ubayy said, `O fellow! No other speech is better than what you said, if it was true! However, do not bother us in our gatherings. Go back to your place and whoever came to you, narrate your stories to him.’ `Abdullah bin Rawahah said, `Rather, O Messenger of Allah! Attend our gatherings for we like that.’ The Muslims, Mushriks and Jews then cursed each other, and they almost fought with each other. The Prophet tried to calm them down, until they finally settled. The Prophet rode his donkey and went to Sa`d bin `Ubadah, saying, `O Sa`d! Have you heard what Abu Hubbab said (meaning `Abdullah bin Ubayy) He said such and such things. ‘ Sa`d said, `O Messenger of Allah! Forgive and pardon him. By Allah, Who sent down the Book to you, Allah brought us the truth that you came with at a time when the people of this city almost appointed him king. When Allah changed all that with the truth that He gave you, he choked on it, and this is the reason behind the behavior you saw from him.’ The Messenger of Allah forgave him. Indeed, the Messenger of Allah and his Companions used to forgive the Mushriks and the People of the Scriptures, just as Allah commanded them, and they used to tolerate the harm that they suffered. Allah said,

[وَلَتَسْمَعُنَّ مِنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ الْكِتَـبَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ وَمِنَ الَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُواْ أَذًى كَثِيراً]

(and you shall certainly hear much that will grieve you from those who received the Scripture before you (Jews and Christians) and from those who ascribe partners to Allah;) [3:186], and,

Death is for ALL

-Ibn Jarir recorded that Abu Ad-Darda’ used to say, “Death is better for every believer. Death is better for every disbeliever, and those who do not believe me should read Allah’s statements,

[وَمَا عِندَ اللَّهِ خَيْرٌ لِّلأَبْرَارِ]

(and that which is with Allah is the best for Al-Abrar), and,

[وَلاَ يَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ أَنَّمَا نُمْلِى لَهُمْ خَيْرٌ لاًّنفُسِهِمْ إِنَّمَا نُمْلِى لَهُمْ لِيَزْدَادُواْ إِثْمَاً وَلَهْمُ عَذَابٌ مُّهِينٌ ]

(And let not the disbelievers think that Our postponing of their punishment is good for them. We postpone the punishment only so that they may increase in sinfulness. And for them is a disgraceful torment.) [3:178].”

The Equity of Women

-Allah said,

[فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ]

(So their Lord accepted of them), answered their invocation. Sa`id bin Mansur recorded that Salamah, a man from the family of Umm Salamah said, “Umm Salamah said, `O Messenger of Allah! Allah does not mention women in connection with Hijrah (Migration).’ Allah sent down the Ayah,

[فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ أَنِّى لاَ أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِّنْكُمْ مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَى]

(So their Lord accepted of them (their supplication and answered them), “Never will I allow to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female.)

The Ansar say that Umm Salamah was the first woman to migrate to them.” Al-Hakim collected this Hadith in his Mustadrak, and said, “It is Sahih according to the criteria of Al-Bukhari but they [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] did not collect it”.

Allah’s statement,

[أَنِّى لاَ أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِّنْكُمْ مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَى]

(“Never will I allow to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female,) explains the type of answer Allah gave them, stating that no deed of any person is ever lost with Him. Rather, He will completely reward each person for his or her good deeds. Allah’s statement,

[بَعْضُكُم مِّن بَعْضٍ]

(You are (members) one of another) means, you are all equal in relation to gaining My reward.

Every dispute will be brought before Allah

-Ibn Abi Hatim, may Allah have mercy on him, recorded that Ibn Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “When the Ayah

[ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.) was revealed, Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, `O Messenger of Allah, will we repeat our disputes’ He said,

«نَعَم»

(Yes.) He (Az-Zubayr) said, `This is a very serious matter.”’ Ahmad recorded from Az-Zubayr bin Al-`Awwam, may Allah be pleased with him, that when this Surah was revealed to the Messenger of Allah :

[إِنَّكَ مَيِّتٌ وَإِنَّهُمْ مَّيِّتُونَ - ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Verily, you will die, and verily, they (too) will die. Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.) Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “O Messenger of Allah, will the sins that we committed against others in this world be repeated for us” He said,

«نَعَمْ، لَيُكَرَّرَنَّ عَلَيْكُمْ حَتْى يُؤَدَّى إِلَى كُلِّ ذِي حَقَ حَقُّه»

(Yes, they will be repeated until everyone who is entitled will have his rights restored to him. ) Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “By Allah, it is a very serious matter.” It was also recorded by At-Tirmidhi, who said “Hasan Sahih.” `Ali bin Abi Talhah reported that Ibn `Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said:

[ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.) means, the truthful one will dispute with the liar, the oppressed will dispute with the oppressor, the one who is guided will dispute with the one who is misguided and the weak will dispute with the arrogant. Ibn Mandah recorded in Kitab Ar-Ruh that Ibn `Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “The people will dispute on the Day of Resurrection, to the extent that the soul will dispute with the body. The soul will say to the body, `You did such and such,’ and the body will say to the soul, `You told me to do it and you tempted me.’ Then Allah will send an angel to judge between them, and he will say, `You two are like a man who cannot walk but can see, and a man who cannot see but can walk.’ They went into a garden and the one who could not walk said to the one who was blind, `I see fruit there, but I cannot reach it.’ The blind man said, `Climb on me and get it.’ So he climbed on him and got it. So which of them is the wrongdoer They will say, `Both of them.’ The angel will say to them, `You have passed judgement against yourselves.’ The body was a means of transportation for the soul.” Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Sa`id bin Jubayr said that Ibn `Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “This Ayah was revealed and we did not know what it was revealed about:

[ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.)” He said, “We said, what will we dispute about There is no dispute between us and the People of the Book, so what will we dispute about Until the Fitnah occurred.” Then Ibn `Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “This is what our Lord promised us we would dispute about.” This was recorded by An-Nasa’i.

Conclusion

It is of interest because with the life of the Prophet salalahu alayhi wasalam we see God Himself dealing with how people feel left out or excluded. And yet at some level, there needs to be an acceptance of this exclusion. In fact, it is of significance that the pious prefer difficulty and exclusion, like the blind man who could’ve been cured by the Prophet (salallahu alayhi wasalam’s) dua, yet instead chose to endure patiently for the reward of Jannah.

In reading above narratoins there is an interaction between Justice, as we perceive it, and how Islam conceives Justice including within it Mercy. Allah commands Muslim to “adli wa’l ihsan- Justice and Excellence,” excellence which is implied as mercy and sincerity and acting generously with an awareness of the inequities of the world. We should take this into account because Allah is al-Adl (the Just) and yet He is also the Creator of Justice. So if the Creator of Justice is encouraging us to be merciful in how we look at the world with its fairness and unfairness- then how much more important is it?

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

–

All quotations taken from Tafsir ibn Kathir: tafsir.com

A literary Brown Sahib

Some readings…

Ziauddin Sardar marvels at the brown sahibs

Native Orientalists at the Daily Times by Shahid Alam

The modern Brown Sahibs by Zafar Bangash

A literary Brown Sahib By Hassan Suroor

I would stretch it further and say we also have brown sahibs in the Middle east in the form of the Kings and Emirs and their love of all things Western. If you want to explore more on this phenomenon you could perhaps take a look at the story of the last Nizam of Hyderabad in this Youtube video.

Contrast this with the “Western mühtedî” namely, Tim Winters (Abdul Hakim Murad) the Englishman who has become Muslimized

HASAN SUROOR

At times I move between normalcy and anxiety, which can become severe brought upon these fears that grip me.

Three fears have stayed with me the longest. Wherever I stand, I remember Allah’s verse, “Kulla man alayha fa’an- And everything upon it will be obliterated” and lament that wherever I am, it will vanish and to not grow attached to this world. I then fear, that everything I am seeing before me, my family, friends are not actually occurring as permanently as I once thought they were- rather they are fast disappearing into the continuous march of the akhira towards me, so that everything I see through my eyes, I see no differently than I would recall a memory- every moment is nothing more than a flashback. And the third fear that shakes me, is I fear God’s verses on the Heaven’s and the Earth- that when I pray the Earth will crack open beneath me and swallow me or the sky will tear and strike me with its howling wind or bolts of lightning or blasting shouts from angels in the sky.

And all this fear (khawf) is very real to me because of the level of certitude in Allah (yaqeen) I have at times and at times I don’t. If the disbelievers were to see Heaven and returned to Earth, they would disbelieve again, favoring this world even though they know Heaven to be greater and that is the power of certitude (yaqeen). And I search to have a permanent yaqeen so my fear of Allah (khawf) is greater. Sufyan at-Thawri would urinate blood out of fear of Allah. Hasan al-Basri would stop eating for some days. And not uncommon in those days was fainting out of fear of Allah. What little do I have in comparison and how the people fear the deprivation in the dunya in such a degree similar to how our pious predecessors feared Allah. Today they are in panic over nothing (i.e. dunya)- how much more should they panic over everything (i.e. the akhira)?

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

If you are into the Internet, you will enjoy this read.

The following was an opportunity I had to study Islam in the digital world and apply some of what I have learned about Sociology and combining it with certain concepts and exhortations in Islam. I did an analysis of Sunniforum and shared the following piece with the Admin of Sunniforum.

Its really fun because I’m combining spiritual concepts with social science concepts. I detailed why arguments are so common online and why the way we interact with and on the Internet makes it hard for Islam to spread and actually makes it easier to hurt Islam and ourselves. Don’t worry, I mentioned some ways of overcoming this- and intend to launch some more online projects that will hopefully tip the scale and make things more “deen-friendly.”

Introduction

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala rasulullah

To begin, in the wake of the digital age, the ummah of Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wasalam has connected many believers from across the world. In countries where Muslims are a minority they have provided channels of discussion and a sense of community among the ummah. No doubt, it is difficult to imagine feelings of solidarity with the Muslim ummah would have been as strongly enriched and hardwired, were it not for the digital Muslim community. Web forums in particular have become meeting places of great utility to Muslims, where Muslims have successfully spread new-born religious ideologies (salafiya, extremism) and at its best many have found these forums as communities of mutual ‘islamisization,’ where non-practincing Muslims have become more involved in their religious beliefs. Some have even modeled and monitored the progression of trends in the Muslim Ummah using online forums.

The goal or niyah, as it were, of these forums varies greatly. Some are intended for Muslim socializing, be it more for a sense of community, (islamica forums) or for introducing people to Islam or even as a space to convert non-Muslims (maniacmuslim) or for educational-institutional usage (AlMaghrib). Forums vary starkly on many levels, some of the most important which we will mentioned here, and how they affect the quality of discussion on the forum, the solidarity, the sense of community-

-location of membership, ideological and similarity of values among members, how well connected they are, whether they have met before,
-moderators
-categories of discussion and how distinct and how active these are; idealistically these depend on how people think (people comment: “I think in Facebook status format, Twitter format, forum format”)
-time spent on forum; how long a member puts into a single post, reflecting the quality of the discussion

The forum we are presently concerned here with is Sunniforum. Principally, this forums virtue lies in its sole dedication to Islamic values, the spread of Islamic knowledge and spirituality the intersection of many different Muslim religious ideologies. In my own experience, many brothers have used Sunniforum, above all other forums to learn about Islam, to assist their religious development, and as a “religious retreat or escape” from the present social realities of living in the West. Characteristically, many members are students and there are a number of ulema present on the forum. Reputationally, being the “most Islamic” forum, it carries the stigma of being an argumentative and on certain ideological discussion, intolerant.

Presently, we will analyze this forum, from the perspective of social psychology, anthropological and sociological with a particular eye for the Sunnah and classical Islamic attitudes. This represents an attempt to understand the vulnerabilities of the Muslim community (against shaytan) and to further Islamicize the internet and make “Sunnah-friendly.” At times there may be some generalizations in order to look at the ‘ideal type’ of this forum.

Analysis

In order to emerge successful in this discussion, it is important at the onset to connect oneself to the history of Islam. Rather than comparing this forum with other Muslim forums, which although useful, should be compared to the social realities of the Sahabas. It may be suggested this is too difficult a comparison, but this is merely a point for improvement-to steadily work towards bit by bit. We will analyze the attitudes an behavior of this forum, as in the words of Imam Ali, “Take yourself to account before you are accounted for (on the Day of Judgment).”

“…the internet is a very fragmented place…we are robbed of knowing each other as brothers in Islam…but as brothers in passing by, visiting a web-page or not. I see a post on this topic and I speak about it, but would I really comment on it in reality today had I not read it here? Maybe if I considered it. The internet imparts more importance on certain issues and therefore, distorts the reality of their place. It become inevitable for words to be misconstrued. When people actually tell you their thoughts, their words take on the ‘unrealistic’ qualities of being more vivid, literal and absolute then they intended them to be. The internet then, projects our words back onto us, after amplifying or distorting them and so any criticism, is felt more acutely and we become further entrenched in ideas we would have initially rejected, but through a gradual process of distortion, amplification and defense, we come to accept it. Shaytan maybe the one quoting our words, but we’ll still believe it since its our own words. The development of ‘digital akhlaaq’ is needed…but has been limited because the internet is a fluid place, so non-Muslims play just as big a part in our akhlaaq as do Muslims.”
A sense of solidarity is essential to community. The more alike members are on their views, values and understanding of Islam the more harmonious their interactions will be. However, the forum is difficult as it is similar to  being in a classroom of people one has just recently just met with the chance one won’t get to know for a long time. This creates a gap, where members are unfamiliar to each other, and may disappear overnight, thus every conversation or discussion, can be left in limbo- and unless they know each other outside the forum, the forum maintains a feeling of incompletion, a lack of fruits. In this scenario, the forum takes on the role of a place where this Muslim community, grows together, a place of “religious childhood” until they reach “religious puberty or maturation” and “outgrow the forum.” Some may never reach this point, others will reach this point but intend to stay online for the tutorship and helping of other enthusiastic, but inexperienced Muslims.

It should be made a point that it is far too difficult to replicate the madrassa system of religious learning or seminars, or shaykh-student system. There are a number of reasons for this we will dive into, but they take the role of obstacles that limit any sort of Islamic education from taking fruit. It may be in the future, Muslims will find a way around this (and we will try to discuss that here) but by and large these obstacles are vulnerabilities from which shaytan can distract members from nobler goals.

At the most obvious level, one must realize the Internet is a place of ‘literalization,’ by this we refer to the fact everything laid out on the computer screen, it is difficult for the computer user, not to judge or make base assumptions based on what he/she sees, in a very real way. In other words, there is little room for giving others the benefit of the doubt (husn udh-dhan). Yet what is on the screen is given the full authority of a face-to-face interaction despite the notable absense of nonverbal communication, gestures, intonations in voice, and most importantly the social sanction of being impolite to a person’s face, i.e. backbiting or gheebah. The online setting is biased towards ‘unjust interactions’ therefore- rather than being face to face, and carrying the social-religious sanctions against gheebah, the internet makes it easier for a person to speak rudely online, a “half-gheebah,” speaking to each other online but with the base judgments one has in a backbiting situation. For this reason, the structure and interaction humans have with the digital world, arguments happen more often in online settings, most notably on Youtube, more so than face to face human behavior allows.

This leads to childish behavior online, often the most crass and crude and as time passes, “juvenilization” occurs bringing out the worst in people, most especially in those who are heavy users of the Internet. At times, one may even see this attitude cross over into their non-internet interactions. Something in the design of the Internet, and how we interface with technology devolves us. In observing the behavior of users who argue on Muslim forums, over certain topics, they often think endlessly about the topic at hand, (“think in web forum format”). By and large, we should visit the Islamic sanctions against argumentation and namimah (tale-bearing):

[ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.) was revealed, Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, `O Messenger of Allah, will we repeat our disputes’ He said,

«نَعَم»

(Yes.) He (Az-Zubayr) said, `This is a very serious matter.”’ Ahmad recorded from Az-Zubayr bin Al-`Awwam, may Allah be pleased with him, that when this Surah was revealed to the Messenger of Allah :

[إِنَّكَ مَيِّتٌ وَإِنَّهُمْ مَّيِّتُونَ - ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Verily, you will die, and verily, they (too) will die. Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.) Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “O Messenger of Allah, will the sins that we committed against others in this world be repeated for us” He said,

«نَعَمْ، لَيُكَرَّرَنَّ عَلَيْكُمْ حَتْى يُؤَدَّى إِلَى كُلِّ ذِي حَقَ حَقُّه»

(Yes, they will be repeated until everyone who is entitled will have his rights restored to him. ) Az-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “By Allah, it is a very serious matter.” It was also recorded by At-Tirmidhi, who said “Hasan Sahih.” `Ali bin Abi Talhah reported that Ibn `Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said:

[ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.) means, the truthful one will dispute with the liar, the oppressed will dispute with the oppressor, the one who is guided will dispute with the one who is misguided and the weak will dispute with the arrogant. Ibn Mandah recorded in Kitab Ar-Ruh that Ibn `Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “The people will dispute on the Day of Resurrection, to the extent that the soul will dispute with the body. The soul will say to the body, `You did such and such,’ and the body will say to the soul, `You told me to do it and you tempted me.’ Then Allah will send an angel to judge between them, and he will say, `You two are like a man who cannot walk but can see, and a man who cannot see but can walk.’ They went into a garden and the one who could not walk said to the one who was blind, `I see fruit there, but I cannot reach it.’ The blind man said, `Climb on me and get it.’ So he climbed on him and got it. So which of them is the wrongdoer They will say, `Both of them.’ The angel will say to them, `You have passed judgement against yourselves.’ The body was a means of transportation for the soul.” Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Sa`id bin Jubayr said that Ibn `Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “This Ayah was revealed and we did not know what it was revealed about:

[ثُمَّ إِنَّكُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَـمَةِ عِندَ رَبِّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ ]

(Then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will be disputing before your Lord.)” He said, “We said, what will we dispute about There is no dispute between us and the People of the Book, so what will we dispute about Until the Fitnah occurred.” Then Ibn `Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “This is what our Lord promised us we would dispute about.” This was recorded by An-Nasa’i.

http://tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=39&tid=45277

“Imam Nawawi says:

Having summarily mentioned that talebearing (namima) is unlawful, with the evidence for this and a description of its nature, we now want to add a fuller explanation of it. Imam Abu Hamid Ghazali says, “Talebearing is a term that is usually applied only to someone who conveys to a person what another has said about him, such as by saying, ‘So-and-so says such and such about you.’ In fact, talebearing is not limited to that, but rather consists of revealing anything whose disclosure is resented, whether resented by the person who originally said it, the person to whom it is disclosed, or by a third party. It makes no difference whether the disclosure is in word, writing, a sign, nodding, or other; whether it concerns word or deed; or whether it concerns something bad or otherwise. The reality of talebearing lies in divulging a secret, in revealing something confidential whose disclosure is resented. A person should not speak of anything he notices about people besides that which benefits a Muslim to relate or prevents disobedience. Anyone approached with a story, who is told, ‘So-and-so says such and such about you,’ must do six things:

(1) disbelieve it, for talebearers are corrupt, and their information is unacceptable,

(2) tell the talebearer to stop, admonish him about it, and condemn the shamefulness of what he has done;

(3) hate him for the sake of Allah Most High, for he is detestable in Allah’s sight, and hating for the sake of Allah Most High is obligatory;

(4) not think badly of the person whom the words are supposedly from, for Allah Most High says, ‘Shun much of surmise’ (Koran 49:12);

(5) not let what has been said prompt him to spy or investigate whether it is true, for Allah Most High says ‘Do not spy’ (Koran 49:12);

(6) and not to do himself what he has forbidden the talebearer to do, by relating it to others.”

(ibid 471-72)

[Taken from “The Reliance of the Traveler”]

There is nothing that impairs one’s religion, diminishes one’s respectability, ends one’s happiness, or preoccupies one’s heart like arguing

”When an erstwhile guided people go astray, they are given contentiousness.”
(Related by Ibn Hanbal, Al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Mājja, on the authority of Abī Umāma)

The famous Sufi shaykh of India, Nizamuddin Awliya once said regarding argumentation about Islam, “If they put thorns on the ground and you also put thorns on the ground, then there will be thorns everywhere.” Where will one go for safety? This is true now, at Muslim conferences- we restrict which events we go to and in the end, we go nowhere in our Islamic development, because the thorns are everywhere.

“I guarantee a house in Jannah (Paradise) for one who gives up arguing, even if he is in the right; and I guarantee a house in the middle of Jannah for one who abandons lying even when joking / for the sake of fun; and I guarantee a house in the highest part of Jannah for one who has good manners.” [Prophet Muhammad (صلي الله عليه وسلم) - reported by Imam Abu Dawud]

Sa’eed bin Musayyeb says: Once the Prophet was sitting with his Companions, and one person used insulting words against Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), causing him pain. But Abu Bakr remained silent. The person again used bitter words against Abu Bakr, and still Abu Bakr did not respond. The third time when this ignorant person hurt Abu Bakr with his tongue, Abu Bakr tried answering back.
At this point the Prophet got up. Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) asked him, “Are you displeased with me, O Messenger of Allah?” The Prophet replied, “No, but (when you remained silent) an angel came down from the heaven responding to this man’s talk. But the moment you started replying to that man, the angel went away and the devil sat down. And I cannot sit where the devil is sitting.” Abu Dawood 041 4878
More broadly speaking, Shaykh Husain Abdul Sattar of Sacredlearning.org (Audio talk: Seeking expanse in our lives) makes the point of using the principle of tawseer- expansion- in our lives and that its roots are found in the Sunnah and Shariah. When one falls into argumentation, riba, debt this wasa’a vanishes and it is as if there is constriction in one’s life. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine there may be some blood pressure problems develop because of the level of involvement argumentation on forums requires for heavy users. As a principle, it would be extremely useful to utilize and frame interactions on web forums through an understanding of tawseer- as a bridge between the seemingly simplistic prohibitions in Islam and the sociological consequences.

wa dakat alayhimul ardhu bima’u rahbat
-the Earth constricted upon them besides its vastness
(Quran)

There are two points worth mentioning here. What is posted on the forum does not solely belong to the person anymore, it becomes open to interpretation by the collective conscience of the online community. You have a situation where their is a “group soul” which is a lumping together of everything good and bad on the forums– and it is this which is the real judge on what is happening online. The words don’t belong to the readers, rather what ever is interpreted is accorded to how healthy or unhealthy the atmosphere of the web forum is, or how tolerant, patient and understanding it is, or how well the community can relate to what has been posted.

The second point worthy of note is on any online space, there is a sense of ownership and ‘personal space.’ When new comers enter the Sunniforum space their is a protective nature of veteran users. They do not want new comers to infringe on there online hangout. The problem comes about when veteran users covet this space, and respect it, but newcomers do not, and as a result tensions can rise very quickly. This seems to happen often on Sunniforum. It is important to understand the territorial shells users have and at the same time not to alienate newcomers.

In my own personal experience with forum users, the attitude and hope they carry with them is to come on the forum in search of some sort of miracle, whether it be inspirational or real. Sunniforum especially, with its strong following of mureeds and discussions of tasawwuf, seems to carry this very strongly. Something amazing, profound, and obvious are what people are looking for on their radar.

Yet what this means is many people in reality read posts as if they are reading…nothing. This attitude is also common today among students studying the Quran and its translation- one could mistake them for reading a blank piece of paper, with the level of interest and considering how much they get out of it. Rather, instead, some users read posts as if they are reading things into them- they read little of what is actually being said, so one could do an experiment and write up a post with a few key controversial buzz words and trigger one of the many ongoing useless religious debates, wasting time and sapping barakah. The behavior then of users is to think endlessly on certain topics, about rebuttals or replies to give on certain topics, distracting them in their worship and realistically producing little. The threads are fruitless because posts are directed and geared at other users, more often than they are at the topic at hand. When users build up “history” with each other, its not hard to see how easily shaytan goes about sowing discord!

Its not hard to see the limitations of online discussion. Most discussions cannot become detailed, nuanced and as thorough, as they would in real life. Rather there is a ‘landscape’ that each discussion must cover (as if it were an obligation) in its respective sphere (i.e. any discussion of sufism must warn against exaggerations, and thereby limit new fruitful discussion) This serve to limit discussion, progress and real fruitful conversations—rather it is often just “the same old discusison, over and over again.” After the limitation of exploring new idas there is also a tendency for discussions to be broad, but very rarely can they become detailed or minute enough. This is problematic because Islam has very minute and detailed qualities to it, hence, this will be an obstacle with discussions on Islam. When this continues there is a permanent intellectual segregation, a lowering of the intellectual Muslim imagination on many forums, not just this one. I would contend, this also shows great promise for change- if people are in their shells repeating the same things they did a year ago…then in principle, it means, it would not take much, to really move things and introduce new tarbiya or create more fruitful discussions.  Bottom line is forum users work on what is on the surface and not what is in the deeper level of discussion, so the key is to encourage good wholesome thoughts, not mere conversation or wasteful speech.

Nabi salallahu alayhi wasalam said: “Al muminu al-mira’tu al-mumini; the believer is a mirror to a believer,” (Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Bukhari, al-Adab al-Mufrad) and the wisdom of this hadith suggests we need to find ways of reflecting good (khayr) into others, rather than reflecting the rancour shaytan directs towards us. From this hadith we should also understand, negative behavior is an invasion of personal identity, of individuality, because internet interaction is a mirror and what this behavior does is everytime you see yourself,  you will see more of what other people think of you, what they project into you, as your reflection. It is as if one is looking into a mirror and believing the misshapen image in the mirror is his true reflection and then acting according to its ugliness.

Suggestions

Here briefly I wish to make the following suggestions. These measures go beyond having a “Sticky” thread which often go unread and ignored.

-If possible, require mandatory reading for forum users so they can become like-minded and think similarly or at least on the same page in some cases. Perhaps a magazine or blog to refresh weekly (the QAFILA blog?) and that they can’t use the site without completing the reading and filling in a  small quiz. The blog section of the forum reflects this idea, but could use some major expansion. This may sound a little drastic but it will ensure all users are constantly getting something out of the forum- and ensure they come back, rather than gambling on whether they benefit or not. Additionally something small like this would be a first and it is hard to imagine any protest to this since all users have a thirst for understanding the deen.

-Placing a timer in between posting would ensure a slowing down in the scenario of an argument. Most forums have timers set at 5 seconds, but expanding this to 1 minute or 2 minutes could do significant amount of good in making people think carefully and stopping them from saying anything brash.

اَلأَنَاةُ مِنَ اللهِ وَ الْعُجْلَةُ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ
Calmness and patient deliberation is from Allāh and haste is from Satan (Tirmidhī).

-Encourage cooperation and the helping of newcomers- for common questions. Having prepared FAQs on key topics, balanced and clear, that specifically discourage argumentation, could also help: Man naffa-sa an akhihi qurbatun min qurba ad-dunya, naffa-sa Allahu anhu qurbatun min qurbal akhira.
“Whoever relieves someone of an anxiety in this world, Allah will relieve him of an anxiety in the next world.” -Hadith

-Moderating carefully is also important, as this hadith illustrates:
Verily another person’s belongings are unlawful to take except with his heart’s content. (Bayhaq, Shu’ab al Iman, Daraqutni)
i.e. taking away a person’s words when they dislike it.

-Yet at the same time, moderating the forum tightly (much more harsh) would help in curbing argumentation. Exercising discretion is very important and it is ultimately the atmosphere of the forum that will dictate the types of discussions. There may be an outcry on severe moderation, editing, censoring on the forums, but it is likely it will shape people’s thinking patterns so they search for what is most beneficial over more temporary discussions. The key here would be to moderate so the forum represents the spirit of Islam and reflects the better aspects of our nature than the negative aspects.

-Closing threads that are long overdue would also help…threads that are left open for discussion are often very lengthy and most users don’t read through all the pages. This would help in giving Sunniforum a better feeling of organization and make it easier for users to recall the truly beneficial threads.

-Launching key sections, as ongoing forum projects would be beneficial, ex: Fasting Club for support in doing optional fasts, Tahajjud Club on tips with prayers, etc. Creativity is key here!

-Having Forum awards for most beneficial users to encourage users to follow their examples and help build a sense of community and brotherhood/sisterhood.

-Above all, taking responsibility for the forum and shaping it so it bears fruit. It would not be a stretch to say it will be taken to hisab on Yawmul Qiyamah.
al halal hisab wa’l haram iqab (the halal will be accounted for, and the haram punished) -Imam Ali (radiallahu anhu)

Jazaka Allahu khayran and may Allah bless you and reward you with much much good in this life and the next!  Ameen!

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

If you pay close attention you can notice miracles occurring, that have resonance in the Quran. Over the past few days, some relatives of mine passed away, and I had to undergo a surgery. This was a bit of a hard time but alhamdulillah, over the course of a week and a half, family friends have dropped off about 10 13 big dishes of food.

This isn’t the first time. My auntie and uncle teach Quran to a number of children in their neighborhood and apartment building. The both of them had a stroke and we’re sick at home, unable to cook or teach as they recovered. I still recall my auntie saying, “I swear by Allah, I haven’t had to touch the stove for cooking anything, we’ve had food delivered to us people in the mahala, for one month.” Now this is Canada by the way, where Muslims are still relatively few, yet somehow Allah sends his bounty to those who are afflicted and bear with patience.

In the Quran, you see this in the story of Maryam.

So she conceived him and withdrew with him to a remote place. Labor pains drove her to the trunk of a palmtree. She said, “O would that I had died before this, and had been completely forgotten.” But the one that was below her called to her, “Do not grieve, your Lord has placed a brook below you. Shake the trunk of the palmtree towards you and fresh dates will fall down to you.” (Quran 19:22–25)

Notice how close the connection and association is between her pain and grief and the food God is consoling her with. They are inextricably linked within the same verses and moreover it is repeated twice!

But al-Maybudī would have us know that this “pain of petitioning” is itself a blessing:

Maryam rose up in her weakness and seized the dry tree. When her hand touched the dry tree, it turned green, moist and fresh, bearing fruit, and in its freshness bent towards her. A divine voice came saying, “We had the power so that even without your touching the tree it would have become green and bent towards you, but We wanted by your shaking it to bring forth two miracles; first was that in childbirth, weakness and illness, We gave you power to shake the tree, which was to verify the miracle for you. The other was that We wanted the blessing of your hand to reach the tree so that it would bear fruit. Then the people of the world would understand that whoever is sad and grieved for Us, their hand is a remedy for pains.⁴²

The theme of human longing and supplication is further developed in commentary that compares Maryam’s contemplative prayer in the to the prayer she makes in the pain and distress of childbirth.

When Maryam received the food in her it was a miracle of pure grace occurring without any effort on her part. The dates she is provided with here are also considered to be a miracle, since the tree is said to have been dried up and without fruit until she shook its trunk.³⁸ Several commentators point out that in this second miracle, Maryam is required to act. Al-Qushayrī writes,

It is said that when she was isolated (mujarrad) and without attachment Zakariyyā would find her with food without her having been instructed to exert herself. When the attachment to the child occurred, she was instructed to shake the dried palmtree and this was in her weakest state as the time of the birth of the child became closer, in order to know that attachment necessitates pain and hardship.³⁹

-Sufi Commentaries on the Quran, Kristin Zahra Sands, pg. 105

I find it of importance and contemplate on this often when I undergo difficulty. Something distressing will have occurred and yet at those times I find fruit to taste the sweetest. And as my personal stories and the tafsir of these ayahs show, when a person bears patiently with trials somehow sustenance appears miraculously. It may require a little work, as in the case of Maryam having to shake the tree, but that also has the benefit of making you realize, in your weakness you still have strength and much to be grateful for. Recovering these past few days, I find when you are weak and suffering, you begin to realize how minuscule that pain is in relation to the vastness of everything Allah has given you and your eman increases and rises. When Ayyub alayhi salam was afflicted with the death of his 14 children, and 7 years of leprosy, his wife asked him to make dua and he said: “Amma astahi an atlu minallahi rafa balahi wa ma qadaytu fihi mu dat-tarathahi; I feel ashamed when my Allah has given me 80 years prosperity, and only tested me for 7 years. I don’t have the guts to ask Allah- I feel ashamed to ask Allah.”

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Dear Friend, Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust which has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.

When the light from Allah (Who) is the light of the heavens and the earth…begins to shine upon the regions of your heart, the lamp of the heart will be lit. The lamp of the hearts is in a glass, the glass is as it were a brightly shining star…Then within that heart, the lightning-shaft of divine discoveries strikes. This lightning-shaft will emanate from the thunderclouds of meaning neither of the East nor of the West, lit from a blessed olive tree… and throw light upon the tree of discovery, so pure, so transparent that it sheds light though fire does not touch it. (1) Then the lamp of wisdom is lit by itself. How can it remain unlit when the light of Allah’s secrets shines over it?

If only the light of divine secrets shines upon it, the night sky of secrets is lit with thousands of stars… and by the stars (you) find (your) way…(2) It is not the stars that guide us but the divine light. For Allah has…decked the lower heaven with beauty (in) the stars. (3) If only the lamp of divine secrets be kindled in your inner self the rest will come, either all at once or little by little. Some you already know, some we will tell you here. Read, listen, try to understand. The dark skies of unconsciousness will be lit by divine presence and the peace and beauty of the full moon, which will rise from the horizon shedding light upon light (4), ever rising in the sky, passing through its appointed stages as Allah has…ordained for it Mansions, (5) until it shines in glory in the centre of the sky, dispersing the darkness of heedlessness. I swear by the night when it is still(6) …By the glorious morning light…(7) your night of unconsciousness will see the brightness of the day. Then you will inhale the perfume of remembrance and repent in the early hours of the morning of unconsciousness and regret your life spent in sleep. You will hear the songs of the morning nightingales and you will hear them say

They were in the habit of sleeping but little by night, and in the hours of early dawn they (were found) praying for forgiveness. (9)

Allah guides to His light whom He pleases. (10)

Then you will see from the horizon of Divine Reason the sun of inner knowledge rising. It is your private sun, for you are the one whom Allah guides and are on the right path and not the one He leaves in error. (11) And you will understand the secret that

It is not given to the sun to catch up with the moon, nor can the night outstrip the day. Each swims along in (its appointed) orbit. (12)

Finally, the knot will be untied in accordance with the parables which Allah sets forth for men, and Allah is the Knower of all things, (13) and the veils will lift and shells will shatter, revealing the fine beneath the coarse; the truth will uncover her face.

All this will begin when the mirror of your heart is cleansed. The light of the divine secrets will fall upon it if you are willing and ask for Him, from Him, with Him.

1 All the above verses are quoted from the Verse of Light (Sura Nur: 35)
2 Surah Nahl: 16
3 Surah Ya Sin: 36
4 Surah Nur: 35
5 Surah Ya Sin: 29
6 Surah Duha: 2
7 Surah Duha: 1
8 Surah al-Imran: 17
9 Surah Fatiha: 17-18
10 Surah Nur: 35
11 Surah A’raf: 178
12 Surah Ya Sin: 40
13 Surah Nur: 35

-Taken from The Secret of Secrets of Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, translated by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi

It has been a while since I’ve posted my Soul Art pieces. I intended to do so every Friday but it became too demanding so now I’m going to try doing it maybe once or twice a month? It’ll be more of a surprise than anything else. Here are some pieces- some you may recognize from my twitter…others not. Its hard to squeeze in the entire images so you can click on them to look at them fully.

Again, if you have contributions and want something put up, send me an email muslimology (@) gmail (dot) com. Let me know if you want your name on there or if you want to remain anonymous- its better if you write your name on the image actually. And if you want more clarification on this Art project just check out this post.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

an-na indal munkhasirati kulubuhum
I am with the broken-hearted
-Hadith Qudsi (mentioned in a talk by Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad)

In the past, I’ve had difficulty understanding the difference between being cursed in Islam and what it means to undergo trials but after the past week of trials (funeral, surgery, and what comes with those two things) I see more clearly.

Curses are final- they are things which can’t be lifted and will come to a completion, they are conclusive and can’t easily be contested. The example of one of the ‘false Prophets’ in early Islam, who claimed to be able to cause miracles: he spit in a well to make it give more water, and it dried up; he spit into a man who was blind in one eye to cure him and instead the man became blind in both eyes. In Hilayah al-Awliya a story is mentioned where a woman once accused a Sahaba (can’t remember his name) of theft, and he prayed to Allah, if she is lying that for her to lose her sight and fall down a well, which eventually did happen.

“Taste you therein its heat, and whether you are patient of it or impatient of it, it is all the same. You are only being requited for what you used to do.” (Quran 52:16)

Unlike trials, curses are very similar to the experience of the deniers in Hell- it doesn’t matter if they are patient or not, they are doomed there forever. Similarly, a curse is done and can’t be lifted unless one returns to Allah.

وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الأَمْوَالِ وَالأنفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ
الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌ قَالُواْ إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ
wa la nablu wan-nakum bi shayin minal khawfi wa’l ju’i, wa naqsin minal amwali wal anfus was- thamarat wa bashirus sabirren
And we shall surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and loss of lives (family, friends) and the fruits of your labors, but give good tidings to the patient, Who, when disaster strikes them, say, “Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return” (Quran 2: 155-156)

Trials on the other hand are temporary, although to those who are weak in the deen and those who lack trust in Allah they seem as permanent as curses, they do not carry the same divine intention. They have set ends and are intended to be responded to with sabr, tawakkul and istiqama (patience enabled by trust in Allah and consistent belief and perseverance of these two things).

Ya ayuhaladhina amanu asta’inu bi sabri was salatu, inallah ma’a sabireen
Oh you who believe, seek help through sabr (patient perseverance) and salat (prayer), verily Allah is with the Patient. (Quran 11:115)

The benefit of trials isn’t easy for Muslims to understand. We have the attitude, “God grant me patience, and I want it now!!” when even patience has to be learned through trial and error. There are many ways of understanding trials and the wisdom inherent in them, and poets have been well adept to capturing it, especially among our Christian cousins. Let’s run through some quotes:

-Mawlana Rumi (rahimullah) mentioned if there were no trials how would Allah address a human being with a dignified title? How could he call us generous, wise, learned, patient or just if we had achieved nothing and been left to live like animals?

-Affliction: God sometimes washes the eyes of His children with tears in order that they may read aright His Providence and His Commandment

-The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.

-Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would’ve lain dorment. (Horace)

-The mind which does not wholly sink under misfortune rises above it more lofty than before, and is strengthened by affliction. (Cheunix)

-Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen (Lowell)

-On every thorn a delightful wisdom grows; In every rill a sweet instruction flows. (Dr. Young)

-You can’t get ahead when your trying to get even.

-Affliction is but the shadow of God’s wing.

-Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance where they grow but crushed and trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmly sweets around.

-Give me the character and I will forecast the event. Character, is has in substance been said, is “victory organized.” (Bovee)

-Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity, and a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.

And lastly, remember the importance of sabr (patience) and resignation mentioned in the commentary of this Quranic verse:

Wa tamat kalimatu rabbika husna bi bani israel bima sabaru
-We completed the beautiful Word (Torah) for Bani Israel because of their patience.

Hasan al-Basri (rahimullah) said on this verse, “Patience is the way Allah completes His bounty to you.”

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

{ We created not the heavens and the earth and all that is between them except with truth, and for an appointed term. But those who disbelieve turn away from that whereof they are warned.}[Quran 46:3]

I find it a fascinating theme to look through the world and all you see as true, as nothing more than a series of cracks. The space that is between the Heavens and the Earth- the space that we occupy, is nothing more than a big gigantic crack between the heavens and earth.

The cracks we see emerge among people who conceal their sensitivities, show us humanity. We see the inability of others, engender mercy in our own hearts- the cracks in in the confused, cause even greater cracks in the sincere, creating more humility and soft-heartedness.

The brief glimpse of cracks we see among the unassuming, ordinary Muslims that make us wonder if they are Awliya. Wonder is a crack made upon the closed mind…opening it and showing it the vastness of Allah’s work.

The cracks in our thinking, the flawed nature of our discourse, those glaring cracks in our reasoning, speaking to us…”Well I tried my best, but this shortcoming, this glaring crack in my work, is a signature of who I am, of my human nature before Allah.”

And what is kindness but a crack, a breaking of a social norm for the sake of sincerity? What are miracles but cracks in our everyday normal experience, to remind us there is a Being, a cause behind the construction- and destruction- of this world.

And when the sky is torn away, (Surah Takwir)

What would the scientist say? “There has been a rip in the time-space continuum!”

What would the Sufi ascetic say? “Allah gifts His beloved righteous servants by tearing away the veils”

Muhammad (salallahu alayhi wasalam’s) Isra wal Miraaj occurred as if between the closing and opening of a door.

Cracks are short and brief- Nuh described his 950 years of life on Earth, as like entering a house through the front door only to no sooner, just walk out through the back.

What happened to Musa when He asked to see Allah? Wasn’t the mountain blown away to bits?

No, rather we are to see Allah not in His full form, but through the lens of the cracks. Glimpses, peeks, like whispers…and then what is Qiyamah but when too many cracks have been made upon our reality, and it is time for us to come face to face with the One whose Majesty caused these cracks to ripple through the human experience.

What happened to the Red Sea when Musa called out “Inna ma’ia rabbi sayahideen- My Lord is with me and He will certainly guide me!” ? It split, it tore and became a new creation, a watery hall sculpted by the Divine for Musa to walk through? Perhaps that is the nature of all cracks, to become a new creation to testify His greatness.

Look at the cracks on your skin, there are wrinkles in your brain, dimples in your smile. Their exist cracks on all idols, waiting to be shattered by Tawheed, God-consciousness and piety.

Isn’t that the nature of tazkiya and tarbiya? For us to fast, to become great…to endure trials to become stronger, for we could not become a new creation unless that crack had been made in our life, unless we endured difficulty to become a new creation.
Allah loves those cracks and makes them permanent if they are with the truest intentions and with the highest idhqan.

And rida (contentment) is that quick transition between a crack, and the birth of a new creation.
Does not Allah call us to look at the seed when it splits open revealing life within? How many times is agriculture in the Quran compared to good deeds?
Did you ever notice how when you see a truly good act coming from someone, a crack is made in how you perceive the world? Perhaps, the Qurans analogy of agriculture and good works, is fitting, since these cracks are what keep us going. The breaking of bread, for eating and as a sign of peace.

Isn’t poetry a cracking of language?

What is life but a crack between the darkness before birth and the darkness after death? And the grave but a crack in the Earth?
A heartbeat but a crack between silence, breath a transition from one side of a crack to the other,
taste, a crack between tastelessness
sight, but light breaking through a crack in the darkness
and tears, a crack in our very soul.

This is what I see in between the cracks…what do you see?

Long before writing was invented, human beings read their world. They interpreted their dreams and the flights of birds. They read the intestines of sacrificial animals and the memories of their ancestors. They read the things that surprised them, or the things that reminded them of something else. Most of all, they read in the places where there were holes — spaces — gaps. They filled up the blanks of the universe, as though they were pages, with writing. Leonardo advised aspiring artists to “discover” the pictures to be found in the cracks in walls; Chinese sages were conceived as their mothers stepped into the footprints of unicorns; all of us make up our lives out of the cracks in the walls of our past memories and the unicorn footprints of our future. The making of a life is similar to the making of a text. We live by reading our own stories[...]. -Lynda Sexon

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Content is…

-satisfaction
-concentration
-clarity
-preparation
-prediction
-past, present and future all in one and made absent
-time and space, taken into fully into account and made irrelevant
-makes irrelevant things irrelevant
-the stillest room in the house
-the most precise math
-endless accommodation
-psychiatry’s greatest enemy
-order
-to refute futility
-contingent upon itself
-real freedom
-taking true reality from your own reality; knowledge
-the most activity form of passiveness (quiet fascination)
-the most passive form of activity (lazy relaxation)
-impervious to any desire
-key to humility (humility is the key to discovery)
-trust in trust (accepting the nature of trust)
-patience with patience (patience in the nature of patience)
-an excuse against excuses
-the most appropriate context
-the best way to deal with any content (substance or topic)
-the most flexible rigidity
-always stronger
-like stealing from thieves
-angering anger
-invaluable
-the best qualification
-the most happy captivation
-peace-making and conflict-resolution
-take in all the details and take in everything for its real value (positive worth more than negative points)
-scoffed at
-rich
-dignity
-free of charge
-anonymous
-reads “status quo” as “as you are in control”
-reads “frustration” as “empathize”
-forgetting what needs to be forgotten
-a memory that balances the world
-a smiles to-do list
-the same steps and the same path for a thousand journeys
-universal
-realistic
-all anyone really needs
-probably a lot more things…
-for everyone

Content is the most deserving to be content with.

“Allah said: Kun faya kun- “Be” and it is.”

What more was expected of us but to “be” ? And what is to “be” but content?

Each creature is smoldered to You and its own Origin,
Laughing at Nothingness and clapping its own miracle.
Each leaf opens fresh and bright, each atom sings its discovery:
“Resignation is the key to happiness
Grace is the door to the peace beyond the mind.” -Mawlana Rumi

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

The following translation (from Arabic) is presented by Sr. Deena (thank you!) . Its from a short work on the imagery of the Quran written by Sayid Qutb. Now, there is a lot of stuff about Sayid Qutb in the media and to be honest, I don’t know much about the man, nor do I share the views attributed to him (and doubt Sr. Deena does as well) so this post isn’t some sort of indirect endorsement of radical Muslim ideology- just simply a discussion on the Quran! And hopefully, this is the beginning of more translated works being shared here!

Enjoy!

I have found the Qur’an!

This book is a story from within my soul. It would have been my right to keep this story for myself, and this book would have remained nothing but a passing thought in my conscience. However, this story no longer belongs to me.

I read the Qur’an when I was a young child, and my intellect could not reach the levels of its meanings, nor could my understanding encompass its great objectives, but still I would find something of it in myself. My naïve and young imagination would conjure up some images through the expressions of the Qur’an. They were naïve images, but they would create a longing in my soul and a pleasure in my senses, so that I would spend long periods of time reflecting on these images, happily and actively contemplating them.

Of the naïve images that would paint themselves in my mind is that image that came to me whenever I read the following verse:

And among people is he who worships Allah as if on an edge. If good befalls him, he stands securely (on that edge), but if a trial befalls him he falls over on his face. He has lost this lesser world and the hereafter. (Surat al-Hajj [The Pilgrimage] 22:11)

And please, nobody laugh when I tell you about the images that this verse created in my mind. This verse would create in my imagination a man standing on the edge of a high place – like the peak of a narrow mountain. And he is standing in prayer, but he is not stable, for he swings back and forth with every move, and comes close to falling several times, and I watch him closely, following his moves with a strange passion and anxiety!

Another of those naïve images is one that came to me whenever I read the following verse:

And recite unto them the tiding of him to whom We brought Our signs, then he stripped himself from them, then Satan overtook him, and he became of the misguided ones.

If We willed We would certainly have elevated him with Our signs, but he clung to the earth and followed his own vain/low desire. So his likeness is as the likeness of a dog: if you attack him he lolls out his tongue panting, or if you leave him alone he still lolls out his tongue panting. (Surat al-A’raf [The Heights] 7:175-176)

I did not understand anything of the meanings or objectives of this verse, but an image would be conjured in my mind: The image of a man, open-mouthed, his tongue hanging out, panting and panting incessantly. And I am watching him, unable to take my eyes off him, and I don’t understand why he’s panting, but I don’t dare turn away from him!

And many images of this kind would paint themselves in my young imagination, and I delighted in contemplating them, and I would long to read the Quran because of them, and I would search for them within its folds whenever I read it.

Those days passed with their lovely memories and their naïve thoughts and I entered educational institutes where I read the explanation of the Quran in the books of tafseer (Quranic interpretation and exegeses), and I listened to its explanation from the teachers. But I could not find in what I read or heard that delicious beautiful Quran that I used to find in my childhood years.

What a shame!

All symbols of beauty were nowhere to be found, and it became free of delectation and excitement. I wondered: Are they two Qurans? The sweet, easy, exciting Quran of my childhood and the difficult and complicated Quran of my youth? Or are the methods used in explaining the Quran to be blamed for this crime?

So I went back to reading the Quran from the original book and not in the books of tafseer. And I once again found my beautiful beloved Quran, and I found my exciting delightful images. They were not at the same level of naivety that they were before; my understanding of them has evolved, for I now see their goals and objectives, and I understand that they are parables that are given, not actual events that are taking place. But their magic still exists, and their attractiveness remains. Praise to Allah, I have found the Quran!

…

I started researching, with the Quran as my primary source, to gather the artistic images in the Quran and present them and explain the imagery in them and the artistic consistency in their expression – as my sole concern was devoted purely to the artistic aspect, with none of my attention paid to the linguistic, oratory, or fiqh (jurisprudence) aspects or other research areas of the Quran. A new truth is becoming clear to me: the images in the Qur’an are not a part of it that is separate from the rest of it. Rather, the imagery is the theme and mode of expression in this beautiful book. The basic rule followed towards all objectives – except for legal objectives due to their nature. Thus, the search is not for a set of images that can be collected and arranged in order, but rather for a theme that can be discovered and showcased.

That was a success I was not aiming for, until I met it!

And on this basis the research started, and everything in it is merely a presentation of this rule, a dissection of its phenomena, and an exposition of this Quranic attribute that has not been exposed before.

The Source of Enchantment in the Qur’an

How did the Quran captivate the Arabs the way it did? And how is it that both the believers and non-believers have agreed upon the Quran’s ability to enchant?

Some researchers into the virtues of the Quran look at it as a whole and point to its overall beauty and artistic consistency.  Others mention different reasons extracted from the topics addressed by the Quran as a whole, such as the intricate legislation that is fit for any time and place, predictions of future events that end up taking place years later, and scientific information about the creation of the universe and the human being.

But researching from this perspective only proves the exalted nature of the Qur’an as a whole. So what is said of those few chapters that do not contain legislation nor predictions of the future nor scientific information? These few chapters enchanted the Arabs from the moment they heard it, and in a time where neither advanced legislation nor great objectives were what captivated their senses and grasped their admiration.

It must be, then, that these few chapters contained that element that enchants the listeners and captivates both believers and non-believers. If we calculate the Quranic effect on the numbers of those embracing Islam, then these early chapters surely get the largest share, regardless of how small in numbers Muslims were at that time. This is because at that time they were affected, for the most part, by the Quran alone. It is the Quran alone that led them to believe. As for the large numbers of those coming to Islam in later years after the Muslims became visible and Islam became strong, they had other factors affecting their choices aside from the Quran, depending on each individual’s nature. And the Quran alone was not the deciding factor in their decision to embrace Islam. Some became believers because they were moved by the character of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the characters of his companions. Some became believers because they found Muslims enduring great harm and strife and persecution, and giving up their wealth, families and friends to be able to practice their religion and to flee to their Lord. Others embraced Islam because they found that Muhammad (pbuh), aided only by a small group of people, was becoming victorious over great numbers of persecutors and deceivers, and they believed that Allah was the source of their victory. Others embraced Islam after the sharia (Islamic law and way of life) was implemented in their countries and they found in it justice, forgiveness and tolerance they did not see in any previous governing regimes. And many others believed for different reasons; the magic of the Quran may have been one factor among other factors, but it was not the deciding factor as it was in the early days of Islam.

We must, then, search for the source of enchantment in the Quran before we look at legislation or predictions or scientific information, and before we treat the Quran as a complete unit that contains all these attributes; for the few chapters that were revealed in the early days of Islam did not contain these attributes which only came later. And yet, it still contained that fundamental quality that the Arabs tasted, and savoured, and said “this is but sorcery”.

If we look at the story of how Umar ibn al-Khattab came to embrace Islam, it mentions that he heard or read a part of Surat Taha, which is the 45^th chapter of the Quran to be revealed, preceded by: al-Alaq, al-Muzzammil, al-Muddathir, al-Qalam, al-Fatiha, al-Masad, al-Takwir, al-A’la, al-Lail, al-Fajr, al-Duha, al-Inshirah, al-Asr, al-Adeyat, al-Kawthar, al-Takathur, al-Maauun, al-Kafiruun, al-Fil, al-Falaq, al-Nas, al-Ikhlas, al-Najm, Abas, al-Qadr, al-Shams, al-Burooj, al-Teen, Quraish, al-Qare’a, al-Qiyama, al-Humaza, al-Mursalat, Qaf, al-Balad, al-Tariq, al-Qamar, Sad, al-A’raf, al-Jin, Yassin, al-Furqan, Fatir, and Mariam. T

hese are all Meccan chapters except for a few verses that were revealed in Madina.

So let us look at these chapters together as a whole – for looking into each one of them in detail is impossible in this context – to see what magic or enchantment in them captivated the early Muslims who followed Muhammad even before Islam was strengthened with Umar, and before the Prophet went public with the call to Islam in broad daylight, after hiding and secrecy.

And when we look into these chapters together we find that there exists but little of those attributes previously mentioned that some researchers claim as the loftiest attributes of the Quran. Except for a hasty mention of the creation of the human being, and the variety and diversity of colours and shapes described in the chapter of Fatir, and the creation of man from in the chapter of al-Tariq, we don’t find any scientific information in these chapters, nor legislation nor future predictions.

However, we find in these chapters – as we find in many other Meccan and Madinan chapters –  examples of that artistic beauty to which we’ve been referring. And if we set aside – temporarily – the holiness and religious sacredness of the Quran, and the objectives of the call to Islam, and if we move beyond the constraints of time and space, we will see beyond all of this that pure artistic beauty as an independent element in its own essence, immortal in the Quran itself, where art can contemplate it and reflect on it in isolation of all other goals and messages of the Quran.

So let us look into how people understood this beauty over the generations.

How was the Qur’an understood?

If we bypass the age of the revelation, we see some of the companions treading lightly in the waters of Quranic exegeses based on the little interpretation transmitted from the Prophet (pbuh), and some of them would do this with such trepidation lest they misinterpret some of the verses, while others would avoid this altogether such as what was said about Saeed bin al-Musaeb that if he was asked about something in the Quran he would say “I don’t speak about the Quran”. And Ibn Sireen said “I asked Ubaida about something in the Quran and he said ‘fear Allah, for those who have knowledge about the revelation have gone”.

In the age of the followers of the companions (al-tabiun), Quranic interpretation developed vastly, but they restricted their interpretation to clarifying linguistic meanings of specific words. Quranic interpretation began to really grow towards the end of the 2^nd century. But rather than looking into the artistic beauty in the Quran, it delved into jurisprudence and argumentation, language and grammar, creation and philosophy, and history and myth. With that was lost an opportunity that was available to Quranic interpreters to paint clear pictures of the artistic beauty of the Quran.

Didn’t do p.28-35

Artistic Imagery

Imagery is the preferred tool in the style of the Quran. Expression through images that can be sensed and imagined by intellectual understanding, and by psychological state, and by sensory experience, and by visual scenes, and by human nature. It then elevates the image it portrays and gives it life, personality, and movement, and if dialogue is added to this then it is given all the elements necessary for the imagination. The scene barely begins and the listeners become observers, and they are transported to the scene of the first events, and they stare intently, and they forget that these are words being recited, and examples that are being struck, and they imagine that this is a scene being played out, and an event that is taking place.

And if we remind ourselves that the tool being used to portray these meanings and psychological states are words, neither colours nor characters, we can begin to understand some of the secrets of the miraculous nature of Quranic expressions.

Let’s start with the meanings that are expressed in sensory images:

1. The intended meaning is that those who disbelieve and cover up the truth will not achieve Allah’s acceptance and will never enter Paradise, and that acceptance is something impossible. That is the intellectual way to express these meanings, but using the tool of imagery presents these meanings in the following way:

• “Lo! They who deny Our revelations and scorn them with arrogance, for them the gates of heaven will never be opened nor will they enter the Garden until the camel can pass through the eye of the needle” (Al-Araf 7:40).

It allows you to use your imagination to paint a picture of the gates of heaven opening,  and another picture of a large thread being put through a needle’s eye. It chooses the word  ’camel’ to represent this, and it lets the senses be moved by the imagination through these  two images, so that in the end the two meanings of “acceptance into the Garden” and  “impossibility” are engrained together, through the eye and the senses, deep within the  soul of the listener.

1. The intended meaning is that Allah will erase the deeds of the disbelievers as if they never existed, and those deeds will be lost forever with no way for them to be recovered. This meaning is presented as follows:

• “And We will proceed to what they have done of deeds, so We shall render them  as scattered floating dust” (Al-Furqan 25:23).

It lets you imagine the scattered dust so as to present to the listener more clearly and  certainly the meaning of total and absolute loss.

1. It paints this somewhat longer image of the same meaning:

• “The parable of those who disbelieve in their Lord: their actions are like ashes on which the wind blows hard on a stormy day; they shall not have power over any thing out of what they have earned” (Ibrahim 14:18).

So the image increases in movement and life through the movement of the winds on a  stormy day that continuously blows a group of ashes to and fro such that they never settle  down.

1. The intended meaning is to show people that alms that are given to show off in front of people, or that are followed with hurtful words or harm, will never be of any lasting benefit to the giver. This meaning is presented in the following image:

• “O you who believe! Do not make your charity worthless by reproach and injury, like him who spends his property to be seen of men and does not believe in Allah and the last day; his parable is as the parable of a smooth rock with earth upon it, then a heavy rain falls upon it, so it leaves it bare” (Al-Baqara 2:264).

This image lets listeners contemplate the state of the hard smooth rock, covered by a thin  layer of earth in a manner that gives one the impression that it is fertile. But once a heavy  rain falls upon it, instead of preparing it for growth – which is what one would expect  when rain falls upon fertile earth – it leaves it bare, and that thin layer of earth that  covered it and gave one the impression of fertility disperses.

It then juxtaposes this image with another one meant to represent an opposite meaning:

• “And the parable of those who spend their property to seek the pleasure of Allah and for  the certainty of their souls is as the parable of a garden on an elevated ground, upon which heavy rain falls so it brings forth its fruit twofold, but if heavy rain does not fall  upon it, then light rain (is sufficient)” (Al-Baqara 2:265).

Here we see the opposing side of the previous image. For these alms that are given to  seek Allah’s pleasure are compared to a garden rather than a dusty rock, and rather than  being a rock low on the earth, this garden is on an elevated ground. The heavy rain befalls  both of them, but in the first case it erases and destroys, and the second case it fertilizes  and grows. In the first case it befalls the dusty rock and exposes it and leaves it bare, and  in the second case it befalls the garden and mixes with it and produces fruit. Even if this  heavy rain had not befallen the garden, it is so fertile and ready to produce that even a  light rain would have been enough to revitalize it!

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

I recall speaking to one of my teachers about all the books we’d read. He mentioned many of the classic books he’d read many of which were philosophical works. I mentioned some of the books I was reading and he was surprised I was reading. Our discussion turned to where we were getting our books from.

Most of the books from Western literature are not too difficult to get a hold of. But when we discussed the works by Muslims, you would think we are searching for long lost manuscripts! I made the point I hesitate to read too much of Western canon simply because I want to know my own tradition- that is, what comprises Muslim tradition, Eastern tradition and indigenous thought from the minds of Muslims- past and present. This is not to say, I don’t read Western canon- on the contrary I probably read more than I read of Muslim/Eastern works. But in our society one can’t help it.

Yet, it irks me how well versed the likes of Shaykh Hamza or Imam Zaid are in Western canon, and how poorly versed Muslims who come from Pakistan or the Middle East are in their own traditions. Comparatively speaking, its totally unbalanced.

Prof. Mortimer Adler compiling the Syntopticon. He was also a teacher of Shaykh Hama Yusuf at one time.

This is why I dream one day to compile a Muslim Syntopticon. The Syntopticon is a work compiled over a period of 15 years by Prof. Mortimer J. Adler, and in it are included all the great books of Western canon. Its a big piece of work, but at the beginning of it is a 2 volume index of all the great ideas in Western literature. I imagine a Muslim Syntopticon to be similar, including works of Western canon, but not so much, since Muslims are so spread out throughout the world, our intellectual spirit is connected with many different parts of the world. We have literature that is our own, religious literature, even heretical or questionable literature- but the main point is: it stress our experience of the world. A syntopticon would mean the culmination of all Muslim learning and knowledge with all the meaningful changes it has given to humanity. But I hope our career in this vein isn’t at an end.

I think we forget and are in real danger of permanently losing the defining features of what it means to be Muslim. There is much ambiguity on the Muslim experience- we have images of what it means to be Indian, or Arabian or African…but where is the unique thread of Islam that is absent from our consciousness and it seems we don’t quite know anymore what is expected of us, or what standards we are at or how to overcome them.

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Normative Pluralism and the Theological Challenge of Progressive Islam

Lecture by Dr. Mohammad Fadel

Muslims have been engaged in numerous reform movements throughout the Islamic world over the last 200 years. While not all of these reform movements are liberal or progressive in any sense of that term, many of them are: numerous books and articles and scores of public lectures have offered what is believed to be the “true” message of Islam. Professor Fadel discusses the nature of the challenge for reformists working within the already-existing galaxy of Islamic pluralism.

Date: Friday December 11, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Auditorium, Noor Cultural Centre (Toronto)
Admission: $5

Mohammad H. Fadel joined University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law in January 2006. He received his B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs (1988), a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (1995) and his J.D. from the University of Virginia (1999).

While at the University of Virginia School of Law, Professor Fadel was a John M. Olin Law and Economics Scholar and Articles Development Editor of the Virginia Law Review.

Prior to law school, Professor Fadel completed his Ph.D in Chicago, where he wrote his dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law.

Professor Fadel was admitted to the Bar of New York in 2000 and practiced law with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, New York, where he worked on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions and securities-related regulatory investigations.

In addition, Professor Fadel served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Professor Fadel has published numerous articles in Islamic legal history.

Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/yhqkgnr

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Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah.

For you oh, Lover of the Quran!

1) Ti’baq: A type of antithesis where opposites are used.

And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colors. Verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge. -Surah Rum (30:22)

In this verse, Allah shows a relationship between tongues and skin colors, to Heaven and Earth. Tongues come from Heaven because “Allama Adamu asma- Allah taught Adam the names of all things”; Allama means to imprint language, which Chomsky calls the “universal grammar”- everyone has the ability to learn language, its innate. The complexions come from the Earth, because Allah said Adam was created from all the topsoil of the Earth, including all the variances in human complexion; pure white, red soil, yellow soil, brown soil, black soil. Udma means topsoil so Adam means the one created from topsoil. Complexion is related to Earth and language is related to Heaven. Language is meaning, complexion is sensory- so there is a relationship between meaning and sensory; joined in the human being- what is significant and what is palpable. What we understand and what we see, touch and feel.

2) Iltifat: Changing the person in balagha, technique to grab you and draw you in and create multiple perspectives so consciousness is expanded. One must remember this works because Allah is 1st, 2nd and 3rd person and transcends meaning of the words. This is “how the Quran means.”

Persons

hikayah: 1st person narrative ex: “I did this. I really had to consider…”
khitab: 2nd person narrative ex: “You’re not the type of person to do this, but here you are. So you sit there and think about it…”
gheba: 3rd person narrative, similar to the omniscient narrator ex: “He pondered for a moment. He then did that.”

Example: Surah al-Fatiha

Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim- In the Name of Allah. Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen- All praise be to the Lord of the World
Ar-Rahman ar-Rahim- Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Maliki yawmi din- Master of the Day of Judgement

In the above verses, Allah is referred to in the third person. The recitation is as if Allah isn’t present or somewhere distant. These verses come of as very ceremonial and at a distance from one’s own personal self, as if they are routine.

Iyaka na’budu wa iyaka nasta’in- You alone we worship and you alone we seek for help

Here is the transition to the second person, where now God is being addressed with “You” as if He is coming nearer to the reciter but still from afar.

Ihdinas sirat al-mustaqeem- Guide us to the Straight Path
Sirat aladhina an’amta alayhim- The Path of those whom you have favored
Ghayril maghdubi alayhim wala dhal’een- Not the Path of those who have earned Your anger, nor of those who go astray
Ameen

And in the last verses, the final transition is made to the first person. Now, you are speaking for yourself to Allah directly, as if it were face to face. The intimacy of this is referred to as “Munaja” where one speaks to God directly. The address of ‘others who came before’ in this verse only heightens this relationship, because it indicates you have an understanding of God’s ‘personality.’

Literally, and figuratively al-Fatiha brings you spiritually closer to God

3) Mumashat ma’al khasm: This refers to the argument technique Ibrahim alayhi salam implemented. In the Quran 6:75-79, one by one, Ibrahim alayhi salam takes the star, moon and the sun as his “god” and rejects each of them, finally submitting to Allah. In a cursory reading, this isn’t very easy to grasp, but take a good week’s worth of time of simply marveling at the sun, moon and stars and you understand how the heavenly bodies were perceived in earlier times. When he makes the star, his god, it means he sees nothing greater than it- he is literally face to face with his lord, likewise with the moon and sun. If we assume Ibrahim is being sincere, in his frame of mind, he is absorbed in the majesty and power of these celestial bodies- as if nothing else compares with or exists except the sun or the moon or the star, because that is how one reach a point of worshiping these objects. If you were to study the sun all the time and become absorbed by it, and then consider it to be God manifest- you are in a very powerful situation being totally consumed by its daily, powerful presence. And in reality, these are great objects which Allah swears by in the Quran. There really isn’t anything more fantastic in our worldly experience than these phenomena.

Now, in putting himself in this position, he shows to the pagans he understands the belief and position of the mushrikeen, how they are consumed by it and yet still, even after all this, he chooses Allah. If there is no real greater manifest phenomena in the world than the sun, and now one realizes it cannot be god, because it sets, than nothing lesser than it can be god either. And the sum total of all these magnificent phenomena do not compare to Allah, who logically is the One who all these heavenly phenomena are contingent upon. In this gradual way, Ibrahim makes the pagans to step back for a minute and he opens their mind to the possibility of Allah, distinct, one, and unlike creation, greater than anything they know and without superior- that there could be something greater than their minds, and more spiritually consuming than these heavenly bodies and therefore truly worthy of worship. And by merely opening their minds to the possibility, he convinces them and shows them he is upon a belief that is better than theirs.

“And of mankind are some who take others beside Allah as Andaadan (rivals). They love them as they love Allah. But those who believe, love Allah more (than the idolators love for Allah or their idols). If only, those who do wrong could see, when they will see the torment, that all power belongs to Allah and that Allah is severe in punishment.” (al Baqarah 2:165)

The closest understanding in English to mumashat ma’al khasm we have is what is called the ‘thought experiment,’ where a person thinks in a different way to understand a different viewpoint or uncover a hidden wisdom or meaning. This is similar to verstehen, the German style of thinking where one tries to understand the social meaning of things. Mumashat ma’al khasm can be used to successfully counter many arguments against Islam, for example: in the fate/free-will debate one question Muslims ask is, “If the universe wasn’t pre-determined by Allah, and left to go as is, would chaos not ensue and how would justice be ensured?” This is simply one example, but unfortunately the ‘thought experiment’/Ibrahim alayhi salam’s method is very under-used by Muslims.

Is it not a universal message? How does one study messages of the Divine?

4) Considering perspectives: from God’s perspective, your own, the angels, the jinns, the perspective of the pious and the perspective of the Prophets, the wicked, the hypocrites, the sinners, the poor, the oppressed, the tyrants, etc. The pious do not read, understand, interact and experience the Quran in the same way as the spiritually weak. Understanding this difference is key, because the verses are the same, but the experience can be very different. The Quran maintains the claim of being an inclusive revelation for all creation, and not being a revelation specifically to a one group, but to the individual, unique in his/her own right, while simultaneously also to the entire grouping of creation. Keeping this idea in mind, the Quran also serves as a bridge in understanding the different worlds people live in, so, there is no single perspective to the Quran, because its connected on the various experiences of the world in respect to life and God, it takes on multiple viewpoints to the world. And that is why we say the Quran can guide people and misguide others.

Here is an example of a woman’s experience with the Quran in Tafsir ibn Kathir of the closing verses of Surah Ale Imran detailing how women are not excluded from God’s mercy:

Allah said,

[فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ]

(So their Lord accepted of them), answered their invocation. Sa`id bin Mansur recorded that Salamah, a man from the family of Umm Salamah said, “Umm Salamah said, `O Messenger of Allah! Allah does not mention women in connection with Hijrah (Migration).’ Allah sent down the Ayah,

[فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ أَنِّى لاَ أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِّنْكُمْ مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَى]

(So their Lord accepted of them (their supplication and answered them), “Never will I allow to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female.)

The Ansar say that Umm Salamah was the first woman to migrate to them.” Al-Hakim collected this Hadith in his Mustadrak, and said, “It is Sahih according to the criteria of Al-Bukhari but they [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] did not collect it”.

Allah’s statement,

[أَنِّى لاَ أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِّنْكُمْ مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَى]

(“Never will I allow to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female,) explains the type of answer Allah gave them, stating that no deed of any person is ever lost with Him. Rather, He will completely reward each person for his or her good deeds.

5) Ask yourself: Who is the Author of the Quran? One simply has to look at the author of the Quran, His Divine capabilities and what He choose to write about, not write about, and what its significance could be. It need not be a verse is relegated to one narrow meaning, because many verses are meant to touch the soul of a person. The fact God is its author is in itself a literary technique embedded in the experience of reading the Quran. The piece of artwork below illustrates this idea.

6) “The best tafsir (explanation) of the Quran is time.” This is a saying I came across and its very true. The history of the world, the past, present and future are testimony to the wisdom of the Quran, its message and its comprehensiveness. It details what has happened, what is happening to you now, how its happening, how something could happen to you. The beauty of this is the further one is in time (our time vs. our grandfathers) and the more one understands the world, the more one can ponder the Quran in-depth, but obviously not really to the extent of the Tarjuman al-Quran, Ibn Abbas who is the greatest mufassir (explainer) of the Quran.

7) “Quran yufasiru al-Quran;” the Quran interprets and explains itself! Earlier verses are elucidated or hinted at or abrogated. How merciful is Allah, that He reveals something as weighty as the Quranand also shows us how to extract and learn from it?

—

Sources

-Refinement of the Hearts by Imam ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi explained by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf; CD. 3

-Explanation at local Halaqa by Deobandi Aalim

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

Know that if love of God takes hold of the heart its affects manifest on the limbs in seriousness in obedience, activity in the service of Allah, covetousness in trying to please Allah, pleasure in intimate discourse with Allah, contentment with Allah’s Decree, patience over His calamities, yearning to meet Allah, intimacy in remembering Him, alienation from other than Him, fleeing from humanity, a desire to be alone with God in private, leaving this world from the heart of love of anything other than Allah, loving everything Allah loves and everyone whom Allah loves and preferring God over everything other than God. -Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi (rahimullah)

Love is surrendering to the beloved with all of your existence and then it is preferring Him, the Beloved over your self, your Ruh (soul), and its your concordance in secret and manifest with everything that is with concordance with the Beloved and then it is your knowledge of your inability to truly fulfill the rights of the Beloved. “And those who believe love God more.”
-Imam Harith ibn al-Muhasibi (rahimullah)

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa anta astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

When you are content with somebody all you see is their perfection, but when you dislike someone all you see is their faults. And I don’t feel respect towards the one who shows me no respect and I don’t see in others what they don’t see in me. If you draw near to me, my love draws close to you, but if you turn away from me- you’ll see me turn away from you. Each is independent of each other and when we die we’ll be even more independent of each other.

-Imam ash-Shafi’i

Don’t you love how he is so direct, honest, down-to-earth?

So as I posted earlier, I painted my car with the whatiseid.com stuff. And yesterday something interesting happened.

I came back to my car from class and noticed the the ticket police car just waiting there behind my car. I thought as I walked closer, “Shoot! He probably saw this is a Muslim guy’s car and is going to give me a ticket or be prejudiced or something. Hey, wait, my friend is across the street I should just cross the street and talk to him and pretend this car isn’t mine and just go away.” And then I was thinking, “Ah whatever. Its my car, I’ll man up.” I unlocked the car door and the ticket police guy honks his car horn and makes a gesture for me to come over there. I get over there and he’s like, “I was just writing you a ticket !! But you’re here now, right on time, so I’ll forget about this ticket. You have a good one!”

Phew! So I thought to myself and realized the kicker…if I had pretended my car with the awesome dawah message wasn’t mine- I would’ve gotten a ticket. But when I stood behind those dawah words, I didn’t get a ticket. Couldn’t help but think there was some divine wisdom in that one.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salat wa salam ala Rasulullah

I was reading some 40 Hadith Nawawi a few nights ago and I realized a lot of the obstacles in memorizing hadith come from how we approach hadith as opposed to how the Sahabas lived and lived with new hadith almost on a daily basis.

Let me explain what I mean:

When we think of learning hadith, it comes to mind similar to a Quran hifdh assignment, like homework, we just wanna avoid it. I think the secret to this is making the hadiths meaningful to yourself (not others, but YOU!). So attaching them to a time of need, a special holy time of year or a time of high emotion. Also has to do with our love of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam- many talk about “FOLLOW THE SUNNAH!” rather than point us to the door from which we can easily come to follow the Sunnah: Loving the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam (lots of salawat, reading poetry, etc.)

Think about it…the more you increase in loving Nabi salallahu alayhi wasalam, the more genuine your motivation to say his words, treasure them and live by them. You see those words as if they were spoken yesterday in front of you. You won’t hesitate in learning new hadith and chase after the khayr, no?

 

The other way in which we see hadith differently from the Sahabas is we see them as a written text- so now we have to say things like “Rewahul Bukhari” and this adds to the feeling of always referencing. This is less natural than how the Sahabas were saying, “Abu Hurayrah heard from…who heard from”- thats much more similar to a conversation you or I would have about something that happened today.So I think learning a hadith when you first hear it from the shaykh ADDS to making it memorable. You make the hadith an event, that happened to you and not just something you read as homework- and this brings it closer to your daily experience and its easier to recall that hadith and put that hadith into action. Just more connected with the everyday.

 

I think referencing is great, but as our communities grow with the deen and become more en-cultured with Islam- referencing will lose importance, because its like me quoting Fatiha- everyone knows it. So its unnecessary to mention “Reewahul Muslim” because everyone knows where I got it from. I think when we reached that it’ll be a sign of success.

 

Hadith as ConversationI figures since unlike Quran, hadith is largely “he said, then he said, then she said…” conversation like, to perhaps work with that.

 

Rather than rushing through the hadith (like how we rush through surahs!) to instead take it SLOW (the Slow Hadith Movement begins!)…we don’t rush through conversations in everyday life, so why rush through a hadith.

Which leads me to my next grand point….

How about a Telephone Game?

One bro calls another bro and says, “Fakhbirni anil Imaan? (Tell me about Imaan)” and then the other replies, “An tuminu billah, wa malaikati, wa kutubihi…” (Its to believe in Allah, His angels, His books…)

Depending on your phone-rates you could pretty much call any student who is serious enough for this and just go back and forth. Could be pretty neat. I haven’t tried it, but I could see myself doing it.

My oldest method for memorizing hadith involves taking notes from audio talks and taking special note as to “how” the speaker says the hadith: the rhythm, intonations, emphasis, every aspect of it- and make that memorable, like how people make comedic impersonations memorable- and then write the text down and review it consistently, re-playing the voice of the speaker saying it. I believe some people, like Shaykh Hamza Yusuf have a gift or a baraka in their speeches- I can memorize his words very easily, and a handful of other scholars have this as well, so you have to also look at which scholars method of delivery best suits you.

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

How many Muslim Nobel prize winners are there? There are 2 how many Jewish Nobel prize winners are there? About 1/4th of all Nobel prize winners are Jewish. There are 2 billion Muslims in the world, and 15 million Jews. Had Islam’s intellectual standing not collapsed in 1100- they would have every single Nobel prize today! -Prof. Neil deGrasse Tyson (this number has changed although not drastically)

So the question is WHY?

I’m taking a class on the sociology of science, which naturally crosses over into the philosophies involved with science so I’ve been reading and learning a lot lately about science, how it operates, its philosophies and approaches. So naturally, I reflected on it and realized where Islam fits in today…

Muslims don’t like science, even though we are very educated- what we do is we have to aspects of ourselves, the religious self, and the educated self- and neither speaks to each other. What this means is we approach Islam in the same way we approach superstitions (i.e. backwards). This is why you’ll see PhDs forwarding the stupidest most obviously fabricated ‘Islamic’ emails about if you don’t forward this you are going to Hell.

Misapplication of Islamic piety

The reason for the Muslim approach is because we fear the certainty of science and how its certainty can lead us into doubting Islam. This is not new, Imam Ghazali was against Mathematics because he feared (why do we even have fears against shaytanic forces? it teaches powerlessness before evil) it would lead to the student to view the world in a very exact, precise way- through the lens of mathematics and therefore, apply this view of science, to Islam. Now, this is not uncommon- the science of biology (observation) is different from physics or math which are rooted in laws- every science has its own dynamics and they do compete (Richard Feynman, great physicist described psychology as a bunch of “cargo cult science”) so this needs to be noted. Consequently, Imam Ghazali’s fears are among the reasons why Islam’s Golden age of learning collapsed and the so-called Ummah was “revived.” Whether, this is a false dichotomy or not, can be debated, but referring back to my point about the PhDs sending mindless, stupid, emails degrading to Islam leads me to believe this is a far assumption: When Islamic dogmatism rises, science suffers. But I also believe that, if Islamic understanding rises to a level of yaqeen (certainty and confidence) in the deen where one will not be afraid to dive into the worldly sciences, knowing for a fact, they cannot contradict Islam.

The man who crippled the Golden age of Islamic learning and discovery, and yet, revived the religion

Yet contrary to these assumptions one must understand one essential truth: science is rooted in doubt. You question the phenomena of this world- whether they be societies and human interaction (sociology) or animals, and you test hypotheses. If they don’t pan out, you note that down- that is your discovery, x doesn’t work as an explanation- and then what do you do? You try again. Conversely, medieval notions of religion are rooted in absolute, all-encompassing certainty to such a degree and in such a way that all doubt is avoided.This is a key distinction.

How do Muslims approach certainty and doubt?

We need to understand Allah’s promise that Islam is universal as enough. We need to stop doubting this truth because everything scientific, whether it be historical, literary, intellectual, psychological spiritual or even biologically oriented- speaks to the truth of Islam. If we can approach that with certainty we can look at science in-depth, and for reasons I will prove, more successfully . But if we keep doubting Islam, we will avoid the sciences and the ummah resembles jahiliyyah.

In the early eras of Islam- doubt was welcomed. But Muslims today are so pitted and shocked into a fear of everything ‘un-Islamic.’ How many know that the notion of evolution was actually first proposed by a Muslim? Surprised? It doesn’t contradict Islam because Islam leaves this chapter of the human story open to many explanations and understandings.

But for Muslim scientists in the golden age, their mentality doesn’t conflict with religion. They see these ideas as tools, theory is a tool to be used. It doesn’t purport absolute certainty- because remember science is rooted in doubt. If science boasted absolute certainty, its not science anymore- doubt, questions, and the prospect of discovery is gone; now its religion. Dogma has no place in science because every successful science has kept his foot grounded in doubt and question, while holding onto a handful of certainties for stability. Understand that even rationality can be questioned in science as the philosophers of the past have said: “Prove the validity of reason, without presupposing it.” That should show us why we should not try to legitimize Islam with science, because if we were to hypothetically achieve that, its not Islam anymore, its not religion anymore, its science- devoid of certainties and full of doubt (much like many of the world’s religions). This amounts in my opinion to abusing the religion of Islam.

Conclusion

Muslims need to realize everything about our religion is scientific- if not supra-scientific: our hadith, our fiqh, our religious sciences all have validity and reliability in their explanations of the human spirituality; in short, they work but we are always discovering why and how they work. They don’t fit into traditional or Euro-centric conceptions of science, in the same way chiropractry or acupuncture doesn’t fit, but again it works so one can’t out rule them. Furthermore, spiritual states in the science of tasawwuf are very rigorously understood- the different spiritual experiences are accounted for and understood in Islam; but a step further, from different viewpoints (tariqas). Not only this, but many aspects of Islamic belief, canon and religious wisdom have always been ahead of the curve (a few I know for a fact: memory and cognitive science, psychology and forgiveness, washing/hygiene and spiritual wellness, time and dromology, and of course the classic scientific miracles of the Quran). But, here is the catch- you wouldn’t make these discoveries into the Divine wisdom present in Islam, if you did not learn the sciences!

So there are 3 obstacles as to why Muslims lag behind in the sciences:

1) Fear of Sciences as a threat to Islam: It should be a fundamental precedent to not indulge outside scientific inquiry into religion because most Muslims will not be able to overcome this fear. Trying to legitimize Islam with outside science is a pointless pursuit, because we know it will be proved in time- its inevitable, so why rush it now? It will not deal with our problem and no benefit to the rest of humanity, if only to simply placate the inferiority complex of the Muslims (which it won’t ever achieve because it presumes, without justification, science to be greater than Islam).

2) Preoccupation with Islam: Many of the doctors employed by the Muslims in Muslim history were Christians. Scientific advancement requires a great deal of time and devotion and if you are always busy struggling with Islam, you simply don’t have the same opportunity a non-Muslim has in pursuing scientific studies. If you can’t balance yourself, it simply won’t happen- here is a positive side to being in a very religious community where perfecting your Islam isn’t hard. Furthermore, we are coping with so much in the Muslim world- warfare, poverty, disease, globalization and competiting cultural forces, sectarian and religious confusion, apathy and a lack of leadership and vision. Being busy with the turmoil all these issues creates makes it difficult for us to succeed scientifically, let alone put in the time for it.

3) Superficiality: Saudi Arabia is building a new university- KAUST and in speaking to a friend who is learning Arabic in Jeddah, I know for a fact, as many other scholars have verified, the intellectual roof there is very low. Its no secret Islam in Saudi resembles authoritarian, repressive rule, to the point Islamic development is repressed and censored. I doubt any real advancement will happen with this new university- its being built more for show and possibility in hopes it will lead to something in future generations.

4) Why don’t we make prayer for ideas or scientific advancement? This indicates a lack of desire among the pious for any sort of scientific progress. When we think of knowledge, we think of Islamic knowledge- not knowledge of the world (knowledge of the world is actually a commentary on religious wisdom). Now, its important if we want Islam’s glory- that our pious people take up the sciences of the world and learn how to balance both their deen and dunya for God’s sake, not their own.

How the Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alayhi wasalam) Approached the Sciences

Understanding the above will lay fertile ground for scientific advancement in the Muslim world. The hadith delineates science and religion in a very powerful way. The sahabas saw the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam being surprised by how they pollinated the date palms in the Madina (there are male and female parts that one manually has to pollinate). This was strange to him, because he was from Mecca. The sahabas interpreted this surprise as something they shouldn’t do because they felt they upset him (salallahu alayhi wasalam). And so their crops ended up badly and they went to him and told him what happened. Nabi (salallahu alayhi wasalam) said: “Antum adra bi umuri dunyakum- You know your worldly affairs better than I do.” Our Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam didn’t come to guide us in agriculture!

Subhana kallahumma wa bihamdika ash-haduana la illaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk, ameen.

Wheeling and dealing in Dawah…my boy Hasan’s website.