Fear Of The Beloved
8. FEAR OF THE BELOVED CREATES MORE LOVE
Said the Messenger of Allah “The fountainhead of wisdom is the fear of Allah”. The Messenger of Allah spoke the truth.
There are two kinds of fear though. One is based on hate and suspicion, the other on love and appreciative faith.
“Man hates what he does not know (or understand)” they say. This hate is that of suspicion. Why some of us sometimes hate a total stranger? It is because the stranger is a total mystery; he can mean anything or can pose any danger. So we are naturally suspicious and prefer to be on our guard. Some people fear and therefore hate new machines or gadgets because for them they are total unknowns. Do they pose some risks; if so what? Why not to stick to the thing one knows and not take risks with those new things which look so mysterious? In fact all psychologists agree that fear and hate are the two faces of the same coin and they call this ‘coin’ a ‘phobia’. They call the fear and hate of foreigners ‘xenophobia’, for example. Not everybody is equally phobic against every unknown quantity though. The more intelligent, knowledgeable and psychologically mature a person the less phobias he or she will have. A nomad from a very backward country will fear to ride a train while a reasonable man from an advanced country may not even fear to take part in a space travel let alone fear a journey on an airplane. A mature explorer of a wild and savage land is often fearless and what is more he can control his any fear in the face of a discovery which presents to him a very ferocious animal or a rickety bridge crossing an angry river. It is such mature people with minimal fears that pioneer and achieve many great things.
As for the fear based on love and appreciative faith- did we not all fear our parents and teachers once upon a time? We loved our parents, we often loved most of our teachers but we still feared them. Why? Because in their capacity of educating us about life they sometimes had to be critical of us and even at times inflict pain on us, whether physical or psychological. What is more we experienced from them another kind of fear which was caused by their withholding from us their favours which we enjoyed. For example, if one day I found my father not looking at and talking to me as before, not hugging and kissing me etc. I become alarmed. I try to attract his attention and re-ignite his affection for me by resorting to various tricks and antics but no use. He will simply sulk, frown and not look at or talk to me. This makes me extremely unhappy and downcast. Not until I discover or am told why he is behaving to me the way he is behaving and I offer my regrets and apologies and they are accepted (which sometimes take a painful long time) I simply live in fear and anxiety. Eventually he decides that he punished me enough and made me repentant enough and we hug and kiss once more and suddenly we are both happier than before! Eventually I come to learn that my parents, teachers, friends etc. occasional dissatisfaction and disaffection with me are not meant to destroy me but to build me up as a better person through psychologically conditioning educational methods. The very same applies to our relations with God.
We find in the Qur’an a God in an almost fully parental role. If our parents are our progenitors God is our Creator. If our parents fed and clothed us and also delivered us entertainments more so did and are doing God. If our parents occasionally imposed on or exposed us to certain unpleasant experiences like a rebuke, a slap or a suspension of favours so does God seem to do on occasion. Anthropologists tell us that primitive peoples used to worship their dead ancestors and pray to their souls. The sons had a duty of tending their father’s grave daily. This makes sense in the light of above observations. They eventually advanced to worshipping less tangible gods and eventually the One True God as they advanced in observation, thought and understanding being thereby readied to receive a messenger from God. In the hands of Divinely sent messenger-prophets many ended up as Unitarians. Many others ignored and opposed the prophets. In the case of not having received a prophet, ignorance remained which Allah could and most probably excused. Read if you wish:
“If an idolater asks for your protection grant him the security until he listens to and hears the Word of Allah and then (even if he declined belief) transmit him to a place of safety for him. This (tolerance) is because they are a people who lack knowledge” (9: 6)
That is to say, a single preaching, a single warning is not enough justification to punish an idolater there and then. It may take very long to win people to Allah and gracious patience is the best way forward.
Allah’s prophets are not only those mentioned in the Bible or the Qur’an. Instead only He knows how many and who they were. Read if you wish:
“We indeed sent messengers before you (o Muhammad). From among them some We have told them their stories and some others We have told you nothing about” (40: 78), and
“We have already told you about some messengers before while We have never told you about some others” (4: 164).
What is certain is that Allah never left a single community without sending them at some point in time a messenger to warn them. Read if you wish:
“There has been no nation but a warner has passed through them” (35: 24)
But once we are introduced to Allah and made to love and fear Him our path is like this: like we used to relate to our dear parents we relate to Allah with both loving and fearing Him for the same reasons. He created us, He made us aware of such an infinite range of objects with wonderful properties, other people like us to whom we could relate in a thousand ways and capacities in a thousand situations and contexts, offered us both guidance and succour, hope and satisfaction, forgiveness and rewards. We simply grow from parental into Divine companionship and relationship without losing the parental and other human relationships. In fact all relationships are departments or facets of our relationship with Allah. Read if you wish:
“Whoever obeys the Messenger he has in fact obeyed Allah” (4: 80)
The same with obeying our parents: Allah commanded us to obey our parents in all things except the commission of a sin. He commanded us also to obey those in the position of authority among us, as part of obeying Him:
“O believers, obey Allah, obey the Messenger and those in position of authority among you” (4: 59)
You see, all relationships eventually and ultimately enter our record of our relationship with Allah, all are one and this understanding is part of the ‘tawhid’ (unification of God) culture of Sufism. Fear and love also are parts of this relationship and in the case of Allah the two emotions could not go together more. All knowledge and power is ultimately and fully Allah’s as are all methods of educating and improving us His servants in order to render us fit for His service in this world and for His favours in the next. His fear will and should never leave us so long as we live and guess what: we gradually discover that the more we fear Him the more we love Him and the more we love Him we more fear Him. Amen.
9. TRUE LOVER GIVES WHILE BOTH GIVING AND TAKING
It is said that both Hands of Allah are right hands, i.e., one of them is not a left hand.
In all major cultures ‘right’ stands for good and proper and left for bad and improper. Ninety percent of all people are right-handed which means they can do more things better by using their right hands. Those who are left-handed from birth are not less good people however; their stronger and abler hand is the left one. The laudatory sayings about the right hand are simply a convention reflecting the majority occurrence of the better abilities of the right side.
Our Law (Sharia) accordingly stipulates that we eat and do other acts which does not involve any filth with our right hands while when some filth is involved, like washing some lower parts of the body or handling a dirty object, we must use our left hands. The least such a convention does for us is the prevention of using a dirty hand for a task where cleanliness is essential. Suppose you messed your left hand, there is no means of cleansing it for the moment and you face a task where a clean hand is necessary, like feeding a child. Your right hand being reserved for it will do it and the as yet irremovable filth on your left hand will do you and the baby no harm.
This being the traditional convention and perception the saying “Both hands of Allah are right hands” can mean only this: All His works are clean, proper, fitting and eventually saving no matter how they look like in the beginning and perhaps for a while after as well.
When Allah awards some good to somebody it is an explicit blessing. When Allah awards some painful thing to somebody it is not pure evil but another blessing in disguise, a blessing which needs an incubation time, short or long, to become some explicit good. A justified punishment is one example. Even an unjustified looking example of somebody punishing somebody else may be a saving act looked from the viewpoint of the Divine. Yes, the apparent punisher with an apparent unjust punishment is really guilty of a wrong and must and will be punished by Allah but he will also have a second and more painful punishment when one day Allah makes him aware that he was wrong, he had acted cruelly when he was punishing the other person and it was thanks to Allah that the punished person was eventually placated and compensated. Wrongs are all ours- as far as Allah is concerned there are no wrongs but all are rights when viewed in an ultimate sense. This is another way of saying that Allah’s both hands are right hands.
And what do we want- so is the both hands of a good parent. For example, to give a good lesson to his or her child who will not learn otherwise the parent may allow a bad somebody to inflict some pain on his or her child. For example, the parent may say “Do not go to the fields with that naughty boy”. The child will not listen and must be physically prevented from going out with the bad boy. The child resents the suppression and becomes unmanageable. Then the parent lets the child to go out with the bad boy. He takes him to some fields full of stinging nettles as well as biting insects of which the bad boy knows about but for naughtiness’ sake will not inform the other child. The latter comes home with a dozen bites and stings gained from the naughty expedition. He now knows, he has learned his lesson. He won’t go again. He won’t also let others go out with the bad boy. This is an imaginary story of course but even worse may happen in actual life. If a parent dares to abandon his or her child to go out with people whom he or she knows to be dangerous sooner or later the child will suffer some bad experience and even meet some serious disaster. What if you find your child to have started on drugs for example and began committing thefts for buying drugs? What if the child one day is found dead on a pavement and the cause of death is found to be an overdose?
In view of all above we can say that both the pleasant and unpleasant treatment of a good and wise parent of a child are acts of mercy and blessing and therefore acts done by the right hand, to put it metaphorically.
The parent-child metaphor is applicable across the board in all human interactions where one party is wiser and stronger than the other. The wiser and stronger friend wants goodness for and will do nothing to harm the weaker and less wise friend. That does not however mean that what the wiser and stronger friend takes from the less wise and weaker friend has not the same saving and blessing value as giving him something; both kinds of action the wiser and stronger friend takes in the treatment of the less wise and weaker friend are right actions, right-handed actions, clean and good actions. Allah being the Greatest Friend among our friends has this to say:
“It may be that you like a certain thing but it is bad for you and you dislike a certain thing but it is good for you. Allah knows, you do not know” (2: 216)
He will then certainly give us what is good for us no matter how we dislike it and at another time will not give us something however we like it and beg for it because it is bad for us. This liked by but denied thing to us may be a take-back. Allah can take back from us our wealth, our health, our power or other things we hold very precious and in all these takings back He is giving us something better, not the least a desire for repentance and all the great goods that follow a sincere repentance. Yet we are not allowed to pray for events which will give us pain- both Allah and His Messenger banned us from asking for pain or trials and tribulations. Such things help only when they hit us out of the blue and totally unsolicited. That is why again monkery (monastic practices) is banned in Islam. A monk deliberately inflicts pain and deprivations on himself with a view to charm God and get greater things from God in terms of spiritual gifts. Allah is quite reluctant to be part of such a bargain imposed on Him by his too ambitious and almost mad servant. Monasticism is like self-medication; it may do some good but may also do such amount of evil which will far outweigh the good. The best way forward in spiritual quest is letting our true physician, our Creator to prescribe for us through His messengers.
Our master Muhammad may Allah’s blessings and peace be on him insisted that we follow his practices however lenient and small they may look to a too ambitious spiritualist; easy and difficult practices are not necessarily respectfully less and more profitable practices. In the olden times eye surgeons removed cataracts by using a knife at great risk and pain to the patient while modern surgeons are employing lasers to cure the same eye painlessly, bloodlessly and fast! Islam is like modern medicine; all the cumbersome and at times very painful practices of the old religions are thrown overboard and laser-like sharp, easy, painless and very curative practices are installed. Our most difficult practice is fasting. And guess what? It is basically missing the midday meal and a lack of drinks during the light hours. And this fasting which takes from us our pleasure of eating and drinking for several hours is in fact a giving. Through fasting Allah gives to us renewed health, the habit of resisting desire and passion, the habit of patience and eventually His Gardens of Bliss.
In the light of all above then please understand o dear reader that at least in the case of God all that He metes out to us His believers is for our good and good alone although at the time of giving (or taking back) some may look awful. Then respond to your Lord by offering to Him all your heart and action in your palms with both your hands acting as right hands, that is to say, not half of you resenting the offer the other half of you is offering. Feel and act as a whole, respond to your Lord with both sides of your being left and right but both acting rightly in the name of what is right and proper as regards your relationship with Allah. Amen.
10. THE TOP SECRET OF ISLAM
We most Muslims do all things we think are Islamic except one. That only too much and too often Islamic thing is being as near a spiritual copy of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as possible. Becoming a physical copy of him is impossible of course although emulating his various habits, peculiarities and mannerisms out of admiring love for him has its many saving and blessing merits. You see, sincere love always pays and the Prophet can only appreciate a Muslim who loves and admires him so much that he emulates him in every outward way he can in the hope that the Prophet’s spirituality also may one day rub on him. All too admiring loves, especially on the part of young persons often drive these young persons to emulate their idol (because the admired person becomes an idol which means an ideal person in a psychological if not in an etymological sense); We still have worshipping imitators of late music star Elvis Presley advertise and market their skills with varying success and to varying profit.
But this much idolisation and this kind of emulation of the Prophet is not very common among Muslims; more common is partial emulations like growing a beard or wielding a tooth brush made from a twig of a certain Arabian tree and called mithwaq. Whatever the degree and range of emulations, provided they are done in sincerity, are meritorious. That is because Allah judges all our acts on the basis of the intentions behind them. If one intends to emulate Allah’s Messenger in anything he is allowed to emulate him and that with the intention of pleasing Allah he should be rewarded for it. Please note the proviso of ‘he is allowed to emulate him’, because there are certain things which are entirely the right and privilege of the Messenger of Allah. The first among these is saying that he is a Prophet of Allah and His Messenger and the second is delivering Revelations from Allah. Nobody after him can say or claim such rights and privileges. Unfortunately quite a few tried and some partially succeeded to persuade some people. Late in his life the Messenger of Allah had to contend with three rivals who claimed the same things as he did, like receiving Divine revelations inclusive of laws. They were fought against and defeated only after his death. In later centuries a few more claimed to be Islamic prophets of Allah and two or three of them have their followers of a few millions to this day. These false prophets have indeed destroyed their souls by their blasphemous daring. Allah said:
“Who is a greater wrongdoer than one who invents a lie against Allah and says ‘Revelations are being given to me’ while in fact nothing is being revealed to him?” (6: 93).
There are few other things which are also peculiar to the Prophet. Being simultaneously married to more than four women is one of these. Not accepting zakat or sadaqa is another. Even when facing starvation the Prophet could only accept gifts. Lastly no mufti can overrule a fatwa of the Prophet or change any rules he declared to be parts of Islamic law and meant for all time to come.
Now I have some very good news: apart from these one-off rights and privileges and irrespective of how much you can physically emulate the Messenger of Allah (which need not to amount to aping since no companion of the Prophet aped him but simply emulated his religiously significant habits and routines)- yes, apart from the above, all believers can emulate the Messenger of Allah in his spiritual qualities as seen from his character and moral conduct and attain all that is attainable by any true believer thanks to the Grace of Allah.
What remains to be seen is what was the Prophet’s character like and how did he conduct himself in moral matters. Of course these are best learned by an in-depth and exhaustive personal study of both the Book of Allah and the realer part of the Hadith but as we had said before not everybody is made for such study and such learning. In fact vast and deep scholars are rare among even greater scholars. For the benefit of my those readers who feel they have got neither the ability nor the time to make such a big personal quest I am humbly summarising the fruits of my humble best efforts to describe to them the Prophet’s character and then an outline of his moral conduct.
HIS CHARACTER. The main plank of the character of the Messenger of Allah was faith. No matter who said what and found what supposed fault with the Qur’an nobody could shake his faith as served by the Word of Allah. For one thing his idolater enemies criticised the Qur’an for being a piecemeal plagiarisation of Christian and Jewish lore taught to him by secret tutors. Allah testifies to this:
“The unbelievers said ‘This (Qur’an) can only be a lie he (Muhammad) invented with which others helped him”. With this they resorted to inequity and falsehood. They again said ‘Fables of the ancients he asked to be written down (for him) which then are being read out to him morning and evening’” (25: 4- 5)
What they were forgetting was that the Qur’an heavily criticised and corrected both the Christian and Jewish lores and provided a far nobler as well as more realistic picture of both God and men of God named and described in the Bible. No Christian or Jew could teach these devastating criticisms and corrections. It would amount to blasphemy on their part.
In short, the Prophet’s faith was unshakeable and lasted to until his last breath when his last words were “To the Highest Companion”. He died a painful yet very happy death. He regarded his death as Allah’s last and by far the greatest ever favour to him while on earth. All friends of Allah are like this: They do not so much ask for death but anticipate it like a person anticipating his or her day of wedding to his or her incomparable and irreplaceable beloved. No less a Sufi than Sheikh Rumi explained his approaching death to his disciples in the following words “Shab-e Arus”, i.e., wedding night. Mind you, Rumi was a product of the spirituality of the Messenger of Allah about whom he said “I would like to be a speck of dust on the foot of Muhammad”- may Allah’s blessings and peace be on him!
What is more precious than one’s life as far as our worldly perspective is concerned? It is equally precious for the friends of Allah; for example they will never risk their lives wantonly or ask for death or commit suicide under any circumstances- Allah bans all these- but when death looks them in the face with no ifs and buts they are more than ready, in fact they are at their happiest in their hearts although their bodies may go through some movements of death process.
This strong faith was the foundation of both the character and moral conduct of the Prophet.
We must then attend to our faith first and foremost before working at anything else.
In fact all the rest of the Prophet’s character and moral conduct flows from this strongest and most correct of all faiths- the faith that God is One and Perfect and the epitome of His perfection is His ‘Rahmat’ which means loving mercy. Therefore if our faith is to be correct we also must be filled with rahmat as our master Muhammad was. Read if you wish:
“We have not sent you but as a body of loving mercy to all creation out of Our Own Loving Mercy (21:107)
Why not us also try to be embodiments of Allah’s Loving Mercy towards all creatures?
In fact this is the summit and sum-total of the character of the Messenger of Allah and therefore the real and only source of his moral conduct. Yes, he fought against the enemies of his faith and at times had to kill them even but all was done in the Name of Allah with a view to maximise the numbers of persons who would be embodiments of loving mercy of Allah while controlling the numbers and mischief of the embodiments of the egotism, pride, greed and treachery of the Satan the Archenemy of Allah. He did his job well. We also must do our job well for which conquering and putting down the devil in us will be enough since we have no power or authority to conquer others except possibly through education- and that after conquering ourselves if we ever can.
Now let us consider: Is Islam mere praying, fasting, alms-giving, pilgrimage etc? These are only the pillars and not the body of Islam. The body is the spirituality of the Messenger of Allah simply because our real bodies are our spiritual and not material bodies. Had our material bodies been our real bodies Allah would not make them so changeable and eventually mortal. What comes first and before and survives the material body is the spirit body which cannot be described in any materialistic terms. Like God, it is always hidden, unknowable yet both fundamental and ultimately effective. Its only respondents are other spirits and its final audience is with God.
The top secret of Islam is then this: It is trying one’s spiritual best to emulate Allah in a spiritual sense through emulating His Messenger and become such a person that when reasonably perceptive people see such a person they automatically remember Allah with awe and love and if they know about Muhammad they feel that in some strange way they are in the presence of Muhammad (or in the case of a Christian, for example, Jesus Christ); so kind and wise the person looks and so kindly and wisely the person acts. Amen.