Good Action With Informed Passion

 

 

5.  GOOD ACTION WITH INFORMED PASSION

 

Islam is all about right guidance and righteous action.  The first, namely right guidance is called faith/iman while the second, namely righteous action is called good work/amal salih. Only the two together can save man.  Without the two together life is failure and frustration which Allah calls ‘khusran’.  Incidentally, no other holy scripture other than the Qur’an can summarise this situation more succinctly and directly, hitting the nail 100% on the head:

“By the evidence of all centuries, indeed man is bound to be frustrated and in loss (in khusran) except those who believe and do good works and in the course of it advise each other to follow truth and justice and advise each other to be patient (in this pursuit of truth and justice) (Surat 103, al ‘Asr)

May I draw the attention of my dear readers to the fact that all four elements of success with Allah, namely belief, good works, enjoining what is true and just and insisting that one must be patient with everybody and everything along this course… all these elements follow from each other and are fed and made healthy only with- guess what- TRUE KNOWLEDGE!

Suppose two well-meaning men hear that there is a good job to be done at some distant place where the pay is simply fabulous. Can they just begin to walk together without making some enquiries about firstly the truth of this promise, then the correct location of the place and the correct path to this location? Suppose that they did this and know for sure that if they begin to move towards this precious destination they will one day reach it. For simplicity’s sake let us assume that no lies are involved, nor are there any mortal dangers on the way although tough conditions are plentiful.

The two men then set out to claim their fabulous fortunes. Since they have the basic right information as both to the destination and the path can we say that no other problem will beset them? To begin with a sudden, unfounded doubt may assail them and fearing to make fools of themselves they may abandon the enterprise altogether and stay put. Accordingly they settle with their existing poverty and despair. As Allah said, because they failed the belief test they are frustrated and have lost their chances for happiness (khusran).

Now suppose that they did retain their belief and started out on their journey. Now they must do good works- I mean all the right acts- while on the way at all times. For example, they must find sources of sound food and obtain it, they must be careful with water, they must not offend others they come across so that fights do not erupt, they must help any fellow journeyers so that they will be helped by them when they are in need of help etc. This is the doing good works part. But still more things are necessary. The above Surat says that.

On the way they must make sure that they maintain their mutual honesty and charity. Each in his turn must tell the other what wrong the other is doing and what thing is better to do instead. Each must also report to the other any helpful facts he learned. For example, if one of them preferred to walk barefoot for a while because on a certain stretch of the path soft green grass was the type of the ground but occasionally some worms or insects attacked his feet this man should say to the other “do not take your shoes off like me, there are harmful creatures among the grass, I am putting mine back”.  This is giving good advice.

Lastly they must also support and encourage each other when things get tough and dangers threaten or actually engulf them. What I mean is not physical support because we already covered that above. What I mean is moral support, support to keep the morale of each other high by explaining the value of being patient and steadfast. Each should remind the other that there is an end to all troubles if one keeps to the right course of action and he need not demoralise himself with too pessimistic thoughts. This is what Allah expresses in His gracious clause “be patient…”

In fact we have an almost literal example of this imaginary scenario in today’s world. As you know, we have two worlds in one. One is the world of rich nations to which a few other nations are expected to join soon. Basically North America, Western Europe, Australia and in further north Japan make up this powerful club of rich nations. At the bottom we have almost the whole Africa, Latin America and great swathes of Asia which are suffering from extremely bad government and often dirt-poor poverty and often civil war as well. In the middle is a number of lately wising up nations like China, Malaysia and India who are ‘upwardly mobile’ for a few decades now. All these aim at, with more or less justified hopes, catching up with the rich nations. These hopeful and hard-working nations are not so much exporting immigrants into the rich world.  It is those dirt-poor and very badly troubled nations that are exporting illegal immigrants into North America and European Union for example. We can take this modern one-way mobility and study it in order to see the relevance of Allah’s Words we quoted at the beginning.

These people from the poorest and worst-governed countries are rightfully seeking a better future for themselves and their children. But their belief that infiltrating a rich country will solve their problems is at best only partially true. To begin with, given the big demand for illegal immigration into another country, mafias spring up all over the place. These extremely greedy and unscrupulous bandits deploy several traps to exploit the growing market. Let us enumerate a few.

One, they tell lies to the would-be emigrants, take their money, lock them up in lorries or board them on awfully inadequate sea vessels and virtually vomit them at a place which is just a nowhere. Among such places are wildernesses, desolate small islands or borders of another country which is not rich at all. The would-be immigrants being often too ignorant can only hope that they have been brought somewhere from where they can hope to enter a rich county but being unconscionably cheated they soon know better, which is too late. The bandits just slip away to fish for other victims. Two, the bandits many a time do mean to keep their promises but in order to ensure both low costs and high profits to themselves they pack their customers into very narrow transports like packing sardines in a tin. As a result some become very sick and may even die or the whole party is captured by border guards or the police and lose out only too badly. Those who can enter the desired country illegally can look to a very hard spell of several years of exploitation with the prospect of capture and deportation always shadowing them. All the way lies, deception, cruelty, fear, frustration and at times death threaten them. Obviously this is not a Divinely approved and assisted way of salvation but a Satanic one involving Satanic agents. 

Of course one can only sympathise with such wretched people and be angry with their Satanic exploiters; however the fact remains that man, both in the richer nations and the poorer is a frustrated failure. The prosperous and powerful nations are grossly guilty of not learning from their Creator how to conduct themselves which learning is embodied in Allah’s Book and particularly very well summarised in Surat al Asr above.  Had they listened to it they could see that they had to believe in their Gracious Creator and do their best to shadow His Grace, i.e, be gracious towards other less fortunate nations. To do it they would share their blessings with their poorer brethren instead of wasting it on hedonistic lifestyles which are often also very unhealthy. They need not confine their help towards their poorer brethren in the form of sporadic handouts but in the form of investing in those countries and creating jobs for and imparting skills to their citizens. If this means introducing more competition among nations and losing some jobs and luxuries at home so be it. Western nations are already over-employed (often at silly jobs like gambling assistants or manicure-pedicure saloons) and are reluctant to have children. Any young children they have are starved of parental love and care (because parents are busy with earning and wasting money) and are not therefore acquiring social skills or developing moral values.

As a result they are becoming desperate, depressed and dangerous delinquents. Drugs, weapons, violence, early and irresponsible, dangerous sex and vandalism culture as well as a tangible and persistent drop in educational standards are gripping them. Religion is losing ground fast and is being replaced by either a morally barren and hedonistic agnosticism or most silly and bizarre cults or trendy and often also dangerous dogmatic and militant ideologies like racism, sexual libertinism and anarchism and interestingly, some religious militant fanaticisms- all with recipes for some sort of terrorism. Especially sinister and not very rare are Satanic cults which specialise in sadistic and masochistic practices. These are especially notorious in the United States. 

All the while all legitimate or moral authority is resented and all kinds of irresponsibility is claimed to be liberty, inalienable human freedoms. As such, prognosis for the rich nations is not good; it may not take too long on historical time scale for the present bloc of richest nations both ruin themselves and be ruined by the actions of those who resent them, are jealous of them and often only too badly hate them. Are not a lot of anti-Western wars resentful and jealous hate wars? All history bears witness to the fact that no power on earth can last indefinitely but must decline, go to ruin and replaced by another great power made of what the formerly powerful see as barbarians.  Only those described in Surat al ‘Asr can survive and continue to prosper, at least in a special sense, the sense of being innocently and wisely happy.  But they may also last and be successful in a national sense because God will be with them.

We may then paraphrase this Surat as follows:

Only this group of Allah’s elects who persist in their faith in and obedience to Him. This in practical terms means it is best to stick with highest morality and most graceful manners at all times and exchange help and advice on the same pious policies with the similarly minded others as well as offering a general pious guidance to all they can reach provided the circumstances are right. Above all, Allah’s aspiring lovers must always set the best example themselves before they attempt to politely criticise or correct others. Such saints may not be able to correct even one person but they at least keep themselves in loving alliance with the Noblest and Greatest Friend available in the whole universe Whose Union they may hope and Whose Union is worth more than what is in the whole universe.  Their trade is good action and their good action is entirely fed by full and correct spiritual information which information can inspire that noblest passions of all- that of looking at everything with the eye of wise loving mercy which is that of Allah, as learned from Allah’s Book and His Messenger’s example. That is what I meant by ‘Good Action by Informed Passion’ which makes our heading. Amen.

 


6.  WA’L QUR’AN Al HAKIM/ BY THE WISE QUR’AN

 

Allah could not put and repeat more the word ‘Hikmat’/Wisdom and the name or the adjective of it (in Arabic they are often the one and the same thing), i.e.  ‘Hakim’ (Wise).  No heart can become golden without absorbing and growing in wisdom.  The Almighty All-Gracious did not give to our master Muhammad only the Qur’an al Karim but also ‘al Hikmat’/the Wisdom to enable Him to understand Allah’s Book and explain it and demonstrate applications of it to us. We can and in fact must say that a heart is anything but golden when it has no wisdom in it. What looks like gold in an unwise person’s heart is fool’s gold (a bright, gold-coloured natural ore of iron) rather than true gold.  It can be more adequately called a naïve heart!  It may look kind for a while but it may go wild when it comes across a strong enough temptation or provocation.  Why do you think Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree as soon as Iblis tempted them? They ate because their hearts was yet devoid of wisdom; Theirs were fool’s gold. Once Allah reprimanded them and inspired them with repentance their hearts began to turn into gold. Read if you wish:

“(After being tempted and expelled) Adam received words (of wisdom) from his Lord (which drove him to repentance thanks to which repentance) Allah turned to Him with forgiveness. He indeed is the Mercifully Relenting  (2: 37)

Only wisdom leads to repentance; the unwise never admit to their wrongs. The Qur’an is not called ‘Wise Qur’an’ for nothing- It is the compendium of Highest Wisdom ever and forever.      

Everyday almost everybody commits some wrongs. You see, all we humans are fallible beings, there is no exception to this despite some immature, too ambitious mystics claiming infallibility for themselves or for their teachers. The wise among us then, having received and accepted and internalised words from Allah (which are in the Qur’an) see their mistake and turn to their Lord in repentance which Allah is too happy to oblige.
Let us see to what degree of piety and sense of honesty and responsibility the reception and acceptance of Words from Allah can create in a person. A pupil of mine told me: “One day while I was visiting a local public toilet I was careless enough to tear a too long piece of toilet roll paper for my need. Because he could not put it back on the roll nor did I dare to waste it by throwing it away I kept it in order to use it when I next time visited the same toilet. You see I was afraid of taking a piece of toilet paper which belonged to the public as it was they who were paying for it through their taxes. Yet I somehow lost the piece of toilet roll. To make sure that I paid for it I put another piece into my pocket to use it when I visited the same toilet next and spare the public theirs”.

Whence this piety, this wisdom? From the words my dear friend had received from Allah and the words of Allah’s Messenger based on Allah’s words, the Prophet who said “Dare not to pray and hope for its acceptance by Allah while a single thread of your garment comes from haram”.  It is with this vast and deep knowledge of Islam as derived direct from Allah’s Book and His Messenger’s wisdom (whose manifestation is called Sunna) which converts a heart into a wise golden heart. At the expense of repeating myself, albeit in other words, a heart not exposed enough to the knowledge supplied in Allah’s Book and His Messenger’s Sunna cannot become golden. Like our father (and immutable prototype) Adam we need receive words from Allah in order to become able to turn our faces or hearts to Allah like a man turning squarely towards the sun whereupon his whole front is drenched in dazzling and sizzling sunlight. Read if you wish:

“On that Day are faces dazzling joyous, looking at their Lord (75: 23)

Obviously the greatest misfortune of most Muslims is their failure to appreciate the vital necessity of familiarising themselves, more than anything else, with Allah’s Book in as much detail and depth as they are able to and as a result gain wisdom from it with the additional help of the Sunna (words and acts) of the Messenger of Allah. That Allah sent His Messenger not only with a Book but also a Wisdom enabling him to benefit from the Book and make us also benefit from it is seen from the verse:

“It is He Who raised a Messenger from among the illiterates in order for him to read out to them His verses, to purify them, to teach them the Book (of Allah) and to teach them wisdom” (62: 2)

Without the Qur’an we are all illiterates even when we hold doctorates and professorships from most prestigious universities. Without the wisdom given to the Prophet we have little clue as to what and how much Allah means with His verses in His Book. Let all Muslims and those who want to lead them politically, in a teaching capacity or in a Sufi master’s capacity beware!  All of us must fear Allah and none fears Him as He should be feared except…

“From among His servants only the knowledgeable (ulema) can fear Allah enough (35: 28)

Why do you think some ignorant worshippers as well as pretenders to Sufi mastership boast so much of their acts of worship and self-reported dreamy achievements yet fear Allah so little that they many a time act surprisingly badly?  Some always talk about love of Allah until you may think they themselves are Allah in disguise and never talk about fear of Allah. The Gospels never report Jesus talk about fear of Allah but always about love of Allah. No wonder they made Jesus into God Himself! In the Qur’an we have the exact opposite: Fear of Allah overwhelmingly dominate while love for Allah is only sparingly and carefully used. This makes it as precious as it needs to be; a single verse about the love of Allah in the Qur’an is worth more than all those in other scriptures put together. Read if you wish:

“Those who believe are strongest in love for Allah” (2: 165). None they love more than Allah!

Again “Allah will indeed bring about a community He loves and who love Him back (5: 45)

As already touched upon a few lines above their love for Allah is balanced as well as enhanced with a fear of Allah in direct proportion to the level of knowledge they gain about Allah.  And guess what- what does this knowledge bestows on its recipient? Why, the Messenger of Allah explains:

“The fountainhead of Hikmat/Wisdom is fear of Allah”.

Who is a wise person made wise by a good knowledge of Allah and Allah’s Messenger? Let us just describe just a few of his abilities and habits.

“The (true) believers are conclusively saved (purified from their crude egos), (that is to say) those who are full of pious reverence throughout their ritual prayers, those who turn away from all useless, vain aims and pursuits, those who carry out their duty of (prescribed zakat) charity, those who guard their chastity except in relation to their lawful spouses in which case they are blame-free- whoever seeks anything beyond this then such are transgressors- (again) those who honour their trusts and oaths, those who are constant in their prayers: they are the inheritors who will inherit the Paradise to remain therein forever” (23: 1- 10)
The list of merits listed above may look formalistic and prosaic to the ordinary reader but to the developed and insightful it is an excellent summary of all the fruits which true faith can produce in a person. Let us analyse them briefly and see what secrets issue from them.

A true believer is that person who has defeated, tamed and domesticated the wild beast that every human being is equipped with and required to tame- the man’s crude ego. It is easy to say these words but to appreciate them may take a lifetime and may not even happen despite that time.  What blocks it is the bad habit of committing harams. So long we have unrepented wrongs poisoning our system wisdom shuns us. The first thing true sheikhs ask from their pupils is repentance, firstly in words then in practice; with every new wrong big or small, real regret and new true repentance must follow. One must feel never clean enough and beg for Allah’s mercy in secret. Then fresh breezes of wisdom will blow on him. The Prophet himself uttered repentance seventy times a day just in case!
Most people think that they are their egos which they call ‘I’ not long after they learn to speak.  Listen to the dialogues of small children: you will see that the most frequent word they use is ‘I’ and its derivatives ‘my’, ‘mine’ and ‘me’.  Then go and listen to the dialogues of most mature people like truly virtuous philosophers and truly pious men of faith. Their most avoided words are I, my, mine and me. That is because they transcended their egos and grown into universal personalities which means they think and worry about things concerning everybody’s interests and happiness and pursue and delight in things which help everybody.  Surely all decent people have a more or less universal, humanitarian outlook but Allah’s true believers are much more total, comprehensive and dedicated in this matter. Theirs is a total attitude of goodwill a total effort to understand and deal justly and wisely with all concerned. In other words they look at the world with the loving-merciful-wise vision of Allah as far as they are able, given that they are not gods.

Are not such people saved from their inner beast, the ego which, when not tamed, can feel and behave in such atrocious ways that had animals had human intelligence they would be disgusted with them. Aren’t many crimes we hear about greater acts of savagery than that of most ferocious beasts. What beast can blow up whole neighbourhoods or carpet bomb whole cities? Ferocious beasts are motivated by fear or hunger while a terrible criminal is motivated by nothing other than a thirst for violence and outrage for its own sake! There may be some valid reason for violence (as in legitimate war); the problem is senseless extreme indiscriminate overkill.  If this ego of ours is not in need of taming, whose is?

We learn from the above list that once this brutal ego of ours is tamed thanks to the curative effect of faith in that Most Perfect and Gracious of existents, namely Allah, the person so blessed begins to enjoy his prayers as he would enjoy few other things on top. As the holy Prophet put it, he cannot wait for the next prayer as soon as he performs a currently required one. For example, when he goes to bed after his eisha/night prayer he thinks of the morning prayer which thinking delights and relaxes him so much that he falls asleep quickly. Till the dawn his pure soul travels throughout the spiritual heavens lovingly and adoringly prostrating to Allah at every step of his travel in his endless inner space which is full of holy angels, holy saints and even holier prophets. He wakes up at down with ease and full of cheer, bursts into glorifications of Allah and resorts to the spot to make his ritual ablutions and rush to his Lord’s service. For example as soon as the Prophet opened his eyes at dawn he burst out “Praise be to Allah Who revived us after He gave death (sleep, exclusively spiritual experience) and to Whom is the gathering. O Allah, I beg from Thee goodness of this day and goodness after it and I take refuge in Thee from the evil of this day and the evil after it. Such a holy day is the natural successor to such a holy night. For the true believer all nights are as holy as Lailat al Qadr, because Allah makes them so for him, in thanks for his love and devotion! Allah is not less generous than that! Allah thanks His good servants only too much. After all one of His Most Beautiful Names is ‘al Shakoor’ which means profusely thankful. What an infinite grace is His!

They turn away from useless, vain talk, aims and pursuits. What have they got to do with such stupid, stupidly dangerous and wasteful activities?  They don’t think rubbish, they don’t talk rubbish they do not participate in rubbish activities. Their times are too precious and their minds and aims are too elevated for them to participate in such rubbish earth-crawling and dirt-digging levels of mentality and activity. If invited to join in with vain talk they politely decline, greet the inviters gracefully and go on their way with dignity. Read if you wish “The servants of the All-Gracious walk the earth in humility and when the ignorant address them they respond by “salaam” and pass by in dignity (causing no offence) (25: 63) and “Those who do not bear false witness and when they pass by vain talk or activity they pass by in dignity (25: 72).  

The next trait of wise golden hearted servants of Allah is overflowing generosity. Anything Allah grants them of any transferable blessings, be it wealth or power or anything else they are only too ready to make us benefit from them. Zakat does not only mean that small portion of wealth a rich person passes on to a poor person. Its basic meaning is purity and spiritual meaning is purifying one’s any assets granted him by Allah by making others also benefit from them. A selfish keeping of every blessing given by Allah for oneself makes those assets dirty and the dirt can only be removed by passing some part of the blessings to those in need. Noting can bring all devotions (ibadat) to Allah to nothing more than selfishness and stinginess in sharing any blessings with those in need of them. Keep all to yourself and your assets become fire, boiling water, snakes and scorpions to torment you in the hereafter. A foretaste of it is the inexplicable gloom and sense of filthiness a stingy person feels while still in this world. Greed and self-respect can never come together in a heart. 

Then comes chastity. For a true believer marriage is not only the only legitimate avenue to the satisfaction of his or her sexual urge put there by none other than Allah for a very good reason but it is a gold mine of infinite opportunities for spiritual maturing up. Perhaps few other things can help a soul mature and a heart become wise and golden than enduring the inconveniences and problems of family life and mastering them until the family life becomes an orderly, pleasant and blessing affair. In this, many mutual sacrifices await the spouses; all are worth making them, for they buy Allah’s Pleasure for them. In marriage, if we are careful, we can shed off a lot of our selfish habits and proud or mean attitudes and garb ourselves in altruistic, tolerant, loving merciful and heart-winning traits and skills. A gracious spouse not only wins Allah’s Gardens but wins them also for his or her spouse who could otherwise go to hell. This so important marriage however is only blessed by marital fidelity. Fail in that and the whole thing goes sour and can only sow, grow and then reap the fruits of hell.

Lastly the person with a wise golden heart is the most trustworthy, most reliable of persons. Did he promise some legitimate thing to somebody? He will not break it although he may be disabled about carrying it out in which case he is to be excused. Is he entrusted with something? He will keep and protect it and give it back in full when asked.

All these are too difficult achievements to attain as far as impure persons are concerned and the same all these things are the best and most valued opportunities for a wise golden hearted person for winning more gold from Allah, more jewels and more medals until he or she becomes worthy of Allah’s Unfailing Friendship and Timeless Companionship. Amen.

 

 

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