Epistle On Unity

 

EPISTLE ON UNITY

 

UNITY of God attains its unsurpassable zenith in Islam as does Allah’s perfection.  But the concept of Allah is hard enough to encompass let alone seeing into the possibilities of His Unity (al Tawhid).  The fundamental confession of Islam, worthy of its perfection, is the simplest and therefore the truest of all creeds:  LA ILAHA ILLALLAH-  there is no god but Allah.  The name Allah itself absolutely signifies utter unity;  it is a contraction of ‘al ilah’,  which means  the god.  ‘A god’ is out of question, godhead is one and the name therefore for the Divine essence can only be the God -  i.e., ALLAH!

 

WHO OR WHAT IS ALLAH (swt).  Before we go any deeper into the Unity of Allah we better think about what Allah-  what as a concept itself signifies.

 

It is admitted by all reputable ulema and awliya (sufi saints) that essentially Allah is unknowable.  He is simply too great,  too unlike any of His creations and creatures including most developed men.  So we have no hope of encompassing Him as He is.  Ironically however, His perfection includes also His sufficient believability and ‘feelability’ (if the coinage can be forgiven) by us.  Yes, despite not perceiving Him like we do objects or not understanding Him like we do other  concepts,  we still can feel in our entire psyche that He must and does exist and that we can relate to Him as intimately and profitably as we can relate to no other-   and that is what I mean by ‘sufficient’.

 

But as I pointed out elsewhere as well,  there is another dimension to our relation to Allah.  This is at the level of our depth-psychology where all realities merge and fuse into one single Reality without however those lesser realities entirely disappearing.  This is a level of insight (basirah) and tasting (Zawq) sometimes attained by not only Sufis but even by the most unexpected person,  even a confessed atheist. That is because nobody is a real atheist in any final sense but all men deep down know Allah. What one needs is only a fortunate stumble to touch the trigger of the core grenade of truths in him and cause the inevitable  explosion in consciousness. Then he finds himself suddenly and momentarily engulfed in what is called ‘Cosmic Consciousness’.  It may be a mortal crisis which causes this explosion or the result of accumulated natural contemplations gone through by a sensitive and talented soul.  That is why all esoteric schools, including Sufism, employ contemplative methods to nurture this centre and stumble on the deep down trigger to cause this explosion of ultimate gnosis. Because this happened to this humble servant who is me I am not speculating but talking from personal experience.  Once this realization is gained it is never lost again and nothing remains the same any more.

 

So we have a fundamental psychic level of peripheral contact with the Divine.  There, a barrier is removed and without forgetting ourselves we are frozen in a timeless realization of the Real as much as we can bear. And that again is enough.

 

Once tasted this we come to understand that Allah’s greatest gift to us is our finding Him in our deepest heart in the form of the very best, noblest, most awe-inspiring, most gratefully compelling spiritual and moral perfection level we are potentially capable of.  Then and only then we become able to oversee our every thought and act from the view and vantage point of that bared Divine simile in ourselves. We develop a sense of unalienable shame and another inalienable sense of charitable responsibility with which we can criticize, check and rein in our lesser thoughts and deny ourselves acts which can diminish us.  In this case we call a man a godly man, a man with Allah in Him directing all his thoughts and acts into pious channels and repairing any occasional lapse by instant repentance followed by a compensatory act. 

 

That is why Allah says “Innal hasanati yuzhibnal sayyiat” (11: 114), i.e, good acts rub out the bad.  No man, whatever his confessions and professions is entirely cut off from Allah;  the full simile attainable by honest and arduous spiritual quest may not be there but a varyingly lesser amount surely is.  That is why Allah says again “Belil insana ala nafsihi basiratun wa law alqa maazirah” (75: 15), i.e, no doubt man is an overseer of his self (knows always what he is up to) whatever pretences to not knowing he may make.  We see the same truth when Moses (peace be upon him) reminds that most accomplished of infidels the Pharaoh “You sure know full well (o Pharaoh) that it is the Lord of the heavens and earth Who sent down these (verses I am reciting to you)” (17: 102). 

 

So it is not a matter of anybody being blind to Allah but closing  his eyes not to see what he deep down and instinctively knows-   he closes his eyes because of unblessed loves he is harbouring and does not dare to expel.  What we must do then is daring to expel such unblessed loves, which are loves contrary to our and others’ best interests because they call for committing moral wrongs to attain their satisfaction.  You can easily name a hundred. 

 

To acquire that sufficient gnosis of Allah, that degree of love and appreciation and awe of Him we need to feed our soul with the contemplation of His nutritious revealed verses and the words he puts in the mouths of His friends and the pious acts He causes to pour out from their organs.  In other words we need His Qur’an and the example of His friends, especially those alive among us. Before our eyes His friends must parade and drop jewels for us to pick up and collect while inside us His verses must reverberate more and more until our psychic house becomes a full-time mosque in which His glories are perpetually sung.  Read if you whish “(His Light) is in houses which Allah permitted to rise. in them His Name is glorified, morning and evening.  They are men who  neither entertainment nor trade can divert from remembering Allah or praying the salat or paying the zakat.  They fear the Day when the eyes and hearts spin (with fear)” (24: 36- 37).  This must be a metaphor, namely that Allah’s friends are like mosques inside which the only occupation is glorifying and serving Allah without interruption no matter what they otherwise do externally, like earning a honest living or attending to family or run a country;  they never forget Allah nor neglect His commandments.

 

 

THE DEPARTMENT STORE OF TAWHID

 

You know, there are  department stores in all sizable towns.  In them you may find almost every line of trade represented.  There are separate departments for food, furniture, stationery, electrical goods, clothing and even travel and astrology.  Realizing the Unity of Allah also has many aspects and venues.  Let us briefly sample a few:

 

“LA ILAHA ILLALLAH” also means that Allah is Perfect which perfection is too great to allow any other being to rival Him and therefore pose as a god.  Which means we can never ever justify any accusation against Allah. Such doubt in Allah’s being the best for everything is nothing but a demonstration of our own poverty of understanding.  Everything Allah causes to happen is justified in an ultimate sense although it may clash with our desires. There is no other god to appeal to and had there been, that god would take refuge in Allah from our ignorance and insolence. So Allah says: “Had there been gods as they say then these god would seek access to the Owner of the Throne” (17: 42) So learn to appreciate Allah as He deserves.

 

“LA ILAHA ILLALLAH” also means that we must thank that there is no other god. Oh my dear, what would we do if there was another to rival Him?  That other one, being equally powerful could easily snatch us or steal away half of us and we would be lost between the two of them.  How perfect to have only one God Who is Perfect.  We don’t have to worry about anybody else, human or divine, once we obtain the friendship of the Single Perfect God.

 

“LA ILAHA ILLALLAH” also means that all those who believe in Allah, of necessity (as an unbroken extension of it) can only love each other.  Please look around you-  how many muslims do you find, even in sufi premises who really get along well for long? Imagine how better off we could be had we loved each other really and truly.  Then decide what is the level of our unification (tawhid) of Allah.  Mind you, Allah tells us that He and His friends are one single party of mutually loving and helping friends.  He says:  “Those who believe in Allah… Allah has written in their hearts faith and supported them with A Spirit from Himself… they are the party of Allah and it is the party of Allah who are saved” (58: 22).

 

Yet, perhaps we can never be perfect in our tawhid;  after all the Prophet sws said “Shirk in my nation (Ummah) (Polytheism) is as hidden as the sound of the steps of an ant”.  But this doesn’t change the fact that the truer our belief in the Unity of Allah the greater our capacity for loving others believing in Him and getting along with them well. To point to this the Prophet sws said “The best among you are the one who gets along well with others and others get along well with him.  The one with whom mutual getting along is not possible,   there is no good in him”.  That unavailable good is proper faith in Allah’s Unity! 

 

“LA ILAHA ILLALLAH ” also means we have only one master to serve,  and also thanks that it is so.  It means in everything you do, keep your Only Master’s pleasure as your ultimate goal and never sacrifice that goal to anything.  Thanks that it is so, i.e, we have only one master to serve, it is hard enough to serve one so great, what would we do if we had more?

 

If and when we target in what we do only Allah’s pleasure no harm whatsoever can possibly come to our best interests.  Any harm, if it comes at all, comes only to our wrong interests and against thanks that our wrong interests are exposed and deposed and our best interests find the opportunity to be served at last!  What is more as soon as the perhaps traumatic experience of having one’s one (wrong) interest  harmed Allah applies the balm of at least one good interest served- and He let’s us know and like that .   Just serve that Single Master and all His agents, even the Devil,  must and will  serve you with His command. 

 

“LA ILAHA ILLALLAH” also means that by fearing just Him you need not to fear anybody or anything else-  you are relieved of and released from all lesser but all the same terrible enough terrors and terrible people.  Respecting Him is such enough respect that not only you become able to respect things and persons Allah loves but all His creation will be made to respect you, one way or another, but respect they will. 

 

Really there is no end to the interpretaion of “La ilaha illallah” for all secrets are in it entirely as all keys of salvation are.  So let us help ourselves to Allah’s Own eloquence on the matter which sums up all the secrets we ourselves cannot exhaust:

 

“Ala inna awliya Allahi la khawfun alaihim wa la hum yahzanun.  Allazina amanu wa kanu yattaqun.  Lahumul bushra fil hayatid dunya wa fil akhirah.  La tabdila likelimatillah.  Zalika huwal fawdul azim” (10: 62- 64). And that happily means:

 

“Beware that for the friends of Allah there can be neither fear nor shall they grieve.  They are those who believed and have been avoiding offending Allah.  For them are good news in the life of this world and the next.  Allah’s words are unchangeable.  This (theirs) is the ultimate success” .  Amen.

 

 

FRIDAY GIFTS OF UNDERSTANDING - UNDERSTANDING

 

I take refuge in Allah from misunderstanding the Truth, misrepresenting the Truth and misapplying the Truth from Allah and His Messenger.  Only whom he guides is guided and He only guides whom He will which is the same as who really and sincerely wishes to find the Truth.

 

Let me tell you an infallible truth: It is that there is no guarantee that any of our prayers will be granted as we define it but one particular prayer. All the rest Allah may or may not accept and He always has His good reasons.  He is just as well as charitable in both cases because Allah never commits a wrong, He is not ZALIM that is to say.

 

That ONE particular prayer which, when said with sincerity and persistence Allah WILL accept and accept IMMEDIATELY is a prayer for Right Guidance!

 

That is why, I am reminded from on High, that Allah opened (‘fataha’ , from which comes ‘al Fatiha’) His Book with a Sura of prayer, which after glorifying Himself for being al Rahman (Universally Mercifully Caring) and Rahim (Merciful towards all who asks for His special Mercy, like forgiveness) He Almighty teaches us the Infallible prayer in the three last verses we are talking about, which is the very first prayer verses He as Rahman and Rahim takes care to teach us:

 

IYYAKA NA’BUDU WA IYYAKA NASTAIEEN”,  “Only Thee we worshipfully serve, only from Thee we ask for help”

 

(And LOOK what He makes us ask as our very first request from our Lord of All Existence)
IHDINAS-SIRATAL MUSTAQEEM!  (GUIDE US TO THE RIGHT PATH!!!)

 

Yes. Yes! We are not taught to ask for bread or butter or rain or even health but to be guided to the Right Path. And why not?  Once Allah kindly guides us to the Right Path all our other needs are AUTOMATICALLY and fully guaranteed and granted as we go along the Path!  All good, in other words, is in being on the Right Path from and to Allah because ALL GOOD IS AND WITH ALLAH!

 

But Does He leave us to guess which path is the Right Path? No, He infinitely mercifully hurries to add, dwarfing all mothers in mercy with infinite superiority:

 

“SIRATALLAZINA AN’AMTA ALAYHIM, GHAIRIL MAGDUBI ALAYHIM WA LADDAALEEN”, “THE PATH OF THOSE WHOM THOU HAST FAVOURED!

 

NOT THE PATH OF THOSE WHO EARNED THY WRATH (out of deliberate distortion of the Truth from Thee) OR THOSE WHO LOST THEIR WAY (out of being deceived by their
leaders)”.

 

Now, that is a good and workable UNDERSTANDING of Surat al Fatiha. We thank Allah for giving it to us.

 

And you know what?  THE WHOLE QUR’AN IS ONE BIG SERMON, biggest and grandest ever and forever which demands from us constant reading with constant attention and with best possible sincerity on our part UNTIL OUR UNDERSTANDING OF IT BECOMES ENOUGH TO ENABLE US TO ABANDON ALL HARAM AND ALL DUBIOUS ACTS under the sun until we are purified of all lying, cheatings and abusings which our pathetically immature, underdeveloped  characters, thoughts and actions keep breeding.  You see, we must try to be worthy of our PURE, BLAMELESS LORD by shedding our impurities and blameworthy character defects, the worst three of them being hypocrisy, miserliness and greed.  So long as we are weighed down with these and other very many character defects no amount of salat or sawm and no number of hajj can save us.  And have no doubt about it:  A person suffering from the said three character defects and perhaps many others can do all externals of piety like salat, sawm and hajj BUT NOT SADAQA LET ALONE ZAKAT!  He cannmot resist cheating in business or taking advantage of others in mean ways. For example he will merrily spend a fortune on his or her umpteenth hajj but NOT GIVE ZAKAT OR BE GENEROUS WITH SADAQA!  That is a punishment from Allah and a sign that the person’s devotions are rejected.  And you know why?

 

It is because Allah is Rahman and Rahim and the Right Path which takes us to Him is the same as taking us to the qualities of ‘Rahmaniyya’ (General caring mercifulness towards all our fellow men and women and children as well as all living beings) and ‘Rahimiyya’ (Special kindness to each and  every fellow man and woman who might have offended us and whom we can help save by our forgiveness and generosity).   In brief a person who is saved is UPRIGHT in his dealings and generously charitable towards all and as such he is the Surat al Fatiha and in fact the whole Qur’an in flesh. Amen

 

 

WHICH SUNNA?

 

Scholars define the Sunna as follows. Anything the Prophet sws said, did or saw and kept silent about. That is good and well, may Allah be pleased with our masters the great mazhab imams.

 

For our part did we think about the so many items of Sunna (thousands) and make our personal selections since most of them we may not have a context for in our personal lives? What is more, Sunnas have grades; some Abu Hanifa RA finds so important that he invented a special term about them and called them 'wajib', i.e. should rather be done.  Then comes the muakkada (reinforced) and then 'ghairi muakkada' (not necessarily done) Sunnas. But almost in all discourses about the Sunna the real important, in fact the most saving (naajiya) Sunna of all is:
FORRR-GOTTTEN!

Before I disclose that Sunna let me remind you that without that Sunna recognised, appreciated and applied salvation (najah and falah) both here and now and there and thereafter is quite a doubtful prospect to put it mildly. Implement all Sunnas but the particular one I am about to remind us and you are not in an enviable position. Muslims will not benefit from you much while non-Muslims will not be impressed with your dry and tasteless piety.

 

That main, nay,  MOTHER Sunna which breeds all the good acts based on your heart's real pious values is the CHARACTER TRAITS OF THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH sws which can be read like a book from his dealings with people around him. For example:

 

1. Did not the Prophet of Allah sws say that of the things of this world only three things were made dear to him and one was WOMEN? Has anybody heard or read a hadith in which the Beloved of Allah sws hurt any woman either physically or with his words? Now the Allah's Darling's attitude towards women and his words and actions concerning them are part of his Sunna. I still have to see Muslim men (at least more than a tiny number) who observe this Sunna! Instead machismo and misogyny are the usual attitudes. Of course I am aware that many some 'hadiths', often weak, do have a *slightly women-disparaging ring to them but I think the truer among them are meant as warnings to womenfolk and not as licence for men to go and clamp down on women. Again, the more critical of women among such hadiths smell a bit too Judaic or Christian or Persian to fit easily in the holy mouth of the Messenger of Allah sws and our brothers should rather be more cautious in regarding and following them. The fact is that our exemplar and teacher of piety and civil conduct Muhammad Rasulullah sws is not known to have hurt either the feelings or body of any woman in a personal sense.

 

SO SHOULD WE BE- especially in this age when the whole world's ciritical glare is on us, thanks to some fanatics' behavior recently.

 

Another indispensable top Sunna of the Messenger of Allah sws was never arguing on anything, never saying any heart-breaking word to anybody, almost always wearing a polite smile, listening to a speaker to the end all the way without interrupting him, never raising his voice and never showing contempt to anybody Muslim or not, woman or not, child or not, pious or not and human or not; he is not known to hurt any animal big or small or look at it with less than perfect compassion. He only allowed the killing of positively dangerous animals like the rat (disease spreading) or the scorpion (poisonous).
How many of us are practicing these Sunnas? Just join a meeting of Muslims and see for yourself the artificial and shallow and extremely fragile piety which crumbles as the debates drag on and is increasingly replaced by mutual accusations which may eventually spiral into accusations of kufr!  Accounts and elections are particularly hot issues and jockeying for positions have all the suppressed but occasionlly flaring nastiness of similar meetings among the secular people.  In fact the Prophet sws had predicted as much and in fact in also great detail!

 

Lastly, the Prophet sws was never too brave or cavalier about his companions' lives. Their safety was paramount in his consideration and he is never known to attack any too strong enemy or provoke such an enemy. His major battles Badr, Uhud and Handaq was pushed on him; at Hudaibia he carefully and diplomatically extricated his men from a dangeous involvement with the bloody-eyed Meccans at the cost of shaking a lot of his companions too much and would bear no grudge aganist his dubious Jewish neighbours had they not forced his hand by their nasty and lethal plots. He had otherwise shown that he could bear with even their rudeness towards him in his well established habit (sunna) of bearing with a neighbor's nuisance. Are any ambitious Muslims emulating these Sunnas in their self-appointed heroic enterprises?

 

So, where the above realities leave us?

 

Why, they should make us to realise that the Beloved of Allah was a man of universal compassion, fairness, gracefulness and charity and had he had the option he would not hurt even an ant let alone wage war on anybody. What he was sent for was to preach both by word and example his superb God-given character traits which, as our mother Aisha RA said, summed up and amounted to the Qur'an itself. In other words the Qur'an means the character of the Messenger of Allah sws which character was rooted in true and full faith in Allah and branched into many good traits like justice, truthfulness, honesty, charity, civility, compassion, courage for Allah- in short and in rephrase- a character which projeted the image of the loveliest imaginable person ever and forever. From these branches of nobility came innumearble fruit of Heaven each more curative of human illnesses than the other. IT IS THESE SUNNAS THAT WE DESPERATELY AND CONTINUOUSLY NEED IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT SALVATION. Let us emulate this and these and reproduce this and these in our personal lives and we are top saints and no less and no 'miracle' however impressive can entitle anybody without this full image-projection of the Rasullullah sws to higher spiritual rank than the simplest Muslim with this image as his own.

 

So, may we peform an audit on our Sunna research and application efforts? I am in Islamic business for more than half a century and almost all exhortations exchanged among Muslims whether in personal dialogues or preachings or in print or on the internet almost none of the character traits and personal civil conduct of the Beloved of Allah sws is quoted or been concerned with; all these top and exclusively saving elements are just forgotten and even if reminded are confusedly brushed aside and with great and salivating gusto 'sunnas' like dress, grooming, table manners, blowing the nose and wielding the tooth brush are made into top attractions. These in fact are adored if not worshipped and brothers cannot wait to pass onto each other another 'sunna' they discovered and ask if not DEMAND almost on the pain of death that the recipient puts the newly-found sunna into immediate use, e.g. while sitting at a meal putting one knee up!  But the same pious, Prophet's sunna-adoring brother will not hesitate to slap or kick at his wife or son or say abusive words at the drop of a hat!  He is under the proud delusion that being sour-faced, critical and ready with accusations and punishments are part of piety which he cannot dare to drop. As as soon as he steps in the mosque, he examines all in there, checks how each are sitting or standing or praying and offers stern warnings even if from under a cold grin or smile as to their breaks with sunna, like keeping the two feet four inches apart instead of ten. If the recipient of the advice diasgrees then hell may break loose, each quoting one imam or the other in support etc. etc. to boring detail.

 

Now, in the light of all above why not try another way of passing on of another kind  of the Sunna of the Beloved of Allah sws?

 

 

DO YOU WANT TO ATTAIN THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS POSSIBLE FOR ANYBODY?

 

Praise be to God in Whose Care everything, everywhere and at all times is sustained towards a glorious destiny.  Blessings and peace be on all God’s messengers and friends who are the beacons of God’s Light and proofs of and exemplars for the greatest success attainable by men and women.

 

This greatest success has nothing to do with money, worldly power and fame and not even with health. Instead it has to do with a number of related things far worthier and permanent than all else this world’s life can offer.

 

It has got to do with a profound understanding of oneself and thereby everybody and everything else which proves to oneself that all and everything are created and run by a Single Centre of Incomparable and Unsurpassable Excellence Whose Pleasure is the best pleasure one can have!

 

As this realization dawns, one’s intentions, feelings, thoughts and acts are purified and edified to such incorruptible degrees that the utter goodwill and unswerving righteousness and rock-bottom insights into hearts and situations are inexorably and most triumphantly gained.  One is gradually dissolved in this Centre of Excellence and transformed into Its representative among men.  Which means one becomes the most understanding, benevolent and beneficent and justest of men.  A man or woman who is not at the mercy of the moods of unawakened, self-absorbed and self-drowned people who live from their laser- narrow selfish agendas, fight their tight ego-prison corners and keep mutually colliding and hurting with all they come into contact, sooner or later.  Whatever the monetary and other achievements this ordinary life of the masses is no life to be proud of but a dirty and destructive Olympiad or gladiatorial combat of the egos. 

 

There is another and far better, more pleasurable and profitable way to live and that is on offer from our humble selves.  We are pure Sufis detesting the above-described wrong psychological world and offering the right version to all who can appreciate. To join us you must be sincerely disappointed with yourself and disgusted with the psychological immaturity you find yourself and almost all the rest of the society in.  You must want salvation badly enough so that you think you are prepared to pay the price-  the abandonment of your troublesome old self and replacing it with a Godly one-  One full of wise discrimination and infallibly kind disposition. A self which does not think and live from a competitive and egoistically acquisitive level,  but the universally caring and loving-merciful level which is the Godly viewpoint-    and the saintly privilege. 

 

This attainment does not stop you succeeding in your legitimate and honourable worldly pursuits like earning a prosperous honest living and playing all sound social roles.  On the contrary it makes them even easier and blesses their fruits as nothing else.  You are not losing your share from this world. You are simply purifying and edifying it and removing it from the covetous sight of others by its sheer justice and deservedness.  In other words God will be blessing your all earnings and gains.

 

As you advance on this path your relations with all other people will improve beyond recognition.  Your understanding, your compassion, your good will and tact will disarm enemies and make you lots of friends worthy of having.  You will  love for God and be loved back for God.  For you shall be a man or woman of God.

 

Ours is the renewed and ever-renewing Sufism universally accessible and especially suited to the modern and fast advancing Western educated men and women.  It is especially designed to cut through the rational and intellectual barriers to spirituality without harming the former two. With us you can be both a Western academic or intellectual (or in fact anybody from anywhere) as well as a veritable and effective sufi.  We are not interested in so-called spiritual systems and cosmologies or methods like meditation.   We do not charge anything and interest in money or its circulation among us is zero.  WE ARE SIMPLY INFORMAL FRIENDS INTERSTED IN INOFFICIAL, UNPRETENTIOUS SPIRITUAL EXPLORATION AND ATTAINMENT WHOSE TARGET IS GOD’S BEAUTIFUL FACE FOR EACH AND EVERYONE OF US.  WE ARE A COLLEGIUM OF HAPPY EQUALS.

 

We are private seekers after the Truth and believe that to attain it love of truth is enough and neither money, nor organisation, nor hierarchy comes into it. 
If you are interested please talk to our any friends you know of or consult the website and the email address below as necessary.


 

 

HOW TO STUDY, UNDERSTAND AND APPRECIATE THE KORAN

 

The Koran (more correctly, the Qur’an) is the most unique and recent of all holy scriptures forming the basis of world’s major religions. All scriptures dating from before it are heavily edited collections of writings by very many religious writers who often claim to transmit oral or written materials either authored by named prophets or sages or collected from orally circulating reports or hearsays about a prophet or sage. Often though the sources are buried in mystery simply because they are too old and variable reports (myths, legends etc) to be traced back to a single author or civilisation. For example the Flood story has been traced all the way back to Sumeria when both Jews and Judaism were not around for another two thousand years. For its part the Gospels begin by admitting upfront that they are records of recent hearsays circulating about Palestine and all canonical four show enough discrepancies to indicate that they indeed are edited collections of oral reports which can never be fully verified. Because of the editorial effort which went into the production of such pre-Koranic scriptures each have a more or less sequential and orderly set of contents not withstanding the fact that many internal contradictions on the one hand and variant editions on the other plague them.

 

The Koran is quite different, in fact so different as to be in a class of its own. Let me explain.

 

To begin with Prophet Muhammad is the only truly and fully historical major prophet or founder of a religion among all classical prophets or founders of religion. Little time was past after his death when the bulk of the revelations he claimed he received from God was put into book form. This was done by his most eminent scribes who survived him and worked as a body, as a college of scholars who checked and rechecked their materials, invited contributions and criticism and after diligent deliberations agreed on a text which they and almost all others to be a decidedly full and accurate collection and arrangement of the Koran dictated by archangel Gabriel to Muhammad in bits and pieces over some twenty years. The only order they could put into their edition was the division of the scared text into 114 chapters arranged roughly in an order from the longest to the shortest chapter. That could well be how the Prophet himself recited through the Koran but it did not matter; not only each chapter was an independent ‘article’ fully readable and understandable in its own right but in itself could jump from subject to subject reflecting the personal diary-like nature of the revelations. It is like reading the entries in the diary a person left behind, a diary with no dated pages but just like a notebook. Although entries have only occasional sequential order each entry is valuable in its own right; each varies in length; some days the writer scribbled a longish report of some important event, reminiscence or moral thought while on others he just jotted down just one or two short sentences giving an eloquent expression to an arcane secret. One of the shortest and latest entries in the Koran can be given as an example. It reads:

 

“Say: Allah is Unique. Allah is fully Self-Subsisting. He never begat nor was begotten. None can ever be an equal to Him”. Just a few lines before this we find another gem of a chapter totally unrelated to this just quoted. It reads “We have given thee (o Muhammad) gifts aplenty, therefore worship thy Lord with devotion and offer charitable animal sacrifices in thanks. Indeed it is thy detractor who will come to nothing” (Hasn’t this come only too true?).  You see, the style is just like a diary.

 

But what a diary! Its scope is both infinitely vast and varied. It swings between plain, fully commonsensical statements of creed like “God is One” or alternatively “There is no god but the God” to brief references to personalities and events mentioned in the Judeo-Christian Bible with a view to both reminding and warning the reader one the one hand and correcting any factual or creedal errors in them on the other. For example, the Koran both fully exonerates Biblical figures like Lot, Aaron and Solomon while rejecting blasphemous claims, for example, to the effect that Jesus was God or the son of God. It does it with such breath-taking vehemence and unanswerable logic that it must be seen to be believed. Read if you wish:

 

“Neither the Christ will ever disdain being God’s servant nor the near angels. Whoever disdains worshipfully serving Him and waxes proud He will gather them to Himself… and punish them with a painful punishment” (4: 172- 173)! No doubt true historical Jesus, to the chagrin of his self-styled theologians, could not agree more!

 

Such most authoritative and unanswerable corrections of many dubious elements in older scriptures and the creedal and legal errors which crept into them over time are routinely made in the Koran. Be prepared to be variously elated, ennobled, rocked, shocked, challenged, mystified, entranced, euphoric, warned, threatened and hopefully saved by it. Once you get used to its broken-looking and from subject to subject skipping style I hope you will be very fascinated and enamoured by it as no other book will fascinate and enamour. It is quite unique, real unique- and very mighty.
 

 

ISLAM - ITS USES AND ABUSES

 

Perhaps the most talked about subject nowadays is Islam.  Equally and perhaps again the most diversely perceived things is Islam.  At the one end we find those without and within  the Islamic community who regard him an absolute, unmitigated disaster-  everything that negates modern ‘civilized’ values.  At the other end are those vast but shallow enthusiasts who think that nothing outside the formal Islam is any good and must be rejected no matter how many and how much merits can be invoked in its favour.  For example, for them there is only one medicine, ‘the Islamic medicine’ and all outside it are Satanic and harmful.  There is only one form of government the Prophetic Medina government and all other forms of government are not only unworthy of obedience but must be actively opposed and brought down.  And between these ends lies a spectrum of opinions and attitudes pitting mind against mind and political ambition against ambition.

 

For Islam is distinctly political for it seeks to cover all interests of man under one umbrella-  its own.  Actually all religions have their uses if their believers want to benefit from them as intended.  But unfortunately abuses and abusers are never absent among them. Although not as political as Islam all other major religions suffered from political and spiritual abuses and Islam is not spared from them either.  Islam’s nearest competitor Christianity has in fact far exceeded  Islam in causing controversy and bloodshed.  Let only two examples suffice.  The Crusades (1192- 1295) is the longest lasting and most barbarous religious aggression ever committed by any religion.  For three centuries Western Europeans again and again poured into the East and savaged, robbed drowned and devoured all in their path everybody irrespective of religion.  The million-strong hordes of the First Crusade began their orgy of destruction right from where they started.  They stormed all jewish quarters in France,  Germany etc and massacred all they could lay hands on.  As they crossed  the rest of Europe they devastated all Christian populations on their way by robbing, raping, killing and burning down anything erected by man.  Through Turkish Anatolia they had a hard time in the hands of the Seljuk sultan Kilic Arslan who harassed them by guerrilla tactics- for the Crusaders were simply too numerous to be tackled otherwise.  In revenge the badly shaken Crusaders terribly tortured any muslims they captured and by their own testimony ate them both as punishment and most convenient food.  This first ever and last example of mass cannibalism in history constitutes the greatest example of barbarism in whole human history and is made even more eye-opening by its pedigree in Christianity at its most powerful age. 

 

In other words it represented the apogee of to what extent an otherwise good religion like Christianity could be abused.   Second championship of abused Christianity has been its use as a weapon among its adherents.  For centuries down to the 18th Christian sectarians,  like the Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran etc.,  excelled all sectarians in other religions in their fanaticism and barbarism while at the throats of each other.  But if you go to the Gospels you only find wisdom and kindness, humility and charity.  So in itself the real Christianity as gleaned from the teachings and example of the holy Christ himself could not be more different what may of his professed followers made of them.  Here we come to realize that if man has the will,  has set his mind to it, there is no teaching or system he cannot so much abuse as to convert its results to the very opposite of what was originally intended.  This is what I mean by abuse of a faith.

 

Man’s nature being the same everywhere Islam was also similarly abused and is being abused by mad or politically too ambitious muslims or both.  We must be aware that there is a kind of madness in which the sufferer remains perfectly logical, rational and lucid and in fact he may be a particularly brilliant thinker and debater but one does not fail to get a worrying impression that not everything is alright with this person.  He simply suffers to much from resentment, hatred, social disharmony and an incurable lack of tolerance and moderation.  He sees everything in black and white and resents even the most respectful criticism and must avenge every slight or reverse as he sees it.  This last ruthless trait he shares with otherwise sane violent criminals.  In the case of both their capacity to hit out with venomous vehemence and utter lack of compassion towards not only their opponents but those who don’t take them seriously but mind their business and the enormity of barbarity then can commit on others give the game away and definitely expose them as mad.  Islam, like Christianity, is most badly abused by such types and unfortunately they are always able to recruit enough followers and intimidate enough opponents to work towards their goal of dominating others in the name of Islam as they see it.  Just like other criminals after their own egoistic designs for aggrandisement Islamist criminals are masters of deceptive and subversive, underground as well as terrorist methods and have no moral scrupples about using libel, slander, hypocrisy, espionage and blackmail against their real or potential opponents,  applying brutal torture to even fellow and perfectly pious muslims for reasons like not subsidising their activities or not joining them.

 

This is the ultimate in the abuse of Islam.  We nust also look briefly at a lesser level of abuse for the same motives-  to impose his version of Islam on others.  Here we see some semi-secretive tariqats (mystic orders) which are run by extremely clever and manipulative leaders often acting as a dynasty,  sons, daughters, in-laws etc.,  and training and planting subversives to increasingly staff the cadres of power with their own.  These also can stoop to any level of criminal activity from blackmail to beat-ups and even murder to discourage any opposition to their grand designs.

 

All of which bring us to this:  For the very clever but criminally minded religion is just another field of mafia exploitation as are drugs, sex or financial investments.  Each  criminal genius finds his own field of operation on the basis of his aptitudes and inclinations.  One of these is the sense of religiosity.  The religious criminal appreciates the potency of religion on many minds because he sees the same effects in himself.  But instead of rightly harnessing his talents for helping himself to the edifying effects of his religion the devil in him gets the upper hand and makes him succumb to the temptations religious credulity and goodwill in others arouse in him.  “What if I manipulate them to instal myself in some sort of power?” he asks.  And once he succumbs and tastes the tempting fruits of reducing others to his admiring servants there is no turning back.

It is up to the religious community and their better leaders to see this problem and fight against the mafias in the religious field.  Such mafias may have also international designs and land the world into a hell of hostilities which only they will enjoy no matter the outcome. Pity.  


 

LIVING SUFISM

 

Sufism is personal contact with the deeper reality. Of course a sense or claim of contact is one thing and a real contact with the deeper reality is quite another.

 

A sense of contact with a deeper reality is obtainable by drugs like alcohol and cannabis and is spiritually worthless.

 

Some esoteric practices are no more than non-chemical self-brainwashing which consists of pressing the flesh so hard that out of health derangement the dreaming mind overflows into the waking mind and hallucinations to order my begin to arrive. In this case a Hindu verifies his Hindu polytheism and reincarnation belief, a Christian 'verifies' that Jesus is God and a Muslim not careful with his creed and humility may verify that he is the greatest saint ever to whom even prophets must bow. Which means a forced forage into the spiritual realms is a form of burglary and the Owner of the spiritual realms, namely Allah the Most High has planted many barricades and false lanes to take the burglars to parts where their prejudices and wishful-thinkings are delivered to them as 'facts'. With such false conquests and rewards they become ego-happy, a happiness which fools them but does not bless them. Then comes boastings.

 

True enlightenment, true contact with the real deeper truths come only from starting from a correct creed, which is Islam's as contained in properly studied and understood Qur'an and Hadith and sincere and hard-working application of the requirements of them. In this case the Sufi does not seek any deeper truths but busies himself with the service of his Lord in his sincerest and humblest best, taking especial care of his  need for higher and higher morality above all else. Once, by the Grace of Allah he establishes himself on this way of humble service to ALLAH AS AN END IN ITSELF deeper secrets themselves seek the Sufi out and pleasantly surprise him and attach themselves to him. When this happens the Sufi finds himself possessed by the Holy Spirit and genuine saving inspirations become inseparable from him. Unlike the earnings of the other Sufi or mystic who methodically seeks ways to burgle the Angelic or the Divine,  the earnings of this Sufi are not only pleasurable but positively blessed. Blessed means Divinely approved and to last forever and produce happiness for many others as well.

 

Such a Sufi quotes less and less from 'old masters' and more and more from his living experience. Quoting from old sources and masters may indicate personal shallowness and may amount to a show-off of personal erudition. Quoting from personal living experience is more enlightening and more effective on the audience and indicates personal contact with the deeper realities.

 

The best way forward for true seekers of the Divine Face must then be ordinary Islamic learning and piety at its possible best and must produce high morality and graceful manners, all thoroughly immersed in humility and charity.
When we become proper Muslims as Allah and His Messenger sws would like us to be, enough deeper gnosis at enough doses and right timings are fed o us from the Highest and Most Genuine Source. Amen

 

 

MUJIZAT AND KARAMAT

 

All believers believe in extraordinary events seemingly suspending and contravening the regularity of natural events and dictating themselves on a situation in a way impossible to explain except by the Existence and Power of God. No religion has ever offered an explanation for such events except-
ISLAM! (As always the winner).
After all Allah said:
"It is He Who sent His Messenger sws with Guidance and Truth in order to make it to triumph over all religion-  Allah is enough as a Witness-  Muhammad sws is THE Messenger of Allah" (S. al Fath: 28-29).

 

But this statement is not made in a vacuum, just asking us to believe. It proves itself by an undeniable proof in the preceding verse; it is only after displaying a miracle in the very text of His Qur'an that Allah makes the statement. He Almighty, All-Gracious said:

 

"Indeed Allah has honoured His Messenger's dream: You (believers) shall enter the Sacred Prostration Ground (Masjid al Haram), with Allah's permission, safely, shaving your heads short (as part of the rituals) without fear. He already knows (predestined) what you never could know and made a conquest to happen soon". 

 

The visit to the Masjid was the 'umra which was agreed at the Truce of Hudaibia the previous year and the conquest to follow was that of Mecca itself!

 

How could Muhammad sws dare to prophesy both events on his own,  seeing that in case they did not come true he had to explain himself and lose face and more?
Which means accurately prophesying the future is one kind of mujiza or karamat as we later Muslims have come to call them.

 

Now please note the last sentence. In it lies an example of one of our mistakes after the pure age of the Prophet sws passed away and we dabbled in the culture of peoples who had no real Islam for a long time before the advent of Muhammad sws. These were the  Christians steeped in Greek-Roman culture and the Persians inheriting and mixing many ancient cultures rich in spurious myth and a habit of gaudy embellishment and outrageous exaggeration. The Greeks analysed and philosophised while the Persians pumped air into their dreams and exaggerated. Before I say more let me hurry to add that I am not against either the Greeks or the Persians or any other nation: All men and all nations have their credits and discredits with Allah and only Allah knows all and can judge.  Muslims picked both viruses- the viruses of the Greeks and the Persians,  except the most carefully discriminating Muslims.

 

For example our illustrous Imam al Ghazali learned the Greek philosophy better than anybody else and then demolished all Muslim philosophers like Ibn Rushd who were losing their way under its influence. Our Naqhsibandi masters learned of all spiritual esoteric assumptions and practices of both the Greek Gnostics and Indian yogis but were not deceived by them like some other less careful Sufis; They stuck with the Sunna of Rasulullah sws pure and simple!

 

Now, what is this a bit off-the-mark mistake we later Muslims did about the concept of extraordinary events happening around prophets and some members of their ummats?
It is inventing two spurious unscriptural concepts and terms, namely 'mujiza' and 'karamat'. They sagaciously explain that an extraordinary effect produced around or by a prophet should be called a mujiza and another quite similar effect around or by a good member of the ummat of a prophet should be called 'karamat'.  This is not only quite needless but may also be misleading. That is because whoever the person involved the event or effect in question is entirely the work of Allah and Allah alone Who is the "Khaliqu kulli shay'in ''(Surat al An'am: 102), i.e, "The Creator of each and everything". One does not call bread given to a prophet one thing and to another man another thing- both are bread and given by the Lord.

 

So, what should we call it? Why, what Allah calls it: an 'ayet'- a Sign (from Allah).
Allah Almighty, All-Gracious as the BEST SPEAKER OF ARABIC Who cannot be excelled calls all His works- whether regular or extraordinary-  'ayat' and nothing else. He calls the coming of and precipitating rain by the clouds as one of His ayat, He calls the easy flow of sailing ships an ayet and HE CALLS THE CONVERSION OF THE STAFF OF MOSES AS AGAIN AN AYET!  He only makes one distinction though. Such phenomenal ayets He gives to His distinguished servants He calls His 'ayet al kabira' but always in the plural form "Ayatuna-l Kubra", "Our Greater Signs".  So He All-Wise and All-Kind says:

 

(After converting the staff into a snake and making the hand of Moses AS to glow white) "That is for Us to show thee something of Our Greater Signs" (S. Ta Ha: 23).
He repeats the same term to describe the experience of Muhammad sws at Mi'raj:
"Laqad ra'a min ayatinal kubra", i.e., "He (Muhammad sws) saw some of Our Greater/Greatest Signs" (S. al Najm: 18).
Yet, it is possible to divide ayat into those about knowledge ('ilmiyya) and deed (kawniyya). The ayat given to the strange companion Moses had sought  out as narrated in Surat al Kahf was about knowlede of future possibilities while the ayet signalled by the attendant of Suleiman/Solomon AS when he promised and delivered the throne of the Queen of Sheba was an ayet of deed. Both of course were Allah's first and in full. Nobody can deliver ayat let alone create them.

How do 'Ayat al Kubra' sit with other natural events?
Again, such a question suffers from the Greek philosophy. What we mean by 'nature'? If we are to believe the philospers nature is the self-made principle or sum total of the rules of the universe. Today we call it Physical Law. But the Arabic equivalent 'al fitra' is not left in such a vacuum. Allah owns it up in His Qur'an when He Almighty, All-Wise says,

 

 

DESCRIBING ISLAM

 

"Fitrat Allahillati fataran-nasi alaiha; la tabdila li khalqillah" (Surat al Rum: 30)
i.e. "(Islam) is the Nature on which Allah created mankind; there can be no change/exception to the creation of Allah".
He All-Gracious is also the Giver of its nature to the universe. He describes Himself:
"Fatir as samawati wa'l-ardi" (S. al An'am: 14), i.e, "The Originator and Nature-Giver of the heavens and the earth". 
That ultimately all without exception obey Him one way or another and do His bidding in an ultimate sense He Almighty confirms:
"Are they seeking other than the Religion/LAW of Allah to whom submit (are Muslims) all that are in the heavens and earth willingly or unwillingly and on to Him shall they return" (S. Ali 'Imran: 83)

The Law of Allah is Islam and applies to the whole animate and inanimate creation and ADMITS NO EXCEPTION. From this perspective what we call mujizat and karamat are totally natural as the moderns nowadays term the Divine Law, without being aware of the Divine though. They are equally pre-known to and pre-destined by Allah and happen in due course as routinely and effortlessly on His Part.

 

Lastly, in what way this discussion of this subject applies to and helps us? Let me explain with Allah's permission and by His help if He kindly so pleases:
We must lose the extremely bad and counter-productive habit of seeking mujizat and karamat in ourselves and in others and not entertain such a desire as them when we intend to walk the Sufi path. That is simply destructive of all our prospects on this path. Instead we must launch a career unto death of submitting to Allah's Law stated in the Religion of Islam, both inside (batin) and out (zahir) and keep in mind at all times that the salvation promised IS NO OTHER THAN SELF-SALVATION, SALVATION FROM OUR IMMATURITIES, our bad habits, wrong beliefs and self-subverting and frustrating attitudes. Day by day we must become more serious about and sincere in our faith, day by day we must lose more of our lying and cheating animal instincts, of our greeds and lusts, profane ambitons and poisonous jealousies. Day by day our enthusiasm for salat and saum and sadaqa and if possible zakat must grow, day by day our love towards all loved by Allah and compassion towards all in need of mercy must grow. In fact our love and compassion must be more and more universal until we cannot even hurt an ant or drop a tiny litter on the pavement or break a single rule of traffic- all governmental laws and the rules of any society we live in are Allah's Own in a special sense- except when involving an explicit sin.

 

We must remember that when the Messenger of Allah had to spit on the ground he used to rub it into earth by rubbing his shoe over it- he was so citizenly and civilised. He was the man with the most constant smile and so must we be. He never interrupted a talker whoever he was, even when a kafir- so must we be. He was the man in whose vocabulary the word 'No!" did not exist; he would apologise and promise to help if means came his way- and he was sincere- and SO MUST WE BE! The list can go on as long as the verses of the Qur'an and the pages of a hundred Hadith books go on.  And only when we become like this are we true Muslims, true believers and true Sufis and not before or otherwise. Now look around you and see how many of us fit this description and sit down and covering your face burning with shocked shame with your hands weep your eyes and heart out!  We are anything but like that.

 

And look what we are best at: Talking about the jinn,  talking about how and who starved himself to achieve delusional dreams and make attrocious claims to openings and powers.
What are these to us while we remain the same lying, envying, gossipy and superstitious wrecks from the bad dreams world?

 

But I also have goodnews: It is that whoever takes to the path of self-purification without delay or compromise shall be treated to karamat from day one, beginning like a barely perceptible trickle and gradually if slowly growing into a rivulet, then a river and then a torrent right down from Heaven. All wrong and worryibg things will disappear from him and all the blessing and pleasing things invade his environment and his inner chambers of perception; all the right and ennobling and consoling interpretations of life shall rush on to his mind until he can be described as Allah described His friends whom He so graciously calls His Awliya:

 

"Alaa inna awliya Allahi la khawfun alaihim wa la hum yahzanun. Allazina amanu wa kanu yattaqun. Lahum ul bushra fi'l hayatid-dunya wa fi'l-Akhira. La tabdila likalimatilllah. Zalika huwa'l fawzul azim"(S. Yunus:62)

 

or "Beware of the friends of Allah: For them there is no fear nor shall they ever come to grief. THEY ARE THOSE WHO BE-LI-EVE AND HAVE BEEN TREMBLINGLY AND DUTIFULLY OBSERVANT (OF ALLAH'S COMMANDS AND PLEASURE). For them are goodnews both in this world (many lucky breaks with deserved rewards) and and in the Next. THERE CAN BE NO CHANGING OF ALLAH'S WORD (and promise). THIS IS THE GREAT SUCCESS EVER (possible for anybody)".

 

Yes, BELIEVE, not KNOW. That is beacuse faith is the single greatest source of Divine approval and blessing for us. Once faith becomes knowledge (which we would agree how impossible is that had we known how great and other are the secrets Allah holds in store for us). We are most beloved to Allah when we just believe without seeing and obey without question simply because we have fallen in love with our invisible Beloved and for His sake we can risk and do anything. Only then are we in for rewards about which the Most Beloved of Allah (sallallahu alaihi wa sellem) said:

 

"Allah prepared for His good servants in the Garden what no eyes have ever seen, no ears have ever heard of and no imagination could ever conceive".  Amen.  

 


 

Web design by Surge Solutions