Mi'raj In The Qur'an

 

 

THE MAIN REFERENCES TO MI’RAJ IN THE BOOK OF ALLAH


We must first remind ourselves that no statement can match either in accuracy or authority the statements made by Allah in His Book. This is especially true and important in the matters of belief so I therefore caution both myself and my dear readers to avoid falling foul with Allah’s Book simply because they happen to have taken a fancy to some reports and commentaries sourced in Hadith literature or Sufi lore. Neither of these sources have any authority superior to Allah’s Book, which Itself is the longest and most ‘mutawatir’ and undoubted hadith reported from the Messenger of Allah. Both the Word and Meaning of the Qur’an al Karim are from Allah Direct and as a Source of our faith and Law it outweighs and outshines all the rest. As a hadith, it is larger than the al Bukhari collection and more reliable; in fact its reliability, unlike Bukhari’s  is absolute and infallible.
To elaborate a bit more on this matter we may resort direct to the Book of Allah. In there, He All-Knowing All-Wise explains to us what is the chief criterion is for the reliability of a report coming to us in the name of Islam. Let us read:
“...We have sent you (o Muhammad S) as a messenger to mankind and Allah is enough Witness to that. Will they then not think over the Qur’an? Had it been from other than Allah they could surely find many contradictions in it” (S. Al Nisa 81- 82).
This means that what separates words of men from the Words of Allah is that only the latter is free from contradictions.
In the light of this above absolute criterion we can instantly see, that because both Hadith as it stands and Jurisprudential rulings (fatawa al fiqhiyya), simply put, contain contradictions, so therefore cannot be seen as reliable as the Book of Allah.  In that light if Allah’s Book is explicit on a matter, all the other sources must stand salute to it and stand corrected. I think that could not be fairer if we fear Allah.


And, in fact all our great ulema admitted this and never argued that the hadiths they collected or rulings/fatawa they issued necessarily represented the truth or the  justice. It has been only the more ignorant or unsoundly motivated souls who insisted on regarding human reports and opinions equal to and even replacing  Allah’s and counting them as even better than His.
Now back to our main subject. About the Mi’raj we read the following in the Book of Allah.
“Glory be to Him Who transported His servant by night from the  Sacred Mosque to the Farther Mosque the environs of which We blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs...” (Surat 17 Al Isra: 1).
His Ascent was his way to be shown the said Signs.  What was Allah the Most High about to show His dear messenger (S)? Let us again listen to the Almighty in the very same Surah, but this time in v.60:


“Remember (o Prophet S) when We had said to you ‘Your Lord has surrounded all mankind’. (Furthermore) We have not made the (fact of the) Vision/Dream We made you to see and the tree cursed in the Qur’an but as a test for people. We so frighten them but it only makes their rebellion worse”.
Very true; when the Prophet S informed his adversaries about his night travel and vision in the heavens they became even more rebellious instead of being struck with the fear of Allah. Obviously ‘Isra’/Night Travel as well as the Mi’raj/Ascension to the Heavens were no ordinary travels in space and time but they were miraculous penetrations of Divine Secrets which no mere physical space travel, however fast, could ever match in nature, power and the results!


We may incidentally opine on the ‘accursed tree’ mentioned in the Qur’an. The usual rendering of this is that it means the Zaqqum tree in Hell (S. Dukhan: 43). But I would rather prefer the Tree in the Garden the trial ground of our parents Adam and Eve, where after failing the test were both thrown all the way down to this far inferior earth which was to be their habitat. The idolaters always ridiculed such stories in the Qur’an and dismissed them as the ‘tales of the ancients’. It was this which haunted them and not the ‘Zaqqum’ which laid in the future at best and which future they were denying all along anyhow. And was not the Forbidden Tree a test from Allah for us people as represented by our ultimate parents? Since the Prophet was shown the Garden in his mi’raj he should have seen the said Tree as well. After all, he was also shown Hell too.
More detail in the form of another sight is given in verses 13- 18 of Surat al-Najm:
“He saw (Gabriel) once more near Sidrat al Muntaha near where is the Garden of Refuge. When what was covering al Sidrah was covering, the eye did neither distort nor did it exceed its limit; he (the Prophet S) indeed saw the Greatest of the Signs of His Lord”.


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On the Authority of no less than Allah the All-Knowing and All-Truthful, the ultimate experience of the ascended Prophet (S) was seeing the Greatest Sign of Allah’s Existence and Power, which incidentally surpasses the likes of Moses (S) seeing his staff being converted into a running snake or his hand shining like a incandescent torch. Nowhere in the Book of Allah is even implied that the Prophet (S) saw Allah. How could Allah fail to mention such a presumably crowning experience and still present His Book al Qur’an al Karim the Last and Most Comprehensive Word ever coming from Him Almighty? Did He not say, by putting it on the tongue of Prophet Shua’ib (S) “Indeed my Lord neither loses way nor does He ever forget” (Surat Ta Ha: 52). How could He forget to mention the Vision par excellence, I mean a person-to-person’ face-to-face meeting, if there was one? Yet there is a VISION, far more realistic and saving than a physical-like vision, which primitive-minded people cannot do without. It is a Vision whereby Allah is witnessed with so much power and joy in the heart and with such conviction and INSIGHT into the nature of existence and purpose that only the matured and accomplished enough can perceive and appreciate. If the Prophet (S) indeed promised us that we would see our Lord as we could see the full moon in a clear night without obstructing each other’s view it can only be a metaphor in line with all the metaphors (mutashabihat) in the Book of Allah as He Almighty explained:
“It is He Who sent down on you (o Muhammad S) the Book. In it are judgmental (literally meant and/or jurisprudential) verses while the rest are metaphorical. Those with a disease in their hearts pursue what is metaphorical, seeking their ultimate interpretation in order to foment fitna thereby. Say ‘Only Allah knows their ultimate interpretation...”
Repeat, only Allah, not even the Prophets! Similarly wise, the Prophet also used metaphorical statements to instil in his believers marvellous states of mind conducive to their spiritual enlightenment and moral motivation. How wise of Allah and how wise of His Rasul (S)!  Even if a hadith about seeing Allah is genuine and as it is about a spiritual subject instead of a jurisprudential, the possibility of its metaphorical intention should be considered since many verses of the Qur’an on spiritual matters are meant metaphorically. In fact, aware of this dilemma, many ulema tried to resolve the issue by saying like this: Yes, the Prophet saw his Lord and the believers shall see Him in the hereafter, but this sight is without form, direction or dimension, that is to say, not material but spiritual. This is reasonable and acceptable, what is more it is possible even in this world although at a much reduced intensity. Because spiritual seeing is a supreme form of understanding by tasting. It is like a man who never knew what honey is. To let him know, his teacher asks him- does he want to see honey or taste honey, he cannot have it both ways. Now tell me which gives a better idea of what honey is, seeing it in a jar or bowl, or with eyes shut eating it?  Since Allah the Most High says “Visions (absar) cannot reach to perceive Him but it is He who reaches and perceives the visions” (6: 103) and replies to the request of Moses (S) “Lord, appear to me that I look on to You” by saying “You will never see Me but instead look at the mountain- if it can withstand its ground (when I expose some of My light to it) then you can hope to see Me”. The Book of Allah continues “When his Lord shone on to the mountain He sent it pulverized, whereupon Moses fainted and fell. When he recovered himself he said “I am repenting to You (of my daring insolence), I am the first of believers (and not any more an ignorant demander of improper things)” (7: 143).


Or even perhaps a more telling example. All small children at one point in their lives hear about sexual matters and wonder what it is all about experientially. True, as they grow older they get some more inklings about it and in more open societies may witness something of it. Does it mean that they ‘saw’ it and learned about it? Actually they ‘see’ what it is when they have their first orgasm despite physically seeing nothing in the way of witnessing or taking part in a sexual encounter. Spiritual realizations are like that- they are fully known or appreciated (for in spiritual gnosis knowing and appreciating mean the same thing, one cannot be without the other).


Positive or negative, all spiritual realizations are forms of tasting the realities personally without the medium of sense organs but only one: the heart in the sense of its being the seat of full understanding by awareness with full appreciation. So a prophet or just a believer can SEE Allah while on this earth if and when he is seized by an overwhelming and totally convincing realization that Allah has just ‘touched’ him, if you know what I mean! That is when the true Sufis faint and realise Whom they are facing! Moses saw his Lord when He the Lord demonstrated His Majesty by pulverizing the mountain by a single gaze of majesty! That is certainly far superior to seeing an  object covered in dazzling forms and embellishments just like a gold and gems-clad Buddha statue which then calls itself god. That is not god but fool’s gold. Mind you, fool’s gold is a bright yellow mineral even more shiny than real gold nuggets but unlike them it is an easily breakable form of cheap natural iron sulphide in front of which ignorant gold hunters faint with the realization (sic) that they found gold at last! We similarly know that the likes of Buddha and Christ worshippers see their respective gods in dazzling visions which convince them that they have seen God, but did they? Incidentally we find a so-called hadith in a collection called Ramuz al Ahadith:


“I saw my Lord in my sleep. He was in a greenery and in the form of a long-haired youth. On his feet were golden shoes and on his face was a gold mask” (hadith Under letter Z, no. 14). Make of it what you want! It looks exactly like the dreams of the Greeks of classical Greece when Greeks visiting the shrines of their gods like Apollo or Hermes and after some devotions and going to sleep, see the said god in gold attire and the like. It must not be for nothing that our master imam Bukhari could not dare to admit less than fifteen hundred hadiths in his top class collection out of more than a hundred thousand he had come across in his long travels and labours! Those who came after him could not enter more into theirs.
Islam cannot go down this same pagan path but deserves to retain its power thanks to its impenetrable, mind-boggling mystique and majesty! Yes, we Muslim believers may ‘see’ Allah but that sight is entirely on Islamic terms which means nothing less than our Vision being  nothing less than transcendental. Allah deserves that glory, that majesty, that mystique! He cannot be reduced to a dandy boy with a girlish predilection for gold shoes and masks and flocks of hair.

 


THIS UNDERSTANDING ENABLES EACH AND EVERY SINCERE AND HARD-WORKING MUSLIM BELIEVER TO HAVE HIS OR HER OWN MI’RAJ EVEN RIGHT HERE!


When you move away from all such degrading impurities and turn your face towards the amply and adequately and majestically described god, the real God Allah the Most High and Sublime all such inferior and degrading so-called experiences of a god disappear from your field of vision which then, like a mighty  astronomical radio-telescope can begin to comb and explore those mighty infinite heavens of creation which alone do justice to the glory and majesty of the God of Islam, Allah the Most High and Sublime. You find no boys up there; nor cheap material visions as insignificant as our moon can satisfy your visual appetite but you thirst after the ULTIMATE SECRET behind all those infinite glories lighting up the firmament as Allah indicates:


“Allah is the LIGHT of the heavens and the earth. A metaphor for His Light is a niche in which is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass shield- and the glass is like a brilliantly shining star- and lit from an olive tree neither of the East nor of the West. Its oil almost gives light without fire touching it. Light upon light it is. Allah guides to His Light whom He will. Thus Allah strikes metaphors for mankind. Allah knows of everything. This Light is in homes in which Allah allowed their rise and in which His Name will be celebrated morning and evening by men whom neither commerce nor purchase can divert from celebrating Allah, from prayer and paying zakat. They fear a Day when hearts and eyes shall swirl. That is because Allah will reward them on the basis of the very best they did and shall add bonuses from His Generosity. Allah rewards whom He will without limit (Surat Al Nur: 35- 38).             
Among the bonuses the top should be the Beatific Vision- the indescribable and as yet unimaginable existential experience of Allah, free from all the shackles and delusions of discrete and diverse sense organs we are stuck with in this much simpler and germinal world.
Incidentally we can register what I humbly think is the core implication of the above Self-description of Allah the Most High: He is the Light of the entire universe and not the universe itself. As we know in itself light is both formless and invisible; it only makes concrete objects visible when it strikes them and changes direction to strike our eyes, this time broken into its various colours and variously angled rays. Another meaning of Allah being the Light of the heavens and earth could mean that He is their Guide- He apportions to them functions and imparts to them the gnosis of their roles and relations. Men dedicating themselves to Allah’s service for and foremost despite their unavoidable daily survival chores, so much pleases Allah for putting Allah (that is to say the only light source for spiritual enlightenment) first that Allah cannot wait and cannot make  less than rewarding them at His most generous!
A worthy hadith may conclude this matter: ”Ihsan (supreme dedication to Allah)  is when you worship Allah as if you are seeing Him. If you are not seeing Him, at least He is seeing you!”.
Alhamdulillah to the extent that we are faithful believers and we are seeing Him here and now in an ineffable sense and shall be seeing Him if He so pleases in  the Hereafter as befits His Majesty and Grace, as only extra-sensory faculties He kindly granted us can enable us to- which are as yet unimaginable. Amen. 

 

 

21. RECOGNISING AND EXPELLING THE SATAN

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Says the Omniscient (All-Knowing), All-Wise Allah: “Indeed the Satan is an enemy of yours, therefore recognise him as an enemy” ().

What or who is the Satan? Well, we are not here to waste the time of our readers by quoting and reiterating a hundred mythical metaphors so as to leave them none the wiser. Assuming that our readers want to be Sufis, that is to say servants of Allah with clear vision into spiritual secrets with the most practical intention of reforming and advancing themselves to more Godliness (taqwa) and love of Allah and hence to highest possible morality and most graceful possible personal and social manners (which are the aims of our Institute) we will insha Allah and with the Help of Allah attempt to go to the core of this most important matter.

By catching the enemy unawares and, if you will gracefully forgive the metaphor ‘pants down using our hearts as his toilets’ we will be able to chase him off at no time and hopefully never to come back. Without evicting this rat of all evils and sicknesses in our soul and character we cannot walk the path of true and full humanity anywhere as near as it could save and bless us. 

 

NATURE OF MAN

 

I think we must begin with the nature of man before we can properly discuss the nature of the Satan and his relation to man.

Various verses of the Qur’an draw and paint a picture of man as follows.
Man is made by Allah from the materials of the earth which, chemically speaking contain minerals, water and air in various proportions. Please do not get stuck in the metaphorical images like Allah kneading wet clay and forming it into a shape of a man and then blowing air into the nostrils of this shape it becomes a man with all his bodily and mental functions beginning to click like clockwork. Since Allah Himself informs us and admits that all His verses which deal with spiritual and fundamental creational matters are only metaphors (See Sura 3, verse 7) we may take this fact as a legitimate licence to interpret this creation of man in terms of men's daily creation in the form of babies which creation progresses exactly as Allah describes it many times in His Qur'an, the most revealing version being as follows:

“That Who made handsomely each and everything He created began the creation of man from clay. He then made his offspring from a development of a lowly liquid (the germ fluid). Then He shaped him and blew into him of His Spirit and provided for you hearing and vision and hearts (consciousness, reason and feelings). How little you are thanking! (Sura al Sajda, vv. 7- 9). Even more revealing in terms of identifying Adam with you and me and all human beings is the verse:

“Indeed We did create you and fashioned you (all) and then said to the angels ‘Prostrate to Adam’. All but Iblis prostrated, he was not among whom prostrated. Said Allah “What kept you from prostrating to Adam when I commanded you? He replied “I am better than him, for You created me from fire while you created him from clay” (7: 11).    

Clearly in these verses the creation of Adam as related many times elsewhere and that of other human beings including us are mixed into a very skilful, smooth and slick account which should betray the secret for those who has the eyes to see and the commonsense to understand that Adam stands as a generic for each and everyone for us and each this everyone of us was blown into of Allah’s Spirit in his or her turn!

We also know that Adam was chosen and specially made to act as Allah’s deputy on earth (Sura 2, v. 30) but we should also know that we are actually him and therefore the deputies of Allah on earth. Read if you wish:

“It is He Who made you deputies on earth...” (Sura Fatir, v. 39) or “It is He Who made you deputies of the earth” (Sura An’am, v. 165).

 


 

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