An Arif Or Wali Of Allah
WHAT HAPPENS IN AN ARIF OR WALI OF ALLAH
Why, he just has realised that Tawhid and Islam are the twin realities or still better, the two aspects of a single reality which when one lives from shoots him up all the way to the Throne of Allah where he may constantly witness the Truth (‘al Haqq’, another synonym for Allah) and be blessed and ennobled by Truth for good. Let me explain again:
Tawhid means the unification of the divine principle in a single God who is called Allah in Arabic. Its opposite is degrading divinity beyond recognition by apportioning it among a number of imaginary, and what is worse, very imperfect and sometimes also plainly evil gods who are often more in trouble with each other than men who worship them. For example Greek gods including their father and chief Zeus were stronger than men only physically while morally they could be as despicable as any cheat, thief and rapist among men, all crimes which these gods frequently had and were still committing. Islam’s is True
God, that is to say the worthiest of being the divine, the worthiest magnet for men’s devotions and prayers. Allah appreciates man’s faith in and devotion and prayers to Him infinitely greatly and prepared for them a reward which will have no limits and boundaries as He puts it many times in His Book the Qur’an al Karim.
For its part Islam means submitting to the Will of Allah once one meets a trying situation which submission is another name for salvation. Salvation because Allah is the Infallible Guide with the most perfect goodwill towards man. Trust and follow His guidance and you can only attain perfect good and perfect satisfaction though sometimes it may take some time before this becomes delightfully clear. The true believer who is the same as the wali or arif aspires at appreciating Allah as much as he can, realising all the while that he cannot do enough justice to Allah’s Grace and Majesty. When this is so one can imagine how much the true believer shall be motivated by a desire and ambition for finding or at least guessing in which course of action Allah’s Pleasure lies and act accordingly: this is the obeying of Allah’s Will as much as man is able to and it is so dear to Allah that even when man is mistaken in his choice he is rewarded as if he succeeded. It was to this effect that we find in Bukhari, the most reliable and revered of all Hadith collections the following hadith as the very first one: “All acts are judged on the basis of the intentions behind them. For each man is what he intended for etc.” This is to Hadith what is basmala to the Qur’an. Therefore always inspect your intentions and not only you will act righteously at all times but also see why you were punished on certain occasions: we sometimes find ourselves frustrated and humiliated in an enterprise and may begin to secretly resent God- that is where we should re-examine our intentions and attitude informing our enterprise; we will find that they were not entirely proper. Why do you think we are sometimes beaten by our opponents by just simply looking down on them and feeling proudly superior to them. How many great armies were badly and scandalously routed by far smaller and less well equipped armies or how many sports giants like a superb football team were knocked down or out by far humbler opponents! Allah simply hates and punishes arrogance and malice, therefore always be on guard against arrogance and injustice on your part regarding others. If you are on Allah’s Side as you think then leave greatness to Allah and stick to humility, sincerity and goodwill towards all except for rare and airy diplomatic boastings or threats from behind good intentions.
In a man who brings together a singular and excusive belief in Allah as the One and Only God (as represented in his soul as the very highest and noblest in himself in a psychological if unconscious sense) and a solid determination to follow the Will of Allah, that is to say, psychologically speaking the very best and noblest inclinations in himself instead of his any lower desires irrespective of Allah, this man has combined in himself both Tawhid and Islam and is one of the successful (al muflihun). Contrarily a man who cannot settle with Allah as the only god (object of his highest aspiration) to pursue the pleasure of but keeps treating the vanities and profanities of his unreformed self (nafs) at least as a second and more amicable if not the only god has failed both in Tawhid and Islam however much he may boast of both. For such Allah said “Have you seen the one who adopted his vanity as his god alongside or instead of Allah whereby Allah sent him astray on the basis of some sort of knowledge (he boasts of inside his heart) and sealed his hearing and placed a veil before his sight? Who other than Allah can guide him then? Will you not contemplate?” (45: 23).
The most interesting piece in this verse is “Allah sending such a self-worshipping fool astray on the basis of some sort of knowledge” this fool happens to possess. It is a fact that most irreligious people explain their disbelief in God in particular and religion in general as a course of action dictated by their scholarly or scientific or philosophical knowledge; these should rather realise that they are not outwitting Allah but Allah is outwitting them. Allah is the most obvious reality to those who are realistic enough to be humble in front of this universe which is a most glorious testimony and monument to God’s Majesty and Grace while He eludes the perception of the proudly self-infatuated. The reason why such have no appetite for the otherwise most appetising and nourishing of all aspirations, namely Allah the Most High and Most Gracious, is because they have already engaged their taste apparatus to the garbage and in fact the poison which is what a godless appetite for this world’s material and sensual promises represents. In other words they are fascinated with the ultimately ephemeral and vain and fail to realise that all happiness is ultimately in the mind and the mind is the thing in man nearest to God. Joyous and triumphant contemplation and pursuit of God boils down to thinking and acting from the very best and noblest in you and this is such a success formula that all the rest of happiness-bringing things are attracted to its leadership in brightening your life. You get along well with almost everybody and feel basically well under all circumstances except when you are guilty of something towards somebody. That is your only possible hell and that is eminently avoidable if you are careful and excusable if you apologise and make amends. Hell forever is for those who remain arrogantly unrepentant. Understand this!
Why some people lose their way and blight their future on account of some sort of knowledge they apply to their lives? Because they overvalued it, say a philosophical doctrine, they picked up the wrong destination and conceived the wrong reward as the driving ambition of their lives. Take communism of fascism. How glorious these two imaginary medicines for all social ills look to their believers. They become so fired with the zeal of implementing their ideology that they hurt very many and are hurt by very many only to die before they see their triumph or live to be disappointed by their fruits. Only belief in True and Gracious God and submission to His Will guarantees happy success even if sometimes only in the form of a noble martyrdom. What noble enough soul shall not admire or even perhaps envy a noble souled man who perishes while trying to serve a starving people?
This man’s idealism and sacrifice are worthy objects appreciated and rewarded by God while ideals or ideologies based on wrong perceptions and feeding a misguided zeal clash with God’s Laws, that is to say laws of nature, especially the human as a result of which they are punished by these laws. “Allah misled them on the basis of some sort of knowledge” means Allah’s Laws won against their supposed and wrong laws about value and success in life they think they discovered. As a result of the invincible operation of Allah’s Laws they lost themselves in a maze of mean pleasures or wrongful zeals leading only to the mouth of a dragon which has been deliberately allowing them to feed and fatten themselves for its next meal. Why do you think habitual robbers or cheats or serial rapists or killers very often are caught when they think they permanently outwitted the forces of law and are basking in their evil satisfactions? Because in their self-assurances and their ignoring of larger laws and the great forces behind these larger laws they begin to feel beyond detection and capture, become bolder and think that they are in for more and greater thrills. They overextend themselves and that proves their eventual undoing.
CONCLUSION
There is no safety outside the embrace and other than the loving care of Allah, psychologically speaking the very best and noblest in you. In religious terminology this becomes Tawhid (only Allah) and Islam (obeying Allah’s Laws and Commands). Think, feel, speak and act from the very best and noblest in you and you will see, sooner rather than later that a Force shall take charge of you and a Light shall stand in front of you and guide you in all things to all success and satisfaction without creating a single victim but dotting your path with grateful and praying beneficiaries.
Mind you, many Islamic projects fail simply because some less pure among the protagonists infect it with the poison of their egotism and its consequent subversions which harm the efforts of the purer elements. A friend of mine was in charge of one such project and supported by powerful sponsors with generous funds. But both the funds and the influence and prestige coming from leading the project proved too attractive to some participants who began to subvert this good leader of theirs in order that either they lead it or it fails and the good leader is discredited. They succeeded to mess and crank up the whole thing in a few years without themselves gaining anything but regrets and red faces.
Quite a few died begging their ex-leader’s forgiveness which was granted but the project was wrecked all the same and once and for all. This type of project psychology and typology lies behind most failures of Muslims since our master Ali was challenged and subverted by so many malcontents and enviers from which malaise Muslims only occasionally and temporarily recovered since. Hence today’s sorry state of ours.
All this world’s headaches, heartaches and problems could be greatly alleviated the more among us did the more of the required Tawhid of and Islam to Allah. Not that I am hoping one percent of this could happen. I can only pray. I have the witness that it works almost each and every rare time it is allowed to work. This is the supreme act and art of being a true human being, a man of God who shall be an embodiment of loving mercy to all mankind as Allah said about His Last, Final and Greatest Messenger, namely our master Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam:
“We have not sent thee but as an embodiment of loving mercy towards all mankind” (21; 107).
Here is real Tasawwuf or real Sufism which is real Islam. Take it or leave it. Obviously less will not do and did not do. May Allah inspire and enable us to take the real. Amen.
12. ONLY TRUTH SERVES AND SAVES TRULY
INTRODUCTION
Many think that all religions are about convenient lies in several senses: one is ‘religions are invented to assuage our fear of extinction through death. Without it many weak-mindeds and weak-nerveds would go mad’. Another is, by inventing gods or a God the inventor may aim either of the two aims, namely, and the first, building up a conscience in the believers whereby they shall be motivated to act righteously and when they fail then try to repair the damage they did; and the second, to appoint themselves as the representative of those gods or that God so as to control others for better or worse. Still another is gratifying the desire for some great achievement in life in persons who somehow feel as failures in this life as most understand it, like acquiring riches or attaining high positions; religious faith and ritual then supplies the failed person to satisfy his desire for success through the imagination-based successes of a life of religion, especially one with a high content of mysticism.
All this above may come to you as a shock if you are religious while as a welcome revelation if you are not. But neither attitude is justified. Let me explain:
Sufis, I mean true ones, realise that what looks profane may be as sacred as what looks holy. To see how and why let us study the first hypothesis above, namely that religions are invented to assuage our fear of extinction through death. So what? Why not see that our Creator designed us in such a way that, unlike all the rest of the animals we have a vast imagination which may be both a blessing and a curse: blessing because it enables us to accumulate scientific knowledge and thereby control our environment better than any other animal; in fact we can dominate the whole nature in our favour if it comes to that, potentially at least. Curse because we are the only animals to tell life and death apart in a conscious and imaginative sense and as a result we create medicine on the one hand to promote our health and prolong our lives and on the other invent religious faith to protect our sanity in view of our inevitable death. Using our imagination given us by our Creator we can choose to invent religious faith and spread it so as to assuage existential fears and yearnings which are inseparable aspects of our rich psychology feeding on an infinite imagination. This theory which combines the invention theory of religion with the revelation theory of religion is quite tenable simply because our ability to invent is as much a gift from God as our ability to feel and believe that we are being revealed spiritual secrets by God. If anything it relieves the tension between the two camps contesting the issue on these lines which relief is absorbing the profane into the sacred and solving the problem.
But that is not all: we Sufis know that revelation from God is a genuine experience. They also know that there is another low grade revelation that is not from God but from devils. Before those who disbelieve God and devils protest I better explain what God and what devil each means.
As we only too many times said, God has an ontological meaning which relates to His Reality as It is: nobody can crack and invade that secret but it reveals Itself in indirect ways which are as good as direct given our limited powers of perception. What is more, it is not only God Who or Which is unknowable in a direct and total sense: the knowledge of each and everything except our self-knowledge is both limited and indirect. Taking the commonest and simplest example, what man knows another, as that other knows himself? To know another person as he knows himself you have to become that same person which is of course impossible. Do we know what a piece of stone in our hand exactly is? Never. For the simple man it is a compound of weight, shape, colour etc. all of which are- relative!
For the man it may be a very small and light stone while for a baby the opposite. For the physicist it is an object of a given and measurable weight and volume while for a chemist it is also a certain compound and mixture of several minerals. Things get more complicated when psychological factors enter the equation. I remember seeing a very funny caricature in a humour magazine as a secondary school pupil decades ago: three men, all sitting on a pier by the sea were looking at the full moon which was high and bright in the sky as it was night time. One of the men was a man in love with a woman, the second was a hungry man and the third a money-worshipper. The first saw (interpreted) the moon as the beautiful face of his beloved, the hungry fellow saw it as a round, well-baked loaf of bread and the third as a gold coin beckoning for pick-me-up. The same applies to our attitudes to religious faith: Those who are not happy with a simplistic materialistic and hedonistic view of life find religious faith like fresh air and cool water on a hot and thirsty day, seeing that all crime issues from crass (and not refined) competition for worldly goods and prospects. Anything which will sublimate and at least partially relieve this is welcome by them- religious faith fits this role well. Religious persons also compete, but if their faith is true theirs is a competition in moral elevation and achievement. Read if you wish:
“Rush and race ye (o believers) towards the pardon of your Lord and the Garden (paradise) prepared for the godly the span of which is as much as that of the heavens and the earth!” Such are those who spend in charity both while of ample and sparse means, swallow their anger and pardon people. Allah loves the gracious. Moreover they are those who, when they commit a wrong or fail themselves remember Allah and ask for pardon- who can pardon sins other than Allah? Such do not persist in wrongdoing while knowing better” (3: 133- 135).
THIS IS OUR OLYMPIAD. Can anybody offer a better and nobler race for men and women to prove their worth? If Islam is just another lie, so be it: it is a million times better for mankind to live from such a lie than to live from a thousand other supposed truths or realities. But it is not a lie as we will soon see.
GOD AND DEVIL AND THE INSPIRATIONS FROM EACH
As far as inspiration or revelation (‘wahy’ in Arabic) is concerned Allah informs us that this phenomenon may be caused either by Him or the Devil which is Allah’s adversary. But there is a difference between these two foci of spiritual influence: Allah is One and Unique, the Devil is a multiple like pathogenic organisms are. Here we will not be concerned with the ontological meanings of each- they are unknowable in a literal sense. What is necessary and functional are their psychological meanings.
As for the psychological meaning of God it is that dazzlingly brilliant and most benevolently blessing and guiding summit of our spirituality which we normally occasionally access when, in a crisis and despite all our lower and more selfish instincts protesting, we dare to do the necessary great heroic act for seeing to it that the justice is done or the charitable sacrifice rendered while our hearts are grateful for it and expects nothing in return. That is what ‘being filled by the Holy Spirit’ means. With God in charge of all our feelings, words and actions we are at our best and noblest as humans and can be called men of God or godly. Now at the cost of repetition, this is man at his best and the more this godly state of mind can be maintained the nobler, the more attractive and lovable we become in the eyes of all people with the required modicum of decency.
Sufism is the experimental science and inspired art of increasing that share of our time when we feel like that, namely full of and moved by God, and the Qur’an is its Handbook while the Sunna of the Prophet (S) its laboratory manual. Its subject of study is one’s own self and its ultimate product is your possible best self which can be rightly called Godly (muttaqi) or Lordly (Rabbani). It must be obvious by now that the godlier we get the more friendly and peaceful our lives as a human society will be. What lies at the bottom of all man-made troubles is explained next.
This is the devil in us. It is the form of consciousness which is the diametrical opposite of the Godly. In this kind or mode of consciousness we both suffer terribly and cause others to suffer terribly. It is as if a most malicious and malevolent force has taken possession of your senses and directs you into thoughts, emotions, words and acts you thought you could never dare or execute. If you don’t believe me remember those perhaps rare acts of yours when you felt extremely mean and acted extremely meanly and then regretted with great shame for a long time. We read about murders etc. which look so unrea, as to be only ascribable to a temporary madness of the worst kind on the part of the perpetrator. It was recently in the news that a daughter in her late teens stabbed to death her mother, a distinguished professor of medicine and generally much appreciated. One can only imagine in what kind of satanic state of mind the ungrateful daughter must have been in. Another example of satanic possession if we may call it so is the case of a habitual, addicted gambler who killed his long-sacrificing and suffering mother to rob her of her last pair of bracelets she kept for her growing up daughter. In too much hurry to remove the bracelets he cut off the hands of his mother at the wrists while the mother was advising him how to hide from the police. Perhaps she was over-doting on him but that is no justification for acting so satanically. Of course these are extreme examples but extreme examples help to give more eloquence to a cause and here the cause is highlighting what is the worst and meanest in us psychologically: it is this nadir (lowest and vilest point) of our human consciousness which is the devil in us!
Now let us take two men at the two extremes of consciousness: one is highly aroused and consistent in Godliness while the other is aroused and consistent in satanicity as we defined God and Devil. What thoughts and emotions visit and stay with each? Why, the Godly man is bombarded by inspiration after inspiration about how to feel, speak and behave more grandly, lovingly, mercifully, wisely and behaving more charitably. Cannot this man’s inspirations be regarded as coming from God, i.e. the very best and noblest in him? Cannot this perfectly plausible mechanism throw light on the experiences and expressions of true prophets like our masters Moses, Jesus and Muhammad and all the true saints following in their footsteps? Cannot the opposite mechanism, namely living in a consciousness of mean, vile and criminal thoughts and emotions and as a result being ever ready to inflict pain on others albeit after some deceptive niceties as camouflage explain what being a Godless, therefore a satanic man means? Still God is far higher and better than Godliest servants of His while the Devil is far worse than most satanic of his servants. If there is a bottom line of evil no man can go beyond, there is no such limit for the Satan. The satanic man is only too selfish and that is why he follows the Satan: to obtain his desires. Satan has no desires but only hurting and demolishing God. A pipe dream, yes. But the only dream possible for the Devil: Evil is his essence he can never be cured of. All these about God and the Devil are metaphors, mind you. Their essences escape us, God’s totally, Devil’s mostly. Our only way for knowing them is their respective influences on our natures and then inescapably our conduct.
PERFECT AND IMPERFECT RELIGION
A religion becomes perfect when it satisfies all the following points, viz.
1.
Its sources have been historically preserved; that is to say its founder is a sufficiently well-known and well-documented person with all the qualities of a noble character, mature mind, pious soul and wise conduct to human (not Divine) perfection. Among famous prophets only Muhammad satisfies all these conditions as all objective and fair-minded historians will agree.
2.
The Revelation he claims to have received from God must be a comprehensive message with enough spiritual teaching, moral exhortation and practical and legal provisions. Again only the Qur’an and Muhammad satisfy this point.
3.
It must be a universal and not racist or elitist message and therefore must aim at equality and justice among all men. Only Islam and Christianity satisfy this point.
4.
It must be flexible before changed circumstances and emergencies without budging from its cardinal principles. Only Islam in its true form satisfies this point. It therefore did not and will not need a reformation. As for modernisation, it does modernise automatically like a continuously self-updating computer. For example it freely approves of both blood transfusion and organ transplant without straining, birth control and space exploration. In other words it is always brand-new without becoming vulgar or trendy.
5.
Its potency should be such that whatever happens to other religions it still stands as influential and valid as ever. Again, only Islam has demonstrated this power.
6.
It must be able to discredit its any fanatics only too spectacularly and that based on its scriptural and traditional format. For example, many fanatical and savage groups rose from among Muslims posing as Islam’s true representatives but after a certain period of self-discrediting mischief and brutality they sank into the rubbish bag of Islam’s history: in other words Islam’s immune system is eventually cancer-resistant if the metaphor is excused.
7.
It must withstand all the challenges of science because its source, when interpreted in fresh light, foresees and provides for scientific developments. Islam is unique in this respect.
Because we covered all these points in our other courses and many others, we will not be dwelling on them further. That is for economy reasons. All these are signs of its uncorrupted Divine origin as its being still the fastest growing religion with highest percentage of practitioners of its commandments both among the general public and most educated elites. This again is unique to Islam. Almost all Muslims fast during Ramadan and pay zakat (fixed yearly transfer of a portion of the wealth of the richer Muslims to the poorer) and increasing millions from all over the globe go on the pilgrimage in the holiest land of Islam with undiminished zeal. In other words while all other religions are crumbling and becoming depopulated Islam is going from strength to strength with the full participation of its most educated and worldly-wise classes.