Tawzifnama 7 to 10

7.

 

“All affairs shall become the Real’s

Vain are sorrows and anxieties

He just works His Wisdom

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful”

 

Whatever happens or materialises are only apparently unsuitable, wrong or unjust.  As originating ultimately from the Real, they could not possibly be otherwise.  Here I am unable to withhold a great secret from my dear readers.  Since the beginning you have perhaps noted that Allah is called “the Real” (al Haqq in Arabic) from which the word ‘reality’ is derived.  And His reality cannot be other than the very ordinary reality we already perceive and know.  Otherwise, by calling Himself “the Real” Allah could be inaccurate or at least ambiguous which He is not.  This means that the ‘reality’ we perceive, both physical and psychological (i.e. our knowledge and experience of ourselves) is an appearance of Allah (swt) in a collective, basic and significant sense although it cannot exhaust Him in the least.  It is such an infinitesimally small aspect or theophany (tajalli) of the Ultimate One that is counts for almost nothing compared to what is still to come from Him to out perception.  It is only a bare basis to build on here and hereafter and compared to what is to come, it is illusory.  Still, it is ‘reality’ if not the whole reality which it isn’t.  Sufis therefore likened this world to a shadow of Allah.  Although there is an accurate and necessary link between somebody and his shadow and we can tell a lot about that person by watching his shadow, we cannot tell everything and we cannot influence him by tampering with his shadow.  What is more, the shadow is dependent on the person casting while the person couldn’t need his shadow less.

 

Still, for us humble creatures and at our level, the physical reality surrounding us and even incorporating our bodies as well as out psychological awareness of ourselves are both realities and in fact only two faces of single reality.  We have no option but to study this reality to learn something about the Ultimate Real, Allah (swt).  We found out that this reality has some unbreakable rules called “the laws of nature” and these laws enforce their ways on us far better than our man-made laws.  We have to breath, we have to take in nutrition, we have to move, we have to unite our genetic materials if we want live and reproduce.  We have to observe manners or we end up in trouble, we have to think before we can act consciously.  What natural law brings about this unpreventable and unchangeable except the intervention of other natural laws in which case a composite effect ensues?  So, “all affairs shall become the Real’s” (i.e. will boil down to the requirements of natural law) and “worries and anxieties are totally useless.”  “He only works His wisdom” which is “codified” as natural law.

 

This is reality.  This is realism.  This is faith.  We must learn to accept the inevitable.  Without this skill, life is partial hell.  Beware!

 

8.

 

“All His works are victorious

And befitting of each other

Whatever He does is acceptable

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful”

 

 

Because good and only good will result, all His words are victorious, winning.  A doubting or unbelieving person may ask, “How come?  How can so many disasters, injustices and sufferings be victorious or lead to any good? Come on, don’t be fools.”  We cannot answer these people at all satisfactorily unless we know another secret.  It is that a person having faith has a means of coping with adversities whatever the intensity.  Contrary to popular opinion, religious faith (and perhaps all faith, including the scientific, sectarian and political etc) contains an element of will alongside an element of evidence.  For some reason we want or need to believe certain things and as a result begin interpreting any evidence in the interests of that will, want or need.  Although this destroys objectivity it compensates it with a strong-willed commitment which breeds great will power.  That is why even the silliest faiths create incredible commitments in their adherents. 

 

Despite such “fanaticism” being criticised for its objectively invalid grounding and psychologically dangerous potentialities, there are cases where such faith becomes a great blessing from both the adherents and non-adherents.  The example of such a situation directly relates to our subject:  That certain kinds of ‘blind’ faith renders its faithful oblivious to adversities and at times may even cause him or her to surrender to any kind of death with not only equanimity but perhaps even bliss.  That is what martyrdom is.  Whatever criticism may be levelled at such faith, it is undeniable that is provides the faithful with miraculous powers of acceptance or whatever may come.  Not only that, he or she becomes utterly convinced and happy that he or she is sacrificing something on account of his or her faith.  Perhaps, at least for him or her no greater happiness is conceivable.  Indeed, all major religions idealise martyrdom and all other sorts of sacrifice in their cause.  The psychological mechanism is so powerful that even non-religious belief/commitment systems rush to use it gratuitously, like nationalism and communism. 

 

As a result, they produce their own myths, legends, martyrs, angels and demons totally unaware or unashamed that they are indulging headlong in things they criticise religions for and still boast of their objectivity, scientific approach etc.  In light of the above, we can see that whatever the “objective” judgement on the disasters, injustices and sufferings plaguing the humanity, through properly strong faith our Creator has provided us with an unparalleled means of denying these adversities the horrors they can hold for us and psychologically converting them into victories.  It will be totally foolish to scoff at this and at least two reasons can be given to justify it.  Firstly, none of us can rule out sufferings too great and too inevitable for us to cope with in objective or rational ways and faith can marvellously and miraculously save us very great trouble indeed.  By switching on the hypnotic trance called faith we can suddenly become invincible.  This is not a weakness but a very great power with which man is endowed.  It has been used and abused throughout the ages and will go on to be available to both the saint and the devil.  It is a capacity peculiar to human beings as many other capacities are, like logic, imagination etc.  As already pointed out it can be used for good as well as for evil and that is the case for all our potentialities and assets. But it must be admitted that under extraordinarily adverse situations, faith can deliver relief which other means cannot.

 

Secondly, faith is not always the opposite of objective facts and rational thoughts.  It may both fit them and supplement them without infringing on them.  That is why all major religions claim to be the “true religion” and each is able to go a long way in “proving” its case.  Although not all such “proofs” may be convincing to disbelievers or doubters, at least some of them are quite handsome, like the argument for the existence of God.  It has won many great minds over and has not been defeated by anybody conclusively.  Therefore, at least for the faithful, this existence we are part of is a conscious and purposeful entity subjected to the Power of Allah in all matters- Allah who in good through and through wills to make all of us happy in the end.

 

“All His works are victorious

And befitting of each other”

 

Not only a religious believer but any sensible and intelligent person can interpret this universe as a system of mutually fitting things and events as a result of which newer and better creatures evolve and man in particular develop better inventions and institutions and attain higher levels of intellectual, spiritual and material life.  Just as we start worrying about fossil fuels we discover nuclear power from fission and as we get alarmed by its drawbacks fusion methods present themselves.  In other words, scares are usually survived and circumvented and alternatives keep cropping up.  Apparently something or somebody somewhere is making sure that we are fed on a balanced mixture of fears and relief’s, successes and failures or goods and “evils” and through such alternating and interplaying experiences increase in wisdom and insight.  However, just as we learn our lessons from life we become too old to influence our world and die eventually. 

This suggests that we continue to exist in another form where our maturity will pay off and it is not wasted.  These interpretations of benevolent purposefulness of existence and our life in it constitute the basis of all major religions and are heartily and readily subscribed to by people of all kinds and calibres i.e. it is only some “ignorant” or “foolish” people that are convincingly religious.  Many great philosophers and scientists both past and present are among the firm believers.  And what is important is that only such religious interpretation makes a satisfactory and therapeutic viewpoint about existence.  The atheistic or irreligious views are spiritually barren morally and very dangerous, as demonstrated time and again by the monstrous atrocities committed by the champions of ideologies like Nazism and Marxism. 

 

It may be argued that some atheists as individuals are harmless and even positively kind and helpful persons but an educated opinion is that many of these are previously religious people who were bitterly disappointed with the quality of their fellow “believers” and reluctantly defected to the atheist camp where they began a program of behaviours to demonstrate to themselves and others that it is perfectly possible to be conscientious and beneficent without religion.  Indeed, it was nobody other than the Messenger of Allah out master Muhammad (sws) who said concerning one of his companions, Sa’d, “How good a servant is Sa’d.  He would behave virtuously even if He was not afraid Allah.”  He also said, “The better among you are those were better than the rest even before coming to Islam.”  In other words religion in itself cannot make anybody a good person.  Rather, it is only those persons who are essentially good that can benefit from religion to enhance their noble characters and behaviours.  For the rest, religion is a control system better than nothing, and for the worst people, it is abused as a means to selfish aims, like subjugating and exploiting the weak.

 

“Whatever He does is acceptable”

 

Acceptance is a psychological realisation whereby the subject chooses to go along with a perceived reality and as a result saves himself from tension and worry.  It is the single most important aim of psychotherapy.  The patient is cultivated by the therapist over several skilfully managed sessions to accept the inevitable and thereby end the agony.  As that giant of modern psychiatry late Dr Jung said: “Religion is psychotherapy and contains a lot of practical truth.”  The Creator couldn’t agree more.

 

“We send down from the Qur’an what is a cure and mercy for man.”  (      )

 

CONCLUSION:  Everything equal, faith in Allah and insightful approval and acceptance of His ways is far better than any other life philosophy.  Faith, when genuine, is assured to give cure and relief to out souls as nothing else can.

 

9.

 

“Banish the gloom from your heart

Find tranquillity with the presence of your Lord

Commission your affairs to Him

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful”

 

If you seriously think about it, human perspectives boil down to a single reality:  It is that you are either happy or unhappy at any given moment and that is what concerns you most.  However, “powerful” you may be in the worldly sense (like being an absolute dictator) you still swing between gloom and elation as much as an ordinary person among the populace.  Perhaps more so, all biographies of powerful men are full reports of their abject despairs, haunting fears and tormenting desires only occasionally overpowered by joy of success or satisfaction.  The cruelty displayed by most of them is enough proof that internally they are denizens of hell, feeding on its sickly and tormenting contents and vomiting the same to those around them.  Allah says,

 

“In every community we made their great ones their criminals plotting against therein”  

 

You, as a well-meaning humble believer would do well to banish gloom from your heart no matter what the reason.  To demonstrate how important and practical this is, I shall divulge another top secret of marifah: Nothing, absolutely nothing in life is worthy of being too gloomy about.  So long as we are given power over something we must use the power to bring about a good, pious, merciful and just result.  But when something is beyond our power and control it means that Allah does not want and allow us to interfere.  We can only pray and trust that Allah will bring about the best result demanded by the situation.  It may be salvation or death.  Both should be acceptable to you and you should not be gloomy about it unduly.  However, being humans we cannot possibly avoid some degree of sadness or wish and pray that the result be different.  Provided we are respectful of Allah and ultimately submissive to His will, our sorrows and prayers are not only forgiven but also rewarded greatly.  An example is the shedding of tears on the part of the Messenger of Allah (sws) when his baby son Ibrahim had died.  When the sahabe (companions) asked even you weep?” The Messenger of Allah (sws) said, “ It is only mercy.  Otherwise we are pleased with our Lord.”  Had he been gloomy He would show that He was not pleased with His Lord.  Don’t you see, if somebody sulks and becomes depressed because of something we did to him it is obvious to everybody that he is resentful and perhaps even hating us.  Instead, if he turns around and waiving aside his hurt continues to smile and be cheerful and even adds that we know better and he would go along with anything we wanted he suddenly grows in stature in our eyes.  It is the same with Allah (swt) and His trusting servants.

 

Do not be afraid of anything in life more than fear itself, and do not be gloomy about anything in life more than about the gloominess itself.  Fear and gloom are the greatest tormentors as far as our psychological states are concerned and they are the destroyers of faith if left unchecked.

 

10.

 

“Do not confuse justice with injustice

Just submit and do not burn in fire

Keep patience and beware of feeling fed-up

Let us then see what the Lord does

Whatever He does the result is beautiful”

 

From the point of eternity and our actual needs as creatures able to mature, anything and everything that happens to us is just and fair.  Of course, we do not mean that there are no injustices in the world in a legal sense or otherwise.  They are aplenty.  What we mean is this:  All these apparent and formal injustices are allowed to happen by no one other than the Creator Himself.  That is why one of the six articles of faith is:  “(I believe) in Destiny and both its good and evil is from Allah.”

 

Why does Allah allow injustices to happen?  Because the experience of injustice is one of the greatest experiences destined to happen to man which will bring out for us great insight and wisdom on our way to prescribed maturation.  All such painful experiences are eternally part and parcel of living this physical and temporary life and no amount of reforms and revolutions can change this fact one iota.  Reformers and revolutionaries are perhaps unaware that suffering is a relative experience and has not much objective context.  Hence, while it is possible for a poor person living under deprived conditions to feel generally happy because of some mental activity like studying insects or flowers, another person living a royal life in a palace may commit suicide because his horse again failed to win the race.  Or, while a mature person can overcome his separation from his beloved wife, an immature person may go mad or commit murder of suicide just because a coveted girl ignored his advances.  Neither democracy nor communism can do anything about such behaviour.  Human beings are simply subjective entities too complicated and sophisticated inside for any objective and external arrangement to make much difference.

 

The experience of injustice, like the experiences of grave illness, great pain or great loss first shocks and devastates us but that is only phase one.  If we are to mature at all, other phases arrive in time hopefully to be concluded by one phase of acceptance, which is the only cure.  What is hell and what is paradise?  Immature people, whatever their formal education level or religious “knowledge” imagine that hell is a future place- just another place where the sinners will be tortured physically while paradise is its antithesis; a place where the obedient faithful shall be treated to physical delights.  These are very true but not in the way the immature think.  Arifs know that time is an illusion and the real is timeless.  We live only nows and this now and eternity is the one and the same thing.  Hence, if you are of paradise or want paradise, you should be able to feel, at least to some extent, pleasure with your lot here and now.  That is what is meant by “Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him.”  

 

Contrarily and Allah forbid, if you feel angry or gloomy about your lot here and now you are of hell.  Most certainly none of us can completely stop feeling some anger and gloom about things happening to us but these must be under the cleansing and dissolving influence of a stream originating from the depth of faith in our heart.  As love, this sacred stream is gushing out and running through our soul like a river heading for the see, all anger and gloom will have to be washed away eventually and this successful test will enable us to attain paradise. Yes, legally the injustices shall remain injustices, but miraculously their results for us shall be great benefit.  Remember the first quintet:

 

“The Real converts evils into good

Do not think that He does otherwise

The arif (Gnostic, insightful) watches that”…

 

Instead, if you refuse to submit to what Allah directed at you through “injustice” you start burning with satanic indignation.  As a result, only destruction ensues.  Psychologists tell us that when somebody is indignant and cannot resolve it through healthy psychotherapy, either of the following two avenues are open to him to spend this negative energy, depending on his inclination as a character.  If he is an assertive person he will go out and punish the unjust, anything up to murder.  On the other hand, if he is a timid and silently suffering type, the violence he needs to display will be directed inward and serious physical and/or psychological illness will result and probably it will prove incurable and even fatal.  In other words, unresolved indignation shall precipitate self-destruction. That is what burning in hell is in this world and it is not unrelated to what is to come in the next. 

 

“Be patient and beware of feeling fed-up”

 

All prophets said, “Faith is but patience” which means the faithful can be patient- they are capable of it.  One who boils over cannot possibly be faithful.  Why does faith give patience?  Because faith is believing in, trusting in and loving Allah more than anything else.  The believer believes that everything happens with Allah’s will and power, and Allah being loved for His goodness cannot possibly intend evil for us.  Let us take an example.  Suppose that you greatly and blindly love and trust somebody.  The two of you then go out for a picnic together.  However, he is an evil person masquerading as an angel and his intention in going to the picnic with you is to cut your throat. 

 

So, when you see him producing a knife and sharpening it on a stone and coming towards you and laying you down and putting the knife to your throat, you roar with laughter at his ingenuity for a joke.  He however, cuts your throat before you have time to realise what is happening.  This story is not fanciful unrealistic narrative.  Such things do happen.  In fact, this world has always had its fair share of conmen and charlatans who swindled and even killed unsuspecting admirers without the latter suspecting anything until perhaps too late.  But when it comes to Allah, such suspicion and reservations do not apply.  The religious believer is or should be absolutely sure that Allah is both good and wise and there is no danger but only good in this attitude.  Because unlike any of us, Allah does not need anything outside Himself and cannot possibly be our rival in the sharing of any benefits.  As a result, we can conclude that faith and trust in Allah is the best means of attaining unqualified and unconditional contentment in this life no matter what and that is the greatest promise and prospect one can ever imagine and have.